SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
The well-earned praise for the London police after Sunday's demonstration reminds me of one of the Duke of Wellington's numerous sensible remarks about war. 'It was always Napoleon's object to fight a great battle,' said the Duke. 'My object, on the contrary, was to avoid to fight a great battle.' The two different traditions are to be seen in the contrasting atti- tudes to civil disturbance adopted ty the London bobby and the Paris flic. Certainly, of all the various demonstrations in progress in London that day, the one given by the police —of how to avoid senseless violence—was far and away the most successful. Our newspapers, always susceptible to an attack of galloping chauvinism, have of course made the most of it, but they can hardly be blamed on this occa- sion when even Izvestia says the police (those well-known imperialist thugs) behaved 'wonder- fully.' And it has been rather moving to see this country, plagued for so long by the ebbing away of self-confidence, suddenly aroused to a feeling of pride in its civilised institutions and liberal traditions.
Off the deep end
Unfortunately, those who believe in the politi- cal use of violence are not likely to pack up simply because they suffered a setback. Attack- ing the American Embassy is not the only way of 'revealing the violence in society,' as the cant phrase goes. The minority which has re- vived so many of the old fascist ideas will no doubt look for other means of creating the violent atmosphere it needs. If the police's calm control were to be repeated a few times when attempts to exploit the traditional 'demo' were being made, then clearly that form of protest would have lost its usefulness as a source of violence. There are plenty of other ways of disturbing people and damaging property.
Those who seek to smash our tolerant society also have some unintentional allies among public figures who react to their provocations with extremist language. There was Mr Tom Iremonger the other day, complaining in the House of Commons about 'foreign scum' tak- ing part in political demonstrations in London (he didn't mean Czechs, I think, or Biafrans). The use of this kind of language, 'racialist in tone' or at least xenophobic, can only increase conflict and tension : as do Sir Gerald Nabarro's immoderate outbursts, although his attack on Mr Callaghan's 'namby-pamby soft- ness' rebounded last Sunday. Whenever I read of Nabarro going off the deep end about blacks or foreigners or other such detrimentals, I wonder why he of all people, whose forebears benefited from this country's tolerance of strangers from overseas, should show such illiberality. All these overheated Tories ought to read again the speech Mr Quintin Hogg made to them at Blackpool: 'Moderation in all things.'
No tears for peers
Whatever the ultimate fate of the House of Lords may be in the coming parliamentary session it's safe to say no popular outcry in its defence is to be expected. Obviously any- one who actively defended the principle of a hereditary legislature would be thought down- right eccentric today. But many people do feel the need for some check on modern govern.
ments, which claim more and more power for themselves; unfortunately, the poor old Lords has grown steadily less credible in this role.
It does 'useful work' at Westminster, as we're always being told:. but it's chiefly humdrum toil and in any case is largely unrecognised by the public. Even in its other capacity as a ceremonial element in the social scene the Upper House has dwindled away sorely; this may indicate an inconsistency, for large sec- tions of the population still revere a title, but consistency is never a popular virtue.
The real trouble is that the menace of too- powerful government simply cannot be met by a house of lords, either 'reformed' or unre- formed. I think the last notable achievement of their lordships was to force the present Government to climb down over the infamous plan for London's third airport; yet now, by means of shameless skulduggery with a 'statutory instrument,' the bureaucrats and their ministerial stooges are in a position to wriggle out of that defeat. That sort of veiled manipulation of power is not within the range of the Lords. In any case, the peers' record generally is best represented either by ludicrous gestures such as that famous anti-sanctions vote in the summer (bravely carried out after an assurance that it would have no effect) or the more recent surrender over the Transport Bill, which led one Westminster wit to remark that the peers, having been threatened with emascu- lation, had opted instead to enter a monastery. In this state they are mere props to disguise the holes in our constitutional defences against the dictatorial tendencies of modern govern. ments.
Exit
On one of these bright and clear autumn mornings I took a breakfast-time walk along the little river which flows past my village. I was glad to have done so because on the way I saw a kingfisher, and that's not a sight which ornithological potterers like myself expect to log very often. When I returned home there was a man talking on the radio about a United Nations report on river pollution; it predicted that within twenty, years advanced countries such as ours would have no fish at all in their rivers. An equation suggested itself to me: no fish equals no kingfishers. I thought of this when I read Dr Mark Abrams's address to the Town and Country Planning Association, outlining the ways in which England will over the next fifteen years achieve the glum distinc- tion of becoming Europe's first predominantly suburbanised country. It's easy to speculate or calculate about population growth, city dis- persal, industrial development, etc. It's not so easy to imagine all the details involved in the process, such as (for example) the conversion of our rivers into waste disposal systems and the disappearance of (among much else) the kingfisher.
Heard in commuterland
'I've told my son be can go and take part the revolution this afternoon so long as he promises to park the car in a safe place.'
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