A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THAT Lord Russell of Liverpool should prefer to resign from a high Government office rather than suppress his book on Nazi war crimes is, from an author's point of view, understandable. It has not been made clear, however, whether the Lord Chancellor wished this work to be perma- nently or only temporarily banned, and if the latter, then surely Lord Russell could have delayed its publication until, as it were, it was too late ? For no man of judgement could think that this was anything but a disastrous moment to revive memories of German atrocities. Under a thin layer of time the hatred felt for our erstwhile enemies lies dormant in all our hearts, and it only needs the smallest injection to make it lively. Expediency, possibly, as many people including the Government believe, the whole future of the world, demands and depends on the re-arming of Germany, and it is foolish to pretend that a book such as Lord Russell's, whether of historical importance or not, could be anything but detrimental to the cause, coming as it does just as the waverers are weakening. The Lord Chancellor seems to have acted solely on his own responsibility, though after consultation with the Foreign Office, and it is unfortunate Tor him, and rather naive of him not to have foreseen it, that by presenting the author of The Scourge of the Swastika with an ultimatum, he has done exactly what he did not wish to do. Lord Russell can rest assured that, deservedly or not, he has written a best- seller.
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