July 13, 1927

Volume 146

New Conquerors of the Air

Number 1I

W

HEN the last issue of The Outlook went to press, the sea route between San Francisco and Hawaii had yet to be conquered by an airman, and Byrd, Acosta, Noville, and Balchen were still awaiting impatiently at their Long Island hangar for the word to start for France. The flight to Honolulu by Maitland and Hegenberger went through almost on schedule time, and the courageous aviators completed to their credit the longest voyage over the sea which has yet been achieved.

Commander Richard Byrd and his crew reached Newfoundland and ran into a fog bank which spanned practically the whole Atlantic. With amazing skill they found their way to Brest, and then night came and they were unable in the darkness and mist to make their way to the landing-field at Le Bourget. Just before morning, after a forty-four hours' flight, they were compelled to bring the plane to the ground on the coast at Ver-sur-mer. In the attempt to land in the shallow water their landing gear was carried away and their lives placed in serious jeopardy. Fortunately for the gallant navigators, their friends, and the future of aviation, all four men escaped with comparatively minor injuries.

The voyage was in no sense an attempt to establish new records, but it certainly broke the record for a flight under adverse circumstances. It has resulted in broadening the knowledge of weather conditions over the Atlantic and in dramatic proof of the need for the development of radio beacons and for adequate weather reports. Of the four transoceanic flights of recent weeks, that of Commander Byrd may prove in the long run to have been by far the most important.

Keystone

The chapel of the Ile de France.

rations?"

There'll be weighty arguments, pros and cons, for the Ile de France is not only the latest thing in liners, but also the last word in interior decoration. Her decorations are not merely bizarre, as so much that is called modern appears to be. They have the marks of a style possessing unity and force and vitality. Whether one likes them or not, they represent the work of

an artistic mind impelled by a definite conception of design. We doubt whether any one could come to a final conclusion about them in any single tour of inspection. They would have to be lived with for at least the length of an ocean voyage before a critic would have the temerity to say, "Thumbs up" or "Thumbs down."

When the Ile de France docked in

New York on her maiden voyage, the French Line entertained on board the Governor of New York State and the Mayor of New York City, together with many hundreds of others. There were speeches, some of them in the clear, cool, and incisive diction of France, others in the customary style of American political oratory. In this second category we think especially of the remarks of the Mayor of New York, whose conception of the occasion seemed to have been chiefly inspired by his gastric nerve. Happily enough, Franco-American relations do not entirely depend for their amicable continuance upon the type of American who invariably winks a knowing eye when he speaks of Paris. America, we have learned in the last few weeks, has other representatives than those it elects to office.

Shall We Limit Navies
Up or Down?
NEGOTIATIONS in such a conference as

between the United States, Great Britain, and Japan at Geneva, which is considering the further limitation of naval armaments, cannot well be carried on in public. There can be much more freedom of give and take in informal closed conferences than in public meetings. It is therefore neither just to the conferees nor honest to comment upon the Naval Conference as if every one knew what was going on behind the closed doors at Geneva. Nevertheless the positions of the three countries in general have been made known. It is plain that Great Britain is very reluctant to commit herself to anything which will greatly lessen her cruiser strength.

The head of her delegation, the First Lord of the Admiralty, has made it plain that Great Britain does not want to suggest any abandonment of the parity of the strength between British and American navies; but Britain has so many and powerful cruisers that unless she is willing to scrap some of them parity would involve America in building many more cruisers than she now has. Those who wish to get a view of the present disparity in cruiser strength need only turn to Commander Cleary's article in this issue. The chief question at Geneva now seems to be whether a conference called for the purpose of limiting down will have to be satisfied with limiting up.

England's Great Eclipse

haps, than numerous previous events of the same sort, yet made far more noteworthy than usual because it was visible in a densely populated region of the earth.

Just such an event has now occurred in Great Britain, where a total eclipse of the sun passed over the densely populated manufacturing area of Yorkshire on the morning of June 29. It is much too early to obtain detailed scientific reports of this eclipse, but the preliminary reports indicate that it was well observed by at least two astronomical stations, although millions of disappointed laymen saw only clouds and rain, The sun's corona was smaller than usual; and the eclipse reached totality about five seconds later than the precise moment set.

candescent gas that rise sometimes a million miles above the sun's surfaceand these prominences bear a direct relation to the sunspots. Therefore with our fairly good knowledge of sunspot periodicity we can usually predict the form of the corona.

Not very exciting, these things, though interesting to many. They stand mainly in the category with innumerable other experiences in science. To get at the basic truth of a thing the way is to hammer at every opening. The sun is a star. Most of the universe consists of suns, man is attempting to understand the universe, and eclipse observations are a valuable part of this effort.

The Crown Checks Privilege

T

'HERE is soinething especially arrest

ing in the persistent lateness of solar eclipses. This time the shadow came five seconds late; two years ago, three seconds. That, however, is to put the cart before the horse; the moon's lateness simply proves that man is ahead. of time. A problem in metaphysics here!

For the moon runs itself and is always on time. What then? Were the calculations wrong? They have been checked over and over with infinite patience. Professor E. W. Brown, of Yale, has an interesting theory: the moon came "late" because the earth's diameter is not constant, the earth expands and contracts, it "breathes," as it were, and may thus lose or gain forty feet of girth-enough to account for the few seconds of delay in arrival of the moon's shadow.

The sun's corona was small this time, as it should be, for we are nearing the maximum of the eleven-year sunspot periodicity. Surrounding the sun, but so faint that it is visible only when the moon blackens his actual disk, is the beautiful pearly corona. No one knows what the corona is. It varies in shape with certain variations in the solar prominences those great sheets of in

AST week we reported the proposal

of the British Ministry to enhance the power of the House of Lords. With a suddenness that must have surprised both supporters and opponents, the British Ministry has now abandoned the proposal, or at least so much of it as to make it virtually innocuous. What caused this about face was evidently the objection of the King. According to a special despatch to the New York "Herald Tribune," King George intimated to the Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, that the plan would so involve the royal prerogative of creating peers (a prerogative, by the way, always exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister) that the consequence might be "delicate." Indeed, it was stated, that the King's consent might have to be withheld until the plan was submitted to the voters of the country. If this is the true explanation of the sudden change in the Government's policy, it will not be the first time that the Crown has proved to be the bulwark of the rights of the commoners. Another explanation, which appears in a special despatch to the New York "Times," is that the proposal for the revision of the British Constitution in the interest of hereditary rule was dropped in consequence of a revolt on the part of younger Conservatives.

vote in the Reichstag by which a bill to prolong the law preventing the once ruling houses of Germany to regain property sequestered by the state was defeated. The Nationalists, the People's Party of the big industrialists, and the Economic Union voted against the bill, which the Socialists had advanced. The Catholic Center Party-despite its association with the Nationalists and Populists in the present Ministry-voted with the Socialists and the other liberal parties in its support. It was blocked by a vote of nearly 2 to 1.

The intention of the bill was to keep out of the courts the question of returning the former royal properties. Before the passage of the law which the Socialists originally put through court decisions on claims in such cases tended to favor the expropriated royal owners. By the defeat of the attempt to extend its term, not only the Hohenzollerns and Wittelsbachs can begin suit to regain their estates, but even those royal houses that were deprived of national power at the time of the Revolution of 1848. These are the houses of the so-called "mediatized princes" who were allowed to rule locally but took no part in national affairs. Consequently, the German nation faces the possibility that awards running into hundreds of millions may create a new burden for the taxpayers.

This, however, is not what concerns the rest of the world-except in so far as it may be made another argument to prove that Germany cannot keep up to the Dawes Committee schedule of reparation payments. What does concern both Europe and America is the evidence that the monarchistic parties in Germany are so strong that they can block the republicans in this fashion. That is a fact to which attention is due, for it is likely to be a fair sign of the underlying temper of Germany.

Ending a Balkan War Scare

A

They

DRAGOMAN bearing the portentous name of Djurascovitch, attached to the Jugoslav Legation at Tirana, the capital of Albania, was arrested lately by the Albanian authorities. claimed to hold proof that he was a spy. The Jugoslav Government demanded his release. The Albanians refused. Jugoslavia thereupon broke off relations with Albania, giving notice in a communication that contained phrases which the Albanians considered offensive.

Immediately the Great Powers of

Europe began to worry about M.

Djurascovitch, Albania, it was rumored, had acted at the instigation of aroused Jugoslavia was Mussolini. against Albania; and by the terms of

Unue wood & Underwood

Leonard Wood consults with the President Albania's treaty with Italy, signed a few months ago, action by Jugoslavia would be a signal for Italian aid to Albania. The other Powers would not look on quietly while Italy extended her influence across the Adriatic into the Balkans in this manner. If the trouble between Albania and Jugoslavia were allowed to develop, the fat might be in the fire again, and that—to squander metaphors -would be a pretty kettle of fish. So there were conferences in London and Paris and consultations with Rome. The upshot was that "diplomatic pressure" was brought to bear in Tirana and the Albanians let M. Djurascovitch go home. Italy acted with the other Powers in the matter-and that, for the moment, was that.

ists and the name of Borodin as the friend of the party leaders at Hankow began to be known. Then came the Nanking attacks on foreigners and their consulates, and the alarmists pointed to them almost with pride as proof. But the Commander of the victorious Nationalist armies, General Chiang Kaishek, advancing against the militarists of the North, broke with the radicals and set up an administration at Nanking. C. C. Wu, son of Wu Ting-fang, once Chinese Minister to the United States, joined him. After a pause and some rumored negotiations with the Northerners, Chiang renewed his campaign against the coalition headed by "Generalissimo" Chang Tso-lin, of Manchuria.

At last Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang, familiar to many Americans as the "Christian General" of North China, publicly aligned himself with General Chiang. He had held his armies in reserve, in the mountains of the province of Chihli, for months during the fighting between South and North China. Ever since his defeat at Peking by General Wu Pei-fu, of central China, his attitude had been undetermined. But he is an old foe of "Generalissimo" Chang and has been associated with the Nationalist move

ment. His aid will be a powerful factor