SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
There's never been a major change in society yet which didn't produce unforeseen side- effects; it is one of the neglected truths of politics that you can never predict the out- come of any action beyond its early stages, if indeed then. It was not foreseen that the swift expansion of the university population would lead to the radical alteration in the academic climate which now shows itself up and down the country in the form of 'student unrest.' Two major changes have in fact taken place. The number of people receiving higher education has been approximately doubled in a fairly short space of time, with resulting stresses for students and staff alike; and the state has pene- trated the system in a way which has trans- formed the traditional relationship between academic institutions and their inmates. Thus, the noble ideal of opening the old privileged universities to all has resulted, in practice, in their replacement by institutions of a markedly different character. This is not an argument against the change, of course, but an illustra- tion of the extent to which progress is a leap in the dark. And the process is far from com- plete. We must expect further convulsions. I don't know to what extent Kingsley Amis now 'regards his famous dictum, 'More means worse,' as having been justified by events. What is undeniable, however, is that more means different,
Action
When Mr Healey talks of 'hysterical anarchism' among students he deserves to be listened to, since he was on the receiving end in Cam- bridge the other day. I imagine most people find, as I do, that the undergraduates they come across seldom seem either hysterical or anarchic: but there is nevertheless a strong minority cult of 'direct action' politics, which feeds on dissatisfaction with existing political parties and institutions. This is certainly un- pleasant, and one further sign of the dangers which -are accumulating for this country's political equilibrium. There is good reason to have doubts about the performance as Cabinet ministers of Mr Gordon Walker, say, or indeed Mr Healey; but it would be horrifying to think that they might change their policies under pressure from a chanting mob, which is what these particular political thinkers at Cam- bridge and elsewhere appear to wish for.
The attempt to reintroduce the popular riot as a form of political expression dis- regards one important fact about English riots in history which makes them sympathetic in retrospect—namely, that they were violent out- breaks by the politically dispossessed. This was true of the 'Swing' riots, the Rebecca riots, the Luddite outbreaks, and the rest. The pre- tence that because today's students cannot vote until they are twenty-one they are on all fours with a powerless working class of other times is disingenuous nonsense.
Private lives
Consider these propositions, to which you are invited to reply 'True' or 'False': 1. I feel there is only one true religion.
2. My sex life is satisfactory. 3. When I was a youngster I engaged in petty thievery. 4. 1 believe women ought to have as much sexual freedom as men. 5. Once in a while I laugh at a dirty joke. 6. Christ performed miracles.
They come from a long list included in a 'personality test' to which employees of some American federal agencies have to submit. I found it in the National Council for Civil Liberties' report, published this week, on the growing threat to the privacy of the individual citizen; this document usefully collects much information about the enormous number of ways in which the 'right to be let alone,' as a Victorian judge described it, is under pressure. They range from this sort of pseudo-scientific snooping into the private area of employees' lives (farcical, but still sinister) to the opera- tion of all the ingeniously horrible 'bugging' devices which may be bought by anyone with a desire to pry.
Most people probably prefer not to think too much about this sort of thing, except per- haps when a well-publicised incident occurs, such as the midnight search of Lady Diana Cooper's house following an anonymous de- nunciation. The more one does think about it, however, the more one is inclined to agree with this report that creeping invasions of- privacy have now become so widespread that some new protection for the individual is necessary. I am glad to learn that the Government is likely soon to introduce a Bill designed to provide this protection. The extent to which legislation can be effective in this sphere is, of course, debatable: at least it can enshrine the prin- ciple of the right to privacy in the law, where at present it is notably and disturbingly absent.
Decline
Mr Harold Lever published figures from the Treasury the other day indicating that the pur- chasing power of the pound, calculated at 20s in 1935, had now fallen to 5s 2d. The de- tails are interesting if lugubrious. There has been only one year in the whole period which did not see a fall, and that was 1959, when the pound stuck for one blissful moment at the previous year's value (in 1935 terms) of 6s 6d. The average annual drop, I calculate, has been just under 6d; but that takes account of the rapid decline of the wartime years (there was a fall of 3s Id between 1939 and 1940). Since the war the average annual shrinkage has been rather more than threepence. Well, one must, as Captain Maxwell keeps telling us, look on the bright side. Two suitably cheerful reflec- tions occur to me. One is that at this peace- time rate it will be very nearly twenty years _before the pound is actually worth nothing at all. The other is that those of us who thought Mr Callaghan was wrong to opt for the E.-cent decimal system, on the ground that the pound was too big a unit for convenience, seem likely to be proved mistaken after all. Jim knew what he was about.
Anyone But Johnson
I'm advised from America that the currently fashionable answer to the question, 'Whom do you support for the presidency?' is 'ABE'
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