Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-11-30
PERSONALITY OF
LONDON TOWN
"Heart of the World" Com
pared by EngIishman
With Other Great Cities.
From the London Chronicle.

Sir William Soulsby, who was private
Londoners of today We're born, and has
been private secretary to every lord
mayor since. has been doing Il great
Londoner that London has personality.
that London is unique-whereupon it fol-
lows that a Londoner must rank above
all other men in the world.
But Sir William stopped short. the
interviewerS did not report him fully.
London is not city; London is not like
anything else in the world-merely be-
cause it is the very heart of the world
Today. to be Londoner is equivalent to
having been a Roman citizen of two
thousand years ago.
The Personality of London--we ought
TO thank that doyen of private secre-
taries. that super-private secretary, for
the phrase. London has a personality,
she is a living thing, the most vast, most
wonderful and. perhaps, the most
pathetic thing which our civilization has
produced.
Can any one conceive the world with
London eliminated. 1t would be a world
i'll ruin, a world in sackcoth and ashes.
Trade rivals may hate us, rail at us,
raise tariff barriers against us. but Lon
don remains all-eSsential to their trade
disaster to London would mean star
walton 10 untold millions.
The Imperial City.
Today how many Londoners realize
the immensely of their privilege i'll be
longing to the imperial city? Here and
there YOU find man who knows, one
who has been behind the scenes, and
understands the hollowness4 of the claims
OF other cities. other nations. In one
short street alone, Mincing lane, the
greater part of the trade of the tar east
is handled, and the far east has always
been, from a trade point of view, the
prize OF the world.
The American boasts loudly-far too
loudly. often-of his business ability. but
il is in Mincing lane and not in New
York. that his tea, his rubber. his sage
flour, all he requires from the far east
is handled. The people of the United
States buy up by far the larger portion
of the Brazil crop of low-grade coffee,
yet. though the bags of coffee beans
never come near London. London. firms
do all the business.
Decadent, Effete' Out-ofdate. The
men who could answer those absurd
charges leveled by Americans and Colo
malls are too busy supplying Americans
and colonials to notice the childish as
sertions. London can afford 10 treat all
her critics with contempt.
The Personality of London the
phrase is good one, and yet, some
how. l prefer to look on London merely
as the heart of the world. and to think
of the lesser cities as places in which
you can, perhaps, feel the heart-beats.
There are about half a dozen such
places, places right on the main track,
where your hand is on the worlds pulse.
OF these, | think. l would put Hong
kong first. the greatest of seaports, the
finest jewel in the imperial crown, the
clearing house of half world. Stand on
the steps of the post office of Hongkong,
and you will see all the nations of the
earth pass before you: and, sooner or
later, YOU will see all the men and women
you have met i'll other great ports pass
you. Stand on the quay. where the police
take your name before you enter sam
pan lest your boatman cut your throat,
and you will realize. in part at least. the
immensely of the British mercantile ma
rine; also you will realize, If you have a
sense of proportion, the growing menace
of German competition.
Really, Hongkong is part of London.
as is also Singapore. which runs ii close
in wealth Until you have seen those two
ports, you cannot realize at all the secret
of our national greatness. We are the
richest people the world has ever known !;
we handle a volume of trade almost too
great for the average mans comprehen-
sion, not because We have managed to
put a few million people into Australia
and South Africa, and have lent them
more than a few million pounds. but be-
cause British Adventures founded such
places as Hongkong and Singapore. and
because London business men and London
bankers seized the opportunities presented
to them.
Cities of the World.
Calcutta and Bombay are splendid, mag
nificent: but they are not parts of London
India herself is great enough to claim,
and to hold, them for her own. Other
famous cities, such as Melbourne or To-
ronto, are merely colonial. with colonial
interests. You cannot feel the pulse Of
the world beating in them.
What other city has a personality, in
the cosmopolitan sense of the world :;
what other city can take unto herself all
make them part of her wondrous self?
Paris is-well, Paris. She is unique de-
lightful, the siren of cities but she is in
no sense France. The Partisan has little
or nothing in common with that wonder
full peasantry which forms the backbone
Of the second nation of the world Vienna.
Berlin. Petersburg-these are merely local
capitals. Rome is the ghost of a great
tradition.
New York is a large local town. It's
hustling, it's noise. its blinking sky-signs,
it's general pretentiousness fail utterly to
impress the man who knows London. It's
interests extend about as far as the tele-
phone service which supplies ii with local
news .-t.... 81. j.
There remains San Francisco, the Queen