Royal Commission & Clips

Members of the Royal Commission now looking into the British war industries business again last week gave London the impression that all they knew and all they are likely to find out is what they had read in the papers while U. S. Senators were sending agents snooping through munitioneers' files, forcing witnesses to testify under oath and threatening contempt proceedings (TIME, Sept. 24, 1934 et seq.).

Not empowered to do any of these things, the Royal Commission got through the week with Royal Commissioners reading fistfuls of U. S. newspaper clippings in accusing voices at British munitioneers who seemed to find the proceedings fun.

Fairey is a significant name in the British war plane industry. Mr. Charles R. Fairey of Fairey Aviation Co. Ltd., maker of "Fairey Ships," readily testified that his product is cheaper than similar fighting planes made by U. S. firms and that "Fairey sells to all." Cried shocked Professor Harold Gutteridge, a Royal Commissioner: "You have supplied planes to the Soviet Government!"

"Oh, yes, yes!" answered Fairey, "And we are doing so now!"

After various Royal Commissioners had read from various clippings to Sir Harry Duncan McGowan, chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. and a director of

U. S. General Motors Corp., this gruff Scot roared: "I have no objection at all to selling arms to both sides--I am not a purist in these matters!"

"Was there anything of a delicate feeling in your mind, Sir Harry," asked Royal Commissioner Sir Philip Gibbs, "as to the inadvisability of selling military propellants and explosives to the Chinese Government when in other parts of China you were selling things for agriculture, fertilizers to bring forth the fruits of the earth?"

To this question the chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. replied "No."

Sensation of the week were questions by Royal Commissioners implying that they are likely to recommend that in Britain's next war the proletariat be conscripted and put to work making munitions at the same pittance British soldiers receive. If by any chance such a recommendation were enacted by the House of Commons into Law, Britain's next war would probably be featured by strikes, labor riots, irresistible proletarian demands for a "living wage" and much Communist incitement to Revolution. Said Sir Harry McGowan grimly: "In my view, in private manufacturing concerns, conscription could not be operated."

Among Royal Commissioners who thought otherwise, Professor Gutteridge clarioned: "I knew of soldiers who were working in a temperature of 100 degrees, attending to furnaces in France, while their mates at home were getting -L-10 [$50] a week on munitions. If the British soldier had not been the magnificent man he was, he wouldn't have stood for this!"

The chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., which is about as much and about as little a munitions firm as E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.. closed the week by asserting: "We should not be regarded as a munitions firm at all! Our sales of military products during the past five years amounted to only 1.8% of the total business of Imperial Chemicals."

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