A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
1 N the various obituaries of Mr. (for he will live as Mr.) Lloyd George there has been a little too much suggestion that the whole social reform zeal of the 1905-1910 Cabinet was centred in his single person. That was far from being the case. In his autobiography, which I happened to be reading this week, Lord Haldane dwells on the close association between himself and two other young members who. like him, entered Parliament in 1885 or '86 (Lloyd George was not elected till 189o), Grey and Asquith, and emphasises the fact that what drew them together primarily was a common zeal for social reform. With them was associated Sydney Buxton, who as President of the Board of Trade carried through the first Unemployment Insurance Act in 1911. Grey and Haldane in 1905 went to posts— the Foreign Office and. War Office—which gave no scope for social reform legislation, but Asquith, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, set himself at once to carry through Old Age Pensions, and did carry them through. A later generation hardly realises what a volume of idealism and purpose was embodied in that remarkable Administration.
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It is inevitable, I suppose, that the daily papers should give daily prominence to the approach of Montgomery's men to the V2 sites in Holland and the prospect that that particular menace will soon be eliminated altogether (it it has not been already). All the same, there is something to be said for keeping things in proportion. As a Londoner, I do not affect to feel•no relief or satisfaction at.the prospective end of what has been an extremely unpleasant visitation, but it has been no worse than the VI plague, and not nearly as bad as many of the earlier blitzes. It would be unfortunate to create the impression that London was more concerned about its own limited perils than about the risks the men of all arms are still running in Germany, and even more unfortunate to betray any desire that the larger strategy of the war should be in any way deflected in order that V2 sites might be destroyed. Actually there would seem to be little danger of that. There are overwhelming reasons for clearing Holland as soon as possible, even if no rocket had ever been discharged from Dutch soil.
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The appointment of the first woman stipendiary-magistrate raises one necessary question. Is it due to the fact that someone thought it would be a good idea to appoint a woman, or to the fact that Miss Campbell is the most competent person discoverable, male or female, in the ranks of the Bar? The first reason by itself would be a thoroughly bad one, and I am sorry some apparent countenance is given to it by a leader in the Daily Telegraph, which opens (in rather light-hearted vein, it is true), "The trumpet of women's rights must sound for Miss Sybil Campbell, who is the first to ever burst into that eminence so stubbornly held by men, the stipendiary bench." If Mr. Morrison can put his hand on his heart and say that the idea of appointing a woman because she was a woman never crossed his mind, but that in fact no man could be found with qualifications equal to Miss Campbell's, then I (and no doubt all the world) am well content. Efficiency is the one criterion.
* * * * Accustomed as we are in war-time to hear of the production of thousands of aeroplanes a month by this belligerent country or that, it is salutary to be reminded now and then of the relative
modesty of the demands civil aviation will make on the aircraft in- dustry. Testifying before the Senate Sub-committee on Aviation last week, Mr. Juan Trippe, President of the Pan-American Air- ways (the largest American international airline in operation before the war), mentioned incidentally that a fleet of eleven planes of the size recently ordered by Pan-American Airways could carry 440,000 passengers across the Atlantic in one year. (He added that the passage would probably cost too dollars—k25.) Add all internal flying and all the flying by other international lines, and the total of machines required will still seem almost trivial compared with the inflated figures to which military aviation has accustomed us. There will, of course, no doubt, be some new construction on mili- tary account, but if the beaten nations are really effectively disarmed, existing fleets ought to meet every essential requirement for a long time to come.
Mr. Isaac Foot has addressed an Open Letter to Dr. C. E. M. Joad on the subject of statements made by the latter in a recent interview in the Sunday Dispatch (where he figures as "Britain's most famous philosopher "), in particular the announcement that on Victory Day
"I propose to thank God on my knees for His merciful pie-
servation of our country, in spite of all our faults and foolish- nesses,- and for His no less merciful preservation of my own miserable life. Having done so, I propose to go and get tight afterwards with a good conscience."
Mr. Foot, who does not agree that " the pleasures of drinking and sex are comparatively harmless," gets in some shrewd hits, but perhaps his best service is in calling attention in advance to this notable feature of the Victory celebrations. The Almighty will no doubt be extremely gratified at the first part of the programme. With regard to the latter, it is to be hoped that Dr. Joad, overt coming for once his well-known aversion to publicity, will execute his intention in such conditions as to enable his many admirers to appraise adequately the relative attractions of Britain's most famous philosopher drunk and the same sober.
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If any reader of this column has ninepence to spare, which is not impossible, he could hardly spend it better than on the reprint of St. John Ervine's Parnell, just published as a Penguin book. Mr. Ervine has his prejudices, and they are not all of them con- cealed here, but he has dramatised brilliantly and movingly (with- out ever doing violence to history) the career of one of the most impressive and tragic figures that have ever moved on the stage of English or Irish politics. I have not found many books more absorbing.
I am sorry that my handwriting should have put me.and my printer at variance again, leading me to suggest that Voltaire charged this country with having a hundred religions and only one source. Not source—SAUCE. But Voltaire, it seems, was not even accurate. According to M. Andre Simon, writing in the current issue of Wine and Food (and who should know better than M. Simon?), there are at least six native English sauces, among them mint sauce. Not everyone had thought of the mint sauce of Old England as among
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