SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
So we are all conservationists now. The movement to protect and preserve the natural environment has gathered recruits, at a rate which recalls that celebrated mass conversion to Christianity when a Chinese general had all his troops baptised by hose- pipe. People who have been writing jeremiads on the subject for years ought to feel grate- ful and I'm sure we do; besides, a mass out- break of sanity is hardly a fit subject for cynicism or even too overt scepticism. All the same, it is worth remarking, in the gentlest possible way, that the proof of this pudding will be in the eating. The flood of articles and books which has greeted Euro- pean Conservation Year is cheering but it won't of itself conserve anything at all.
After reading all that has been printed on the subject in recent days I find myself wish- ing that the central part played by money in all this was emphasised more often. The usual characteristic of pollution in all its forms, whether it be emitting jet engine noise or dumping poison in the sea or wrecking a landscape, is that it is the cheapest or most profitable course of action. To manage affairs in a more civilised way is more ex- pensive. If 'conservation' is ever to become anything but a fashionable subject for dis- content (and at least it's reached that stage) then we will all have to choose to be poorer (in narrow money terms) in order to avoid exhausting the wealth of our surroundings.
This may not be too difficult a decision to take in theory but when it comes to specific cases it is a different story. Look at what is happening to the national parks—admirable in conception, and undergoing repeated erosion for economic ends. Which is 'worth' more—the North Yorkshire moors, or the potash mining area which they may well become? We are so unaccustomed to measuring value in any but money terms that we haven't even got a vocabulary with which to discuss the question without recourse to bureaucratic jargon about 'amenity value'. That is why the conservationist bandwagon, although suddenly crowded with passengers, is not necessarily going anywhere.
Honours uneven
Something will surely have to be done about the honours system soon. The latest list contains, naturally, the names of many men and women of excellent attainments but it also suggests the almost total absence of any rational method by which the prizes are handed out. It doesn't even have the justi- fication that it is merely upholding estab- lished tradition, since Mr Wilson has de- cided, off his own bat, to drop hereditary honours from the pattern. The best case for bestowing public honours in this way is that they should be earned by public service: an easy rule to propound but leading to great difficulties when it comes to defining public service. In its present form the list reflects a confusion of different definitions.
Lady Masham has clearly done an im- mense amount of unpaid work on behalf of people disabled like herself: she re- presents one definition. Eamorm Andrews or the disc jockey Pete Murray have no doubt given pleasure to many on radio and tele- vision in the course of their lucrative careers: they represent another definition. Captain Terence O'Neill sought power through politics and for a time exercised it: another
definition. One could continue. The thing tends to resemble a sort of secondary premium bond lottery, with the difference that instead of buying your stake in the game outright you gain it by getting in the public eye in one way or another (it hardly matters which). For my part, I feel that both the honours and the system would attract more respect if 'public service' were to be interpreted in a far more rigorous sense.
Account rendered
One attractive reform I've heard advocated is that the honours list should be much more explicit about the nature of the services which it is rewarding. Such woolly citations as 'for services to philately' would be pro- hibited: instead every honour would require a detailed account of the service performed, as is already supplied with military decora- tions. This would bring several advantages. For one thing it would, I imagine, sharply reduce the number of awards. It would also eliminate a certain amount of humbug. It would gratify those selected for well-earned honours. It would also make highly interest- ing reading.
There is something unsatisfactory about many of the time-honoured citations, in any case. For example, we are told that Mr John Beavan, of the Daily Mirror, was made a life peer 'for services to journalism'. Without being ungenerous about his distinguished career, it could fairly be said that there are numerous other men in Fleet Street (and in the provinces) whose 'services to journalism' are of the same order. But Mr Beavan will be a useful Labour recruit in the House of Lords. In all probability future political services, as much as past journalistic services, account for his peerage. Why not say 'so?
Public enemies
Mr Wilson's little jokes about Mr Heath's 'maritime exploits are a foretaste of the kind of personal sparring the two men will engage in during the election. It's interesting to speculate just how acid the conflict be- tween them will be, especially since Mr Wilson on form is by far the more accom- plished practitioner of the personal taunt.
On the other hand, although it is some- times said that politics are tougher and a more ruthless rat-race than ever, it is highly unlikely that personal relations between the two leaders will sink to the poisoned level of those which long existed between Gladstone and Disraeli. This famous enmity was ex- amined in masterly fashion by Robert Blake in his Leslie Stephen lecture at Cambridge last November, which is now reprinted by the university press as a pamphlet. The de- testation and even hatred which the two eminent Victorians exchanged still seems un- comfortably real in these pages, with Dizzy referring to 'that unprincipled maniac Glad- stone—extraordinary mixture of envy, vin- dictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition' and Gladstone commenting with unbelievable harshness on Disraeli's dying wish to be buried in the country beside his wife: 'As he lived, so he died—all display without reality or genuineness.' There has never subse- quently been so bitter a hostility between party leaders and none is in sight. It was a singular product of accidents of tempera- ment and of political history.
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