Word: britain
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...neutrality, Normandie and other French stations for la belle propaganda. This left blacked-out Britishers wholly at the mercy of BBC, which furnished news in the passive mood, gramophone recordings, funereal discourses like What Happens When I Die. In the House of Commons, Laborite Arthur Greenwood groused loudly against Britain's radio "Weeping Willies"; the press clamored for Weeping Willie to be given the sack...
...after eight weeks, Britain was beginning to have trouble making the evacuation stay put. Country schools were so crowded that many children got only an hour or two of schooling a day. Overcrowded also were the houses in which they were billeted. Householders were horrified to find that their visitors had to be deloused, put up a struggle against taking a bath, often displayed questionable manners...
...Britain's teachers tried desperate devices to keep the évacués out of mischief. They staged boxing and wrestling matches, started all sorts of games. Nevertheless, bored, homesick city toughies formed gangs, roved the countryside, beat up village children, threw stones at policemen, let pigs out of their pens, chased cows, skirmished with enraged farmers...
From April, 1933, until last week, the Japanese yen was nailed to the prestigious British pound at the rate of one shilling twopence per yen though Japan's purchases from Britain were small potatoes and the U. S. far & away her best provider. When Europe's war sent the pound hopping around between $4.68 and $3.72½, the yen hopped alongside, between 275/16? and 22⅞? U. S. money. Last week the Japanese Cabinet decided that it would be simpler to clear on New York; that the pound-pegged yen, which happened to be at 23½?, would...
Meanwhile Britain's blockade of Germany cut off the goods which for the last year and a half have reached Japan under a very favorable arrangement by which Japan, without spending any of her mite-sized gold supply, got machinery, chemicals, etc. in return for some goods but mostly for bothering Britain in the East. These will now have to be bought mostly in the U. S., thereby enlarging Japan's already big import balance and the problem of paying for the war goods she needs...