Wise Wales

Food-and-fun-loving Charles Dickens told unctuously in A Christmas Carol how "The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks" for just such a feast as the City of London spread before Edward of Wales last week.

The Lord Mayor of London for 1929 is bustling, up-to-the-minute Colonel Sir John Edward Kynaston Studd, but the hoar and mighty Mansion House is just as Dickens knew it, and much as it has been for over 180 years. Trooping in, last week, to dine off the City's plate of gold, went not only H. R. H. but Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and the Empire's choicest assortment of Industrial Tycoons marshaled by their dean, Baron Ebbisham, President of the Federation of British Industries. The guests were met--or thought they were--merely to toss off a few champagne toasts to the British Industries Fair, which would open next day in London. But no sooner had Edward of Wales risen and begun to speak, than the Tycoons realized with an unpleasant shock that they were in for one of the most thoroughgoing rebukes ever administered to rich old men by a young heir apparent.

"Even on such an occasion as this, when we are congratulating ourselves on the British Industries Fair," said the Prince, "no good can come of patting ourselves on the back. . We can congratulate ourselves on our successes only when we have seen and rectified our faults."

Faults. The great lords of trade and peers of the realm thus addressed are not accustomed to being told that they have faults. Several sat up palpably bristling as Edward of Wales laid down two premises which, if valid, lead straight to the conclusion that even Tycoons may be slothful, obtuse, incompetent.

Premise One was the unchallengeable statement by H. R. H. that 1,400,000 Britons are out of work. Premise Two consisted of the speaker's royal testimony that on his recent travels to every part of the Globe he has personally seen that British salesmanship and merchandizing methods overseas are still far behind the standard set by competition. (No one doubts that this was so, prior to 1914, when German salesmen were stealing British business from Siam to South America; but H. R. H. was bold indeed to charge that British salesmanship still lags behind.)

From Premises One and Two arose the inescapable conclusion--which the Prince indicated but forebore to draw--that work could be found for Britain's unemployed if only Britain's employers would pep up their salesmen.

"I know I am laying down the law," said H. R. H. crisply, "but I feel it my duty to tell the manufacturers if I have found anything wrong with the marketing end."

Rather cryptically and ominously the Prince added: "This is not the occasion to discuss the unemployment situation. . . . Should such discussion be invited here, I prophesy an all-night sitting in the Mansion House which would not suit everybody present."

Bosses to Work! Lest he seem a destructive critic, Edward of Wales proceeded to tell the flabbergasted Tycoons, last week, exactly how to sell more goods. Broaching this advice modestly enough, he confessed with a smile: "I've never tried to sell anybody anything in my life, except a few horses!"

Straight from the shoulder was H. R. H.'s next thrust: "I travel a good deal, and sometimes come up against this somewhat sad state of affairs--a British community, many thousands of miles away, anxious to buy British goods but unable to do so because those goods are not suitable or practicable to the locality.

"There must be something utterly wrong for such a state of affairs to exist, and I can only surmise that local conditions and requirements have not been sufficiently studied. Some faults there undoubtedly are in our salesmanship."

Winding up his argument and pinning responsibility squarely on the Tycoons themselves, he described the right sort of salesman: "

I think we might put personality first. When a lot of men come to sell you something you will be much more likely to buy it from the fellow you look on as a friend. Apart from learning local conditions, try to learn the language, because you will sell the thing better in that way. If the 'boss' of the firm can go out and do business, he will sell his goods very much better than by leaving it to other people."

"That's Right." Next day as Queen Mary and her eldest son strolled through the British Industries Fair, they came to an exhibit of bright red British shoes, intended for export to East Africa.

"That's right!" cried H. R. H., who has just returned from East Africa, "That's right! Let them have the goods that appeal to them and not merely what you think they ought to have."

At a safety-razor stand Empire Salesman Wales remarked with just a touch of ballyhoo: "I always use one of these myself. It is a jolly sight safer than the old-fashioned way."

Meanwhile Queen Mary occupied herself by buying seven handbags and two children's pails with shovels. Six of the bags were tweed covered, to match tweed skirts; the seventh was a beige traveling bag, lined with oil silk.

"A very sensible idea," commented the Queen-Empress. "Please see that the bags and the pails are put in my car. I am motoring to the seaside at Bognor this afternoon."

This announcement brought astonished smiles. All loyal subjects knew that there were no Royal children at Bognor, but only the convalescent George V.

When Her Majesty arrived at Bognor-on-Sea, where George V is recovering from pneumonia, her purchases were quietly and enigmatically stowed away.

Who is going to play with the pails & shovels? The fact that there are two of each would suggest Masters George and Hubert Lascelles, sons of Princess Mary, only daughter of Queen Mary. On the other hand there was a school of British opinion which firmly held, last week, that when "Baby Betty," the only granddaughter of their Majesties, makes her soon-expected visit at Bognor, she will be allowed to play with one pail and one shovel--the other pail and shovel being held in reserve.

During the week the King-Emperor was able to rise, take a few halting steps, and sit at a window. He said he was eager to go "home" (to Sandringham).

In Sudbury, Ont., one Aarvo Vaara, Editor of the Finnish-Canadian news organ Vapaus was fined $1,000 and sentenced to six months in jail for printing a tirade in which he compared the "misery of the working class" to the comforts surrounding George V.