More New Ministers
The creation of a War Cabinet is discussed in a leading article on a later page, and comment here may therefore be confined to the few Ministerial changes outside that body—which it is now clear will in effect be a body of ten, not nine, since Mr. Eden, as Dominions Secretary, will sit regularly in order to be able to keep the Dominions continually informed of Cabinet decisions. Lord Macmillan is an admirable choice as Minister of Information. To a legal training, valuable though not essential in such a post, he adds a wide and liberal outlook, with singular freedom from pedantry. Restrictions on the freedom of the Press there must inevitably be in wartime, but Lord Macmillan can be counted on to see that none are imposed unnecessarily. Mr. Morrison, as a former Minister of Agriculture, should be well qualified to direct the Food Ministry, though home production can only meet a small part of our needs, and the administration of an efficient rationing scheme might perhaps be more suited to the capacities of a successful business man, like the late Lord Devonport or Lord Rhondda, two of the Food Controllers in the last war. The appointment of Mr. Ronald Cross as Minister of Economic Warfare is a surprise. Mr. Cross has made no special mark as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, and it is difficult to rredit him with a tithe of the special qualifications possessed by such a man, for example, as Sir Arthur Salter, for the particular post he is to fill.
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