A Spectator's Notebook M R. ANTHONY EDEN'S promotion to the office
of Lord Privy Seal is a welcome recognition of merit, but perplexing, none the less. The office regularly carries Cabinet rank, but is not to in this case. There are two fairly obvious reasons for that. One is that the Cabinet, to which Sir Kingsley Wood had just been admitted, was quite large enough. The other is that Sir John Simon might be expected to insist on being the only official spokesman on foreign affairs at the Cabinet table. But the position is curious. Sir John Simon—the verdict is all but universal—has been a dead failure, and a dangerous failure, as Foreign Secretary. Mr. Eden as Under-Secretary, has been a conspicuous success. Mr. Eden's work is given unusual recognition, but his duties and responsibilities are apparently to remain what they were. As for the unofficial suggestion that the new Lord Privy Seal is to devote himself to League of Nations work, nothing could be more unsatisfactory than to regard the League work as a side-line, capable of being handed over to someone other than the Foreign Secretary himself. With the best relations in the world maintained between Sir John Simon and Mr. Eden, the new situation remains anomalous. It may, of course, be affected by other possible developments, though I do not see the rumoured shift of offices, involving the transference of Sir John Simon to the Woolsack and Lord Irwin to the Foreign Office, materializing at present. For one thing the Woolsack is not vacant yet.
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