GREAT BRITAIN: Frankau’s Britannia

The real BRITANNIA is a serene Imperial Goddess, hymned by certain Christians who rule many a wave. But now in London a small, suave Semite is putting forth a new and blatant Britannia—a magazine which proposes to leap at one bound into commanding rulership of the pulpy waves on which are printed British advertisements.

The bringer-forth of the new Goddess is Novelist Gilbert Frankau. He is a militant chappie, who when lecturing to U. S. women’s clubs (TIME, May 31, 1926) often alluded to his gallant War record. Today, as Editor of Britannia, he has the potent backing of Inveresk Pulp & Paper Ltd., a shrewd firm which sells its product to the public direct, by the stratagem of owning the London Daily Chronicle and such famed magazines as the Tatler, Bystander, Graphic, Sphere—and now Britannia.

So potent indeed is Britannia’s backing that Editor Frankau has declared: “There is no limit to the money we are able to spend! It cuts no ice in an undertaking of this size. This paper is going to reflect the new spirit of England—the business England of today. They may call Britannia a ‘jingo weekly’ if they like! After all patriotism is the biggest factor in any successful endeavor. The idea is that everything going into Britannia, from machinery to brains will be all British!”

After adding that he himself would contribute a “fighting editorial” to each weekly issue of Britannia, Editor Frankau bristled in conclusion:

“We are buying nothing from America. One of our chief objects is to emancipate British authors from the bondage imposed by the high prices American magazines pay for an author’s output. That makes them afraid to criticise anything American. When Britannia reaches a circulation of 1.000,000 we hope to outbid the Americans and restore freedom of criticism to British authors.*

“We are starting with a circulation of 280,000. The only reason why it is not larger is because all our machinery is not yet ready.”

When first edition copies of Britannia were flipped open, the advertisement-getting potency of Inveresk Ltd. was apparent. Of the 96 pages some 32 had been sold for £200 ($970) a page, and £250 ($1,200) for the back cover, on which a Dunlop tyre was proclaimed “As British as Britannia!”â€

No less auspicious than this cash endorsement by leading advertisers** seemed the roster of Britannia’s first three star contributors: Benito Mussolini, Arnold Bennett, the Earl of Birkenhead.

At first glance Britannia appeared in escapably destined to rule in potency. But canny folk noted that the second number of Britannia appeared with only 13 paid-for pages and with the front and back in side covers unsold.

Smart readers began to have qualms when they read the first “Fighting Frankau Editorial”: “The incessant toil, the incessant thought which have gone to the making of this ‘new paper’ . . . have given me joys and pains, compared whereto the joys and pains of mere novel writing seem vapid.

“Whatsoever, in the years to be, may hap to this new venture of mine … it is for you, the peoples of Great and Greater Britain. . . .

“All that we can afford is Service. . . . Was I right or wrong . . . when I harried the finest papermaking organization in Great Britain till it produced me, at what expense is only Britannia’s business, this?”

Well, what is Gilbert Frankau’s “THIS”? Citizens of the U. S. began to form a definite opinion when they turned to page 13 and read “The Week in The States” by Willis J. Abbot, stated by Britannia to be “recognized as one of the premier political writers of America.”

Readers of the Christian Science Monitor, who have grown to trust the judgment and admire the style of its Contributing Editor, Willis J. Abbot, gaped aghast at what he had cabled to London as correspondent for Britannia.

Correspondent Willis J. Abbot introduced into his cable such recondite or non-existent U.S. slang phrases as “spot the lady.” Cabled he: “The peoples of the United States are today busily engaged in trying to ‘spot the lady’ in the most puzzling presidential election that has ever taken place in the North American continent.”

Candidate Hoover was described by Willis J. Abbot as “a stocky blond . . . who always wears a Derby hat!”—although he almost never wears one, and although even morons know that the “Derby” is the symbol of Candidate Smith. Incidentally the picture of Candidate Hoover published by Britannia showed him soft-hatted. Willis J. Abbot added that Herbert Hoover “looks like a ‘Herb.’ “

In expounding U.S. prohibition Britannia’s informant referred glibly to the “Volstead Amendment,” although even sub-morons know that no such amendment exists. It did not appear from the context whether the Volstead Act or the Eighteenth Amendment was meant.

Finally Correspondent Willis J. Abbot informed unsuspecting Britons that Candidate Smith is “more nursed and shepherded and handled than Royalty.”

Even more trenchant was Novelist Arnold Bennett’s contribution: “Pernicious Politicians—Their Cause and Cure.”

Editor Frankau’s well known thesis that all politicians should be removed from office and business men substituted was dealt with by Novelist Bennett in quite astounding fashion thus:

“‘The curse of this country.’ said a scandalized citizen— to me the other day, is its politicians. They are cynics, fakers, dope-merchants. … If they don’t lie, at least they prevaricate. . . . There’s nothing to choose between them. Tory, Labor, Liberal. . . . Lead out all the politicians and shoot them, and the country and the Empire might have a chance.’ . . .

“I was in a mood to sympathize with this angry and outraged fellow citizen of mine; and I seriously doubt whether any intelligent citizen exists today who, in given circumstances, would not heartily approve of his indictment. . . .

“Lead forth our politicians in squads of a dozen and shoot them by all means. . . . But where will you put your hand on better politicians? Assuredly not in any foreign country, for ours are by general consent the best. . . . Indeed, they bear a wonderful resemblance to you and me.”

Only an exceptionally dexterous prosodist, such as Arnold Bennett, could have supported simultaneously the contradictory thesis that British politicians are the best in the world, and are just like you and me, and ought to be shot.

Friends of Novelist Bennett extended to him their sympathy, upon learning that in Britannia’s make-up room the entire concluding portion of his article (containing the “cure” for “Pernicious Politicians”) was inadvertently cut out, omitted, lost.

The star serial feature of Britannia’s first issue, “My Life,” by Benito Mussolini, has already appeared in Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis’ Saturday Evening Post.

Britannia’s anonymous “honest man” wrote in his “Diary”: “I have just been told that in arranging with Mr. Garvin to undertake the editorship of the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the American proprietors stipulated that all articles on Eastern political questions should be written by Americans. . Such an instruction as the proprietors of the Encyclopedia are reported to have issued can only be directed to securing support for some policy or other, unless, of course, truth has become an American monopoly, like gold!”

When distinguished Editor James Louis Garvin had well perused this charge, he wrote: “In the whole farrago, there is not one grain, not one atom, not one little jot nor tincture of truth. No such stipulation exists. The American gentleman concerned is incapable of suggesting any thing like it. The King’s subject concerned [Editor Garvin] is known to be among the last men alive to whom such a stipulation could be safely breathed.”

Provoked, Editor Garvin alsc alluded savagely to the fact that smart Britons often refer to Britannia’s editor as that bounder “Filbert Swankau.”

Typographers noted that Britannia is printed from slightly smeary type on thin gloss paper, the text interspersed with small photographs and cartoons (a few large) and the price six pence (12c).

*The U. S. publishing house of Harper & Bros, states that Novelist Frankau has just written them as follows: “I am terribly busy starting a tremendously big paper for England and the Empire. This naturally will take up most of my time for some months to come. But after that I hope to start novel writing again with renewed vigor.”

†A variant of the company’s slogan: Dunlop Tyres—as British as the Flag!

**Johnnie Walker Whiskey, Celanese, Odol, Mobiloil, Black and White Whiskey, Ovahine. Lever Brothers’ Sunlight Soap, Morris Cars, Waterman’s Pens, Sunbeam Cars, Forhan’s.

*Very probably Editor Frankau himself.