Personal column

George Gale

After a couple of readings, I find that I can understand the new rules for the election of the Leader of the Conservative Party. Ted Heath has said he'll accept the new rules. But I cannot help pondering the distinguishedcommittee, chaired by Sir Alec, and containing Edward du Cann in his capacity as chairman of the 1922 Committee, Willie Whitelaw (chairman of the party organisation), Humphrey Atkins (Chief Whip in the Commons), Lord Carrington (Leader of the Opposition in the Lords), Lord St Aldwyn (Chief Whip in the Lords), Sir John Hall and Charles Morrison (joint vice-chairmen of the 1922 Committee), Sir Alastair Graesser (chairman of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations) and Sir John Taylor (chairman of the National Union executive). . • Do you notice anything odd about this committee? I do. It is very much made up of the people who would have consulted each other in the old days, before the new-fangled method of electing a Leader by the votes of Tory MPs was introduced, as his parting gift to the party, on the initiative of Humphry Berkeley. The old method was that castigated by lain Macleod as 'the Magic Circle.' Magic circles never die; and they don't always fade away either. If ever I saw a list of the present magic circle it is the membership of Sir Alec's committee., If the members of that committee had spent as much time considering who should replace Ted Heath as leader as they did considering how such a successor be elected, the Tory party might be in much better shape.

I cannot believe that Mrs Thatcher will be chosen. She has great ability, but is accident prone. And there are a lot of Tory women who dislike voting for women. 'Phe general theory that Willie Whitelaw will step in, after a first ballot in which Ted Heath had not secured a sufficient majority, suggests a continuing defeatism within the Tory 14arty. The only circumstances in whicli thenories will have a chance of electoral victory will be those of economic crisis combined with evident Labour governmental failure. Willie Whitelaw to stave off economic catastrophe? It is not very plausible. Anyway, these candidates are all part of the old guard; they have all been Heath's men. Ted Heath is the best of them all, so either he should stay and soldier on, until something or someone better turns up; or someone else entirely — someone new and untainted — is called for.

Edward du Cann is the likeliest, the ablest and potentially the most successful and powerful of those whose rec,prds are politically clean. He has ruled himself out, saying he cannot take part in an electoral process of which he, as chairman of the 1922 Committee, is umpire. This is a daft reason, and . he doubtless knows it. He can easily resign his chairman to stand — in the second ballot.

Family origins

Consider the following surnames: Silver, Mangion, Bartolo, Micallef, Mifsud and Saliba. What have they in common? They suggest people who are not of • British origin. In addition, they were the six men found guilty last week of running a huge Soho and Mayfair call-girl racket.

It is often alleged, largely I believe on the grounds of teligieus statistics, that the gaols of this country contain far more than their fair share of Irishmen. I do not wish to suggest that those of English, Scottish or Welsh descent are genetically paragons of virtue. But, with all the research which is now being conducted into crime and its causes, how much, I wonder, of such research is devoted to the family origins of the criminal, his religion, his colour and so forth?

There will be those to argue that, simply by discussing the subject, I am displaying racial prejudice. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am asking for relevant statistical evidence to see whether 'racial' (or religious, or ethnic, or whatever) factors are significant, so that judgement on the facts may be substituted for prejudice. There are plenty of facts we could do with knowing and some, if not all, of these are knocking around in various official files. I know, from some of the calls I get on London Broadcasting's morning 'Open Line' that a considerable number of people, many neither ignorant nor prejudiced, are convinced that virtually all the muggings, gang violence and street 'aggro' that make certain parts of certain London boroughs unsafe at nights are attributable to coloured youths. The probability is that this is so in certain areas, but not in others. It is worth recalling that the bovver boys and the ton-up hoodlums and suchlike were predominantly, if not exclusively, white.

We need to know the facts, otherwise we will never be able to move towards solutions. We need to know how much, if at all, has the education of our children in schools with large numbers of immigrant children been affected. We need to know the connection, if any, of the apparent growth in illiteracy and sub-literacy with immigration. There is very much along these lines we need to know. Why the official reticence? It is in Whitehall, alas, where the prejudices — and fear of the facts — reside.

Slipping gear

I blushed with embarrassment when it was pointed out to me that I had attributed lines from Louis MacNiece's celebrated 'Bagpipe music' to W. H. Auden, We call these errors 'slips of the pen' — I knew perfectly well where the lines came from, but nevertheless I wrote Auden for MacNeice. It was not, however, my pen which slipped; nor my typing fingers, come to that (although these do, alas, slip far too often: but what I get with my typing errors are usually anagrams of what I intend to type). It was some part of my mind which slipped; and not my memory, either, for my memory knew well enough the correct authorship of the phrase. I suppose our brains are chemical and electrical and occasionally' they slip gear. I remember from childhood a bike with a Sturmey-Archer gear which used to slip, mechanically, if I pressed too hard on the pedals. Not that I was pressing very hard on mind or brain when suggesting last week that this Parliament might contain Mr Wilson's last tenure of the premiership and that at the end of it, if it lasts its due length, he might choose retirement.

Deserved rebuke

Mr Maxwell, from Balliol, rebukes me for claiming to have "caught the OED out" on the word exclaustrate, which it does not contain, and which the Times employed in its obituary of Dom David Knowles, suggesting that I implied that the word was already available for the OED before the Times used it. He asks, Where? The answer is that I do not know, and am inclined indeed to believe that the word was invented for Dom David, in order to regularise his position in his Church. The rebuke is therefore deserved. Exclaust rate sounds better that decloister, an alternative neologism.

Authority, obedience

From the Mathematical Institute at Edinburgh University, a correspondent has kindly sent me a copy of Dom David's essay Authority, published by the Catholic Truth Society in 1969, an attempt "to state the essential, basic and traditional Catholic teaching on authority, and on the allied topic of obedience. "It il altogether essential" Dom David wrote "that this discussion should begin and should remain on the spiritual level." Obedience he later defines as "the acceptance of due authority in matters of belief and morals," which acceptance he regarded as liberating. The essay is in no way a personal defence or apologia: instead, it is very (and characteristically) assertive. By the time it was written, Dom David's troubles had been sorted out, and no one who knew him would ever imply that on the spiritual level he was ever other than orthodox or in matters of belief and morals ever other than obedient.

My correspondent points out that, during his dispute with successive abbots of Downside and after his refusal to return to Ealing Priory, since he was technically disobedient, he would require permission to say Mass. In Cambridge such permission would come from the Bishop of Northampton. This correspondent recalls that he happened to be with the then bishop when he mentioned the matter — "permission had then been given, but I got the firm impression t1h95atuit was quite recent. This was in October

Such would accord with the impressions of my own recollection. In the 'forties I do not think such permission had been given, and it was widely assumed that Dom David travelled' well away from Cambridge, south of the Thames, to say Mass, presumably with some other bishop's permission.

For my part, Professor Knowles was right and the abbots of Downside, until Butler came along, in the wrong. But whether the ecclesiastical rights and wrongs will ever be penetrated, I know not; except that they will certainly not be penetrated further by me. It is, at least, good to know that Dom David's last years were unclouded by the matter and that he was able to write, indeed to assert, of the words authority' and obedience, that "for us as Catholic Christians the words should be our glory. Thanks to what they imply We stand secure aIit! free, secure in the possession of the truth nt God, which alone makes men free." This is far from what I believe to be the truth; but in the week of Christmas, let Dom .David have his say; and, if he be right and I wrong., then let me say "God rest his soul."