s A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
pult:ng it too low. Public opinion is being silently and scientifically tested all the time on many subjects, and the test in this field reveals that in general popularity Lord Woolton stands .second only to the Prime Minister. I don't say that a poll of every adult in the kingdom would necessarily give this result, but it is near enough. In view of all this, I read with interest in London Calling of November 4th an interview with Lord Woolton in which the Minister of Food "declined to comment on post-war plans," declaring " . the principal job we have is to win this war, and as far as I am concerned my mind and energies will be devoted to the immediate and practical problem, how we can keep the home supplies going." * * * * It is curious that on the day on which the appointment of the Duke of Gloucester to be Governor-General of Australia is announced a letter shou)d reach me from Melbourne on the subject of royal Governors-General. What the writer had in mind was not Australia, but India. What is not realised in Britain, he insists, is the totally different attitude of Indians towards the British Government and towards the King-Emperor, and he quotes a distinguished Indian who said to him recently : Will you Britishers never learn ? You sent the late Duke of Connaught to Canada as Governor-General, you sent the late Prince Arthur of Connaught to South Africa, the British Government was to have sent the late Duke of Kent to Australia,..but to the very place where you should have sent Royalty- India—no ; we are. a coloured people, we are not good enough for Royalty as Viceroy. Cannot you British see what this all means in the eyes of India and the East ? Will you never learn ? " There is obviously a point to be considered here ; otherwise I should not have quoted the letter. Bet, of course, it is not immediate now that a new Viceroy has just taken up his duties. And, apart from that, the difficulty of sending a member of the Royal Family to a post in which he might have to handle highly controversial questions of internal politics raises very serious questions.
•
The appointment of Dr. J. S. Whale to be Headmaster of Mill Hill will, I imagine, be viewed with mixed feelings by Free Church- men, not from any doubt of pr. Whale's capacity but from a fear that one of the most eloquent voices in the Free Churches will be more rarely heard except in Mill Hill school chapel. The appoint- ment, moreover, is a bold experiment. Not many men could take charge of a school of 500 boys successfully with no previous experi- ence of teaching except in theological colleges: But one thing is certain—Dr. Whale would not have undertaken such a task, how- ever strong the pressure on him, unless he were confident he could discharge it effectively. And if he believes he can, he can. Mill Hill has suffered various vicissitudes since Mr. M. L. Jacks tesigned the Headmastership in 1937. Dr. C. K. Derry, who succeeded him, went into Government service in 1940. Mi. A. J. R. Roberts, who followed, died this year, and Mr. Jacks came back temporarily pending a permanent appointment. The school itself meanwhile
has been evacuated to the distant St. Bees. All rather unsettling. * * * *
Shuttle propaganda between Moscow and London is an unsatis- factory 'business. Pravda, I see, in Moscow, reprints with much approval an article from a paper called the Polish Tribune, published in London, denouncing Polish intrigues in London and sounding generally a strong pro-Soviet note. Perhaps Pravda knows more about the Polish Tribune than I have been able to discover. What I should like very much to know is who edits this journal, who finances it, and how many copies it sells (not distributes free of charge) every day or week or whenever it appears. No one has a greater admiration for most of what Russia is Itoing, and Marshal Stalin is saying, today than I have, and I am as alive as most people to the shortcomings of Poland. But the breach of diplomatic rela- tions with Poland, the organisation in Russia of a Polish army corps owning no allegiance to the Polish Government, and now this quota- tion from an obscure and unknown sheet of an article plainly more friendly to the Russians than to the Polish Government, is all
calculated to make serious and unnecessary trouble. * * * *
WHY AN FAU ? is a singularly Chinese-looking question to be faced with, and if I had not encountered it within the covers of a report—the fourth—of the Friends' Ambulance Unit I should have found my rather low-standard sagacity unequal to the occasion. Even so I should have written F.A.U., though I admit that FAU has aesthetic attractions. To the question the whole booklet is an answer, and a very impressive answer it is, this record of the work of men who are not ready to fight but quite ready to be killed, as many of them have been, in the service of humanity. They are working in the Middle East, in Abyssinia, in Bengal, in China and at all sorts of tasks here at home. "Our three teams are all in the field," one of them writes me direct from the depths of China. "I spend the time rushing down to the front and up again [He is doing medical work of various kinds] . . . it all helps in Chinese-foreign relations." This particular member of the Unit has behind him a striking record of ambulance-driving, first in Fffdand, then in Norway, and after that fire-fighting through the 1940-41 blitzes in the East End. Now China. Next, what? The F.A.U. in this war has
more than lived up to the standards it set in the last. * * * *
I referred last week to H.M.S. 'Janus.' Here are a few facts I have acquired about that distinguished vessel. She was bid down in 1937 and completed in 1939. Since then she has been in action from Norway to Crete ; she was engaged in the Battle of Matapan ; she helped to fight convoys through to Malta in that gallant island's darkest days ; she enjoyed herself steaming up and down. the coast of Libya and bombarding it. And she is now She is now wanting football shirts and shorts and boots', and I have undertaken to try and raise some. Nqt new ones, I am afraid,
because of Mr. Dalton. Has any reader any to spare? Jauus.
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