SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
A few marginal notes on the Great Soames Saga : 1. That was an unusually apt quotation from Woodrow Wilson which President Nixon trotted out in London this week—`Friendship must have a machinery.' The researcher who found it cannot have guessed how apposite it would prove. The Soames affair has illuminated (among much else) the indispensable nature of formal, carefully defined, well-maintained diplomatic machinery. If the machinery func- tions properly and without interference 'mis- understandings' and `breaches of confidence' are avoided. In international dealings the need for clear rules, which everyone acknowledges and understands, is crucial.
2. It is hard enough to keep the air clear even when the formal machinery is employed in times of stress. On Monday I read with interest that 'observers saw M Debres failure to see Mr Soames personally as a sign of a hardening French attitude in the affair' (Even- ing News) and also that 'M Debre's action in refusing to see the ambassador may be taken in conjunction with other indications as an attempt by the French to "downgrade" the dispute' (Evening Standard).
3. The maxim 'never apologise, never ex- plain' may be excessive: but too much display of politician's self-righteousness is guaranteed to make any situation look even more fishy than it appeared originally. Mr Michael Stewart, plodding on by the hour to explain that he was right and everyone else wrong, `brim full of virtue,' as one observer said, did not make the best even of his own by no means watertight case. Virtue ought to be its own reward and is generally best left to others to applaud.
4. 'Everyone recognises how praiseworthy it is in a Prince to keep faith, and to act uprightly and not craftily. Nevertheless, we see from what has happened in our own days that Princes who have set little store by their word, but have known how to over-reach others by their cunning, have accomplished great things, and in the end had the better of those who trusted to honest dealing.' (Machiavelli, 'How Princes Should Keep Faith,' The Prince.) A text for the week?
Well planned, sir
There is a certain macabre interest in com- paring the chastened tone and the adjusted statistics of this week's. 'National Plan Mark 2' with those of Mr George Brown's magnum opus in the exuberant days of 1965. Even the word 'plan' has disappeared from the title of Mr Peter Shore's new document, in favour of The Task Ahead. One must count it to the credit of our masters that blank optimism has been replaced by wary ambiguity, I sup- pose. The great Plan stated flatly: 'It involves achieving a 4 per cent annual growth rate of output well before 1970 and an annual average of 3.8 per cent between 1964 and 1970.' Con- trast this with the studied obscurity of this week's document: `Having regard to possible trends both in productive potential and the balance of payments, it seems reasonable to take a range of possibilities from something under 3 per cent to something in the region of 4 per cent for the average annual rate of growth of output to 1972, although the actual outcome could be outside these limits . . (My italics.) So now, thanks to new-style planning, we know. Another finely-polished gem : 'Most of the illustrative calculations .. , are based on a rate of growth of about 3+ per cent a year but the document also discusses the implications of faster or slower growth. It must be emphasised that the figure of 3+ per cent a year is not a forecast of what will happen; the outcome could be worse . . .' Really?
Battle honour
Victories in Whitehall battles are not neces- sarily bruited abroad: sometimes they're simply signalled to the initiated by cryptic means. I'm indebted to an alert expert in the field for decoding a communiqué which indicates the end of the great Crossman-Callaghan tug-of- war which enthralled several government de- partments last year. The point was that when Mr Crossman found himself made into a sort of overlord of the social services he looked around for suitable additions to his new minis- terial territory. One area he much fancied was the responsibility for children taken into care of local authorities. traditionally a Home Office matter. Logic might be thought to favour moving this under the general welfare um- brella, but Mr Callaghan was most unwilling to lose it. He told Mr Crossman so, plainly. The battle rumbled on for some time. And only now is victory sealed—in a footnote in small print in the new Public Expenditure White Paper. To the entry indicating the esti- mated Home Office spending on 'Law and °Tar' the footnote adds complacently : `In- cludes Child Care.' Or, to spell it out in non- Whitehallese, Jim's won.
Words and music
The case for a better financial return to authors from the lending libraries is in essence unanswerable and overwhelming. I don't feel over-optimistic about their chances of winning their campaign, though. The notion that every- one has the right to 'free' use of a writer's work is too well-rooted. National Library Week, I note, begins on 8 March. The prospect fills the mind with visions of underpaid, half- starved authors staging sit-ins at luxuriously appointed public libraries; of the opulent citizenry complaining at this unseemly inter- ruption to their customary supply of free literature. But no: writers are, I trust, too indi- vidualistic and anarchic to adopt such trendy forms of self-expression. One must assume that National Library Week (an admirable en- terprise, I am sure) will be able to get on with its business.
This in itself promises some fairly rum goings-on. As part of the 'Festival of Books,' for:example, a 'song train' is scheduled to run in Wales between Aberystwyth and Devil's Bridge—`choir-laden,' as I read, and 'dis- tributing NLW literature, books and pop songs: a new choir joins it in song on the platform of every station and then piles into the train; and at Devil's Bridge comes the final ceremony, with Massed Choirs.' I can't think why the London Library doesn't go in for that sort of thing on the Central Line.
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