Are the B.B.C. Too Cautious ?

BY HAROLD NICOLSON.

THE author of the Ars Poetica lived some nineteen hundred years before the invention of wireless. He was thus not enabled, on summer evenings, to hear the News Bulletin throbbing up from Rome to Tivoli. This disability on his part induced him to make a remark which strikes our post-War generation as curiously un- observant. " Our minds," he wrote, " are stimulated less by aural than by visual impressions."

Horace, being a superficial and withal worldly soul, was generally wrong. True it is that the impersonal, when audible, has but a distant effect. But the personal when audible has an effect which is overpowering. Its effect, in fact, is intimate. And intimacy, in such cases, conquers all the time.

The Prime Minister, let us say, broadcasts to the British Empire from Downing Street. You obtain thereby the maximum sense of dispersion coupled with the maximum sense of concentration. The voice which echoes in your own sitting-room echoes across the seven seas. You participate at that very moment in an expe- rience shared by countless millions. That gives you a sense of expansion. Yet, on the other hand, that expe- rience is localized in your own case between the corner of the piano and the chintz sofa. That gives you a sense of contraction. The contrast between these two experiences is curious, rather flattering, and disturbingly intimate. And as such, as I have said, it is overpowering.

Mr. MacDonald himself is a master of broadcasting. Could the B.B.C. obtain his services as an announcer the great warm heart of Britain would be stirred to its most secret fibres. Mr. Henderson, on the other hand, is about as bad a broadcaster as I have ever heard. He lacks that confidential tone which renders the words of Mr. Mac- Donald so conciliatory, so propitiatory, so entrancing. " What," one says when one listens to Mr. MacDonald, "a nice man !" And in so saying one is abundantly right.

He is a nice man. And fortunately for him and for the National Party his niceness burrs in his very voice. The B.B.C. are aware of this strange power of the human voice. It frightens them. They know all too well that the regular broadcaster is apt to become the family friend. He attains a fireside manner. And whether it be to a crofter in Scotland or to a miner in South Wales, there are voices which penetrate intimately into the parlours and living rooms of several million people. These voices sometimes irritate but more often attract. They have an influence far beyond their real value and far beyond their own sense of responsibility. And, as I said, the B.B.C. become afraid.

Let me say at once that I have nothing but admiration for the efficiency and high-mindedness of Savoy Hill. I have suffered from both. They have become a public utility undertaking of overwhelming importance. They are anxiously, almost timorously, aware of that circum- stance. I do not blame them. My sole criticism of the B.B.C. is that they are terrified by shadows on the wall. They lack, if I may use such an expression, guts. Yet I recognize how easy it would have been to make a bean- feast at Savoy Hill.

Sir John Reith has been attacked, even by those who admire his obstinate integrity, for being behind the times. I should like, being a revolutionary by nature, to feel that this attack were justified. Yet, being by nature an intellectual, I see both sides. And I recognize that Sir John Reith has a very difficult task.

For instance, a programme entitled " This Changing World" was arranged. This was intended to cover changes in the British attitude towards such subjects as democracy, economics, science, art and literature. I confess that I have not obserVed that such changes have been very dynamic. Yet there Was a certain shifting which the with laudable instructional desire, wished to expound.

I was requested to undertake the task of deseribing what changes had,' since 1909;' occurred Mei-attire.

ObViously the twoOutstanding innovators in fiction were D. H. Lawrence and James Joyce: 'Both these writers had, however, written matter which had been condemned by the Home Office under the Obscene Publications ActJ How could I mention, still less recommend,' books which in. the eyes of Lord Brentford deserVed to be suppressed by the police ? How, on the other hand, could I talk about modernist literature without laying some stress upon its two most remarkable. exponents ? The problem illustrates the dilemma which a National Institution has to face when it tries to be progressive. I make no coMplaints: The B.B.C. in this matter behaved with intelligence, for- bearance, and good sense. They saw, although with spiritual agony, my point of view. I was allowed to men- tion Lawrence and even—o tempora, o mores !—Joyce. But they did not pretend to like the whole business. And I also see their point of view.

People, and especially clergymen, seldom write letters when they are pleased. People, and especially clergymen, frequently write letters when they are displeased. The B.B.C. for this reason receive more letters from the angered reverend than from the satisfied reverend. And by this they are profoundly perturbed.

I endeavour to adopt towards the problem which thereby arises an attitude of impartiality. I argue as follows. The B.B.C. are a public utility undertaking. The public is a fool : it knowS nothing about utility and very little about undertakings. The B.B.C. will suffer more from the actively indignant. than they will benefit from the passively pleased. They are thus obliged to follow the line of least resistance. Even though that line lead them to the Rectory sofa of 1887.

Yet, after all, there really is another side to this dilemma. It is this. Wireless is a progressive institution. It may well prove a bedside solace to the aged. But its function is not one of assuagement : .its function is one of stimulation. Its purpose is not to confirm the aged in their old thoughts but to create in the young new habits of mind. If it funks that mission it is proving un- worthy- of itself. Its aim should be to inspire the rising generation : it should not try to conciliate the past.

I am firmly convinced that if there is a fault in the B.B.C. (and I remain one of their most ardent admirers) it is this. They have an acute sense of 1886 and no sense of 1941. This; on their part, is a dereliction of public duty. It is grotesque to contend, for instance, that a bOok which has been praised by The Times, the Observer, the Sunday Times and 'the weeklies is not fit for mention On the microphone. Such an attitude is merely unintel- ligent. And if Savoy Hill once lose their intelligence they alte 'doomed.

It is not the fault of the permanent staff. They are often enthusiastic, enlightened and daring. It is the 'fault of the Board of Governors. With few exceptions the Governors are, I regret to state, a pack of ninnies. I repeat these wounding words. A pack of ninnies. And thank goodness at the end of this- year four of them are due to retire. Will• they be replaced by men and women of greater intelligence ? - I doubt it. For safety, in- these unfortunate islands, comes always first..