A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THERE have been few cases in late years of a Cabinet Minister dying while in office. The last, if I remem- ber rightly, was that of Sir Donald Maclean in 1932. Sir Godfrey Collins made a -considerable reputation in the House of Commons twenty years and more ago as a sound financial critic. He continued to keep a keen eye on the estimates, but his elevation to Cabinet rank in 1932 was something of a surprise. His own pleasure at the promotion was the greater for that. The vacancy created in the Cabinet suggests various possibilities. The logical step would be to move Mr. W. S. Morrison, the ablest Scotsman on the Front Bench, into the Secretaryship. But higher things are probably reserved for him. An alternative would be to offer the Scottish Office to Mr. Walter Elliot, who might not be sorry to abandon his present rather thankless task. In that event the Presidency of the Ministry of Agriculture could well go to Lord de la Warr, who 'Worked hard there for years as Mr. Elliot's Parliamentary Secretary. National Labour would thus regain the place in- the Cabinet lost by Mr. J. H. Thomas' resignation. The National Liberals would be one down instead, but the exact balance in a Coalition Cabinet cannot be maintained for ever. To promote Mr. Morrison would, incidentally, still further increase Conservative predominance. When Mr. Thomas went out, Mr. Ormsby Gore went up and Lord Stanhope came in ; one Conservative gain.
With Mr. Dalton, of Eton and King's, as Chairman of the Labour Party, Mr. Attlee, of Haileybury and Univ., as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and Mr. Ernest Bevin, "the Dockers' K.C.," in command of the Trade Union Congress, Labour can claim to be making full use of its intellectuals. No doubt they all labour in their different ways ; but so do most of us ; and since Labour for some reason has come to denote manual labour rather than mental, the Opposition might be more appropriately known as the Socialist Party than as the Labour Party. (Its critics do sometimes so style it, in the Idea that there is something derogatory about the adjec- tive.) About Mr. Dalton's ability there can be no ques- tion. He did admirably at the Foreign Office under Mr. Henderson and has kept himself well posted in foreign affairs since. Nor could his Socialism be suspect for a moment. It is in the best Webbite traditions of the School of Economics (where Mr. Dalton lectures). But I should have thought he was just a little too much Eton-and- King's for the rank-and-file.
A, great deal that is valuable has come, at different times, out of Papworth, and I hear of a new theory, based largely on investigations by a member of the Papworth staff, and sponsored with Some reserves by the Medical Director, Sir Pendrill Varrier-Jones, which is likely, if it does nothing else, to set the medical world, talking for some time with some vivacity. What the theory suggests, in a word, is that in this Country in the last few decades as the curve showing the incidence of tuberculosis has moved downwards the curve showing the incidence of cancer has moved upwards in precise proportion, so that at any time during the period the deaths from the two diseases combined amounted to a constant proportion-20 per cent.—of the total deaths. The question, of course, is whether the relation- ship is purely fortuitous or can be ascribed to a definite cause. The Papworth investigations suggest the latter. The reasons are too technical for a layman like myself to set forth, but they- will very' shortly be laid before the public. * * The whole Italian attitude towards the Abyssinian campaign is characterised by such incredible shame- lessness that Signor Mussolini's laudation of General de Bono's new book is no doubt in the natural order of things. According to the Rome correspondent of the Daily Express (the book is not yet published in English) "the main fact admitted is that Italy won the war not by military, successes but by means of extensive bribery. From the first pages the book contradicts what the Italian Government claimed at Geneva— that Italy was not the aggressor, but had been deliberately and unjustly attacked by Abyssinians." Quotations given textually by this correspondent and others go far to justify that summary. The facts about bribery are, of course, by now fairly common knowledge. Gas and bribes played about an equal part as ingredients of victory.
Not being a smoker myself I am perhaps not really qualified to take part in the burning controversy regarding the decency of cigarettes and cigars and the indecency of pipes in fashionable restaurants. Why there should be a convention which condemns a pipe as something to apologise for I have no conception; presumably there is some traditional explanation. But if the result of the discussion is, as seems possible, to rally smokers (the cigar-smokers who despise pipes and the pipe- smokers who hate cigar-smoke) to the support of non-- smokers in a demand for Meals uncontaminated by any kind of tobacco-smoke at all, the world will be con- siderably the gainer. I have no sort of prejudice against tobacco, but I do object to being compelled to inhale it with my sweet or. savoury. So, I am quite certain, do many smokers.
If anyonewants a fuller realisation than he has already Of the kind of world he is condemned to live in let him glance at the headings on the principal news page of The Times on almost any day of the week. Take last Monday for example. I arrange the column-headings vertically instead of horizontally for convenience : Nearer to Madrid : Bitter Fighting The Heimwelir Dissolved : Dr. Schusehnigg's Coup . . New Move in Palestine : Strike Called off Larger Italian Armaments: More Aeroplanes Control of Arms Trade Changes in the, Army One'of the headings, the optimist may fairly insist, does deal with a conflict ending rather than impend- ing. That is quite a lot to be thankful for in these
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