A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
CAVOUR proclaimed the principle of a free Church in a free State. We uphold the principle of a free Press in a free State. One disadvantage of that—almost the only one—is that in countries where less freedom prevails it is assumed that the voice of some paper or other in Great Britain, usually The Times, is the voice of authority. That is unfortunate in view of the line some of The Times' leaders on foreign affairs have been taking recently, for while The Times is, of course, abundantly entitled to hold and express its own views it is not at all to be desired that they should be assumed to be the views of the Government. That is particularly true of the leading article on the Atlantic Charter which The Times published on Monday. Its main drift was not easy to follow ; but it is not surprising to find that the American Press generally interpreted it, particularly after the Prime Minister's recent declaration, as an attempt to disengage Great Britain from the commitments of the Charter, which representatives of the United Nations as a whole formally endorsed at a meeting presided over by the British Foreign Secietary. The United States is by no means dispoSed to jettison the Atlantic Charter. Nor, I believe, is public opinion here. Dis- paragements, or apparent disparagements, of the Charter have in- evitably had the effect of suggesting a divergence, which does not in fact exist, between Britain and America on the principles on which the peace settlement is to rest.
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A resident in Sweden with good diplomatic contacts has given me his explanation of the apparent folly of the Finns in refusing the gussian Race-terms. For one thing, the Finns are stubborn, even to the point of acting plainly against their own interest. For another they are slow-moving ; while Russia thinks in days they think in weeks. For another, they are very honest, and would not sign a treaty binding them to intern Dietl's troops when they know they could not do it. For another, they do not realise what the war-situation is ; they have been sitting tight, with very little fighting, for months or years, and see no reason why that should not go on indefinitely ; they are surprised, indeed, at the Swedes sib:sing them to surrender. For another they have, since x939, a considerable distrust of the Russians. No one of these reasons sounds very impressive by itself, but collectively they do provide a sort of explanation.
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The 1944 Who's Who has just been published, and a study of it should produce considerable satisfaction. A pruning-hook has been at work, and to great advantage. There is more for it to do yet— a certain tumescent entry which in 1943 ran to 9# inches has only been reduced to 8—but in spite of the usual addition of new names, which I suppose about balances the deceases, the number of pages has been reduced by 40o. There has, apart from abbreviation, been some laudable revision. A certain gentleman who has figwed for many years as Professor is now a plain citizen like you or me, while it another quarter a string of degrees conferred by a " university " that has figured more than once in this column has gone by the board All these are moves in the right direction. The editors of Who's Who have an arduous and in some respects an invidious task to discharge. The only principle on which they can safely take their stand is that this indispensable volume exists for the con- venience of the public who make use of it, and not for the gratifica- tion of the personages who supply autobiographies to it. Who's Who
has to go to press many months before the actual date of publica- tion. We shall have therefore_ to wait till 1945 for entries so con- genial as those recording, for example, the decline and fall and general deflation of Benito Mussolini.
• * * * Pierre Pucheu died courageously. That does not, of course, prove that he did not deserve death, but I find his fate much more regretted than approved in this country. The court proceedings, to a large extent vitiated by the inability of the accused to call witnesses who are at present in France, made no very satisfactory impression, and the fact that Pucheu went to North Africa under what was in effect a safe-conduct from General Giraud, and in spite of that was seized, tried and shot, has an unsatisfactory flavour. It is said, I know, that the resistance movement in France will be angered or disheartened unless men who have had any trafficking with ' Vichy are treated as traitors when they come into the power of the French Committee of Liberation. It may be so, and France must of course settle her affairs in her own way, but any general campaign of pro- scription would quite certainly alienate the general sympathy felt here for the Committee of National Liberation in its endeavours to build a new and better France.
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Historians are on the move. Cambridge, having imported Dr. G. N. Clark from Oxford to fill the Regius Chair, has chosen one of its own men, Mr. Herbert Butterfield, of Peterhouse, to succeed the former Master of his own college, Dr. Temperley, as Professor of Modern History. Oxford, simultaneously, while fetching Pro- fessor W. K. Hancock from Birmingham to be Chichele Professor, has lost Mr. Humphrey Sumner, Fellow -and Tutor of Balliol, and author of a recent and very notable History of Russia, who goes to a Chair at Edinburgh. Such changes of ,atmosphere no doubt have their benefits for all concerned. At the same time, Mr. E.. L. Woodward (one of the most valued of this journal's frequent contri- butors), becomes Professor of International Relations at Oxford in succession to'Sir Alfred Zimmem. -Both the new professor and the old are at present temporarily serving the Foreign Office in different capacities.
• * * * Greece celebrates her Independence Day this week, and it may turn out to be historically an auspicious occasion. The King of the Hellenes has come to London from Cairo and will no doubt engage in political talks of some importance. The two dissident factions fighting in Greece have composed their differences and are uniting in the struggle against Germany. And the approach of Russia to the Balkans kindles lively hopes in the breasts of all enemies of Germany in that peninsula. The Greeks are entitled to be con- fident, without any false optimism, that when their Government next celebrates Independence Day officially it will be not in Cairo or in London but in Athens.
• * . * * Big Bill Thompson, the one-time Mayor of Chicago, who died or Sunday, was an unattractive type—the over-genial, demagogic bruiser. He never displayed ability as an administrator ; indeed, his three terms of office left gangsterdom rampant. I heard him at one of his election meetings in 1931, When be was defeated by an opponent of Czechoslovak extraction, who was shot before he had
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