em.My millionaire readers in particular had better lookout, for the iikes o f Mr. Pollitt, who polled 966 out o f 15,460 votes the other day in Silvertown, is after them. H ere’s their War Aims :BETTER TIMES FOR THE PEOPLE. MAKE THE RICH PAY. NO BLOCKADE ON WAGES. NO PROFITEERING. NO TIGHTENING OF BELTS FOR THE POOR. UNITY OF ACTION NOW AGAINST THE CHAMBERLAIN GOVERNMENT AND THE MILLIONAIRES.?But it seems tome that their battle is already w on—won for them by the Chamber- lain Government in the person o f Sir John Simon. For I am one o f “the people,” I am a wage earner, I am no profiteer, I am not rich, and I am just about £990,000 short o f being a millionaire, yet a good deal more than fifty percent o f my total earnings are snaffled by the Government whose Chancellor cheerfully tells tome prepare for still greater sacrifice! I ’m glad to think, however, there are no tight belts on the staff o f “The Daily Work er,” nowhere, doubt, the daily thanksgiving is “Another thousand Finns have gone below, thank Stalin from whom our blessings flow.”Every twenty thousand tight-belted sons o f the Soviet for whom each thousand Finns accounted can well be spared, I suppose.?In those lands that pullulate with human beings, where the reproductive ratio o f the rabbit is emulated (e.g. Russia, India, China), the value o f the individual is necessarily low. In the early days o f the Sino-Japanese War a Chinese general was asked how long the war might last. “Not very long,” said he. “We lost 50,000 at Y ung-fu, and the Japanese lost 10,000 Nat ang-ping 60,000 and the Japanese 19,000 at Ping-ho some 80,000 and the Japanese 25,000, so you see if we goon like that, soon there will be no Japanese.” And he was talking sound sense on the basis o f arithmetical diminution. Need I add that the battle narpes and casualty figures will not be found in any authoritative record?“'T'he little things that tell ”was the A title o f a popular song by my friend o fold years, Frederick Bowyer, author o f scores o f pantomimes and unnumbered “song hits ”—“Sister Mary Jane ’sTop Note ”perhaps his most popular, and his children ’splay “The Rainbow Man ”best' remembered o f his stage successes. I thought o f dear old “Fred die,” gentlest o f the many omen f the theatre I have known, when I struck the second o f the two matches in the Pullman coupe this-m orning! T hat’s about the daily supply since the War started. Evidently the conductors are pursuing a policy o frigid econom yin lighting facilities. “The little things that tell J ”?Scores o f thousands o f pounds are being saved by the big cigarette firms in stopping their cigarette cards. Silver paper wrappings and many other little refinements o f presentation are disappearing under stress o f war conditions, and the reduced contents o f B THEY EDITOR sugar bowls in restaurants today reminds m foe the old ladies who kept the wayside bistros o f my early wayfarings in France— they were so apologetic in counting the cubes o f sugar you had taken with your coffee, “pour IV conom ie, vous com prenez!”And though there was no war anywhere in those days, perhaps the French tax on sugar could have been traced back to the defeat of 1871. Just as the inhabitants o f Europe in 1980 will still be paying somehow in the little things that tell for-this war o f 1940. Altho u g hI’m getting old myself (this is my birthday and-1’m telling nobody!), I take courage from some o f the jokes that get across on the wireless. I a’m suckling compared to many o f these. Last night I heard one rather stupidly told about- an incredibly heavy baby. Full fifty years Iago used to tel! it when I was “Bones ”in a juvenile amateur minstrel troupe!“ A baby weighing a hundredweight!What was it fed on?”“Elephant’s milk.” “Whose baby was it?”“The elep h ant’s.”There was point in that but it was badly mauled by last night’s comedian, and yet it got howls o f laughter (possibly synthetic). Another musty chestnut impudently introducing the names o f Vic Oliver and Sarah Churchill was in vilest taste. A t a West End hotel dance Vic was supposed to have been hastily pushed through a 'door from a“L adies’ Room ”where Sarah was supposed to be sewing a rent in his trousers— and he found himself trouserless in the ballroom!Even that fatuous “joke ”got a- laugh, and it’s older in years than I am tonight! I ’m still as keenly interested as ever in the serio-com ic pageant o f life and the madness o f the world I ’ve got to live in, but I really d on’t want to attain to such hoary age as many o f the B.B.C. comedians’ jokes. As Vic Oliver is one o f the most original humorists on the stage today, how he would have squirmed had he heard this broadcast! imiiiiitiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiitiiiiiimmiiiiMiHiHimimiiiiiimii IN THIS NUMBER Page TheN avy's New Motor Torpedo Boats...225,245 The War in Finland............226-29 Nazi Loot in Poland.........^.....230 O then Western Front.........231-33 What is “This Vicious Spiral ”of Inflation?...234 How Blood in Bottles Saves British Wounded...235 Nazi Baltic Guns Ready for the R.A.F.......236 Picture Diagrams— Junkers JU 88 and Bristol “Beaufort”..................237 Heroes of the Magnetic Mine.........238 French Navy Capture a Blockade Runner...23?Convoy Under the Admiralty A’s ll-P rotecting Wing :..............240-41 Words that History Will Remember......242 How to Recognize British ’Planes— 2.................243 TheW a rat Sea—- ‘February............244 Naval Stranglehold on Germ any’s Exports...246 Nazi Shipping Paralyzed.........247-48 Stopping Aerial Mine Layers in the Thames...249 Men Their C o u n try Delights to Hon our......250“ I Was The re”Section.........251-54 Risky Work ButT raw lerm enD on’t Care......255 D fary of theW a rand War Poem.........256 ill!ll!llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!lllllllll!lllllllllllllltllll!ltll!!!ll!!IIII I n wartime the man who can get things for you is almost more important than the man who can make them.Distribution. Transport. Delivery. These are the urgencies. In thinking o f this from an experience today, which is neither here nor there, I was reminded o f a good Scots story. Village Scene. Acquaintance encounters a town “character ”hurrying up the High Street.“ W h at’s the matter, Andrew?You ’reno ’often in sic’ a hurry.”“Ah, but maw ife’s aw fu ’ill and I ’mon my way to the undertaker.” “But h aven’t you seen the doctor first?”“Doctor be hanged. N ane o ’they middlemen for me.” I n our mad world ironic events are bound to crop up everywhere, but I think that a report which I saw in the Balkan Herald recently gives the best example for sometime. Before the last Great War the murderous Balkan war ravaged the countries that are now being hungrily watched over by greater powers. The Yugoslav authorities are having war material dug up which was scattered about the Macedonian front during the Serbian inoffensive that local war. In one place near the Greek frontier 250,000 dinars were paid in a single month to peasants as rewards and fees. Thousands o f tons o f the mold aterial—to meet the new demand for scrap-iron, form unitions—have been dug up. The “finds ”range from exploded and unexploded shells to tin mugs. I have been receiving a great many letters from readers o f my monthly publication, World Dig est,the April number o f which can be had at any bookstall just now. With that number this little publication completes its first year, and the fact that it has withstood the vicissitudes o f the first six months of war so well that, although its price had to be increased to sevenpence, its circulation is steadily improving, would seem to indicate that it must have a strong appeal for readers who appreciate good literature. The April number is as varied as any that has preceded it and its interest ranges throughout most countries o f the world and covers an astonishing variety o f topics.?Among the famous writers o f today represented in its pages are Mr. J. B. Priestley, Professor J.