A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK T SPOKE here last week of the
loyal reticence of the .I. Press in the last nine or twelve months regarding the King's affairs. No one, I imagine, can doubt now that though thoroughly well-intentioned—and, inasmuch as it involved sacrifice, to the papers' credit—it was thoroughly mistaken. Restrained and prudent comment on the difficulties to which the King's increasingly warm friendship with a married woman might lead would in all likelihood have prompted on the part of all directly and indirectly concerned reflections calculated to prevent anything like the present situation from arising. As it was, the headlines and the sensational articles in the American Press have made the United States a humiliat- ing country for an Englishman to travel in this summer and autumn, and the jests and stories that have been going the rounds in this country in clubs and places where they talk have been as disastrous to the prestige of .royalty as anything that appeared in print on the other side. All that has come of the silence is that millions of the King's loyal subjects have learned suddenly with surprise and dismay of a situation which in journalistic and other circles has been a matter of common knowledge for months past. As a whole they have reacted so soundly and so decisively as to make it certain that public opinion would have played a salutary part at a much earlier stage if it had had the opportunity.
Recent speculations in this column on the effect Mr. Winston Churchill's assumption of the leadership of the new "armed preparedness" campaign would have on his political future were, relevant enough when they were printed. They are completely irrelevant today. Mr. Churchill has hopelessly compromised not only himself but the cause for which he is working by his persistent intervention in the constitutional crisis. The resentment displayed against him in the House of Commons on Monday was almost without precedent, having regard to the positions he has held, and the fact that he paid a long visit to the King last week, even with the knowledge and consent of Mr. Baldwin, and issued a public statement afterwards embodying his views on the situation, has been received with hardly less disfavour in the country. No one will deny Mr. Churchill's gifts, but a flair for doing the right thing at the right moment—or not doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment—is no part of them. He has utterly misjudged the temper of the country and the temper of the House, and the reputation which he was beginning to shake off of a wayward genius unserviceable in counsel, has settled firmly on his shoulders again. * * On Tuesday a private aeroplane flew in shocking weather from London to Marseilles, and its three passengers hurried on to Cannes where Mrs. Ernest Simpson is staying. Who were they, and what was their obviously urgent errand ? An official statement kindly explained. They were Mrs. Simpson's solicitor and his clerk, and a doctor. Why a solicitor ? Oh, to arrange details about closing up Mrs. Simpson's town house. And why a doctor ? Oh, in case the solicitor, who had not flown before, got air-sick. What could be more natural ? It is a moment- ous business to decide whether to put in a caretaker or put up a notice-board. Telephones were never meant for vital matters like that.
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The new weekly paper, The Tribune, which is to serve as mouthpiece for Sir Stafford Cripps and those who share his views counts, I gather, on a circulation of 50,000. Since the price is to be twopence that estimate does not seem excessive, though the number,. of those who feel the need of an 'organ of this particular shade of left wing opinion must be limited. Sir Stafford himself is chairman of the Tribune's board, with Mr. -Aneurin Bevan and Miss Ellen Wilkinson among his colleagues, and the paper will be edited by Mr. William Mellor, who once performed the same service for the Daily Herald. The I.L.P. section of the left wing still has the rather exiguous New Leader. The Tribune is apparently to be an organ of the left-wing intellectuals like Mr. 13railsford, Professor Laski and Mr. J. B. S. Haldane.
* * * * The graceful little speech in which Lord Crewe, in the House of Lords on Monday, incidentally referred to himself "as one who, like very few of your lordships, has had the honour of serving three former sovereigns in a position of confidence" must have sent a good many people's memories searching into the past. The last Liberal Ministry of Queen Victoria's reign went out of office in 1895, so that we are carried back forty years at least. Actually Lord Crewe, who will be 79 next month, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland under that administration. He had been Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen nine years before that—fifty years ago.
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Beaded Bubbles Winking at the King ". DEAR SIR, "In pursuance of a serious disease Of Mr. Sauvignier, this latter was obliged to sell his marks and the vatfuls relating to them.
"Taking back again his traditions, which were to offer you, each year, at feast time, Champagne proceeding directly from maker, we come in order to say you that, as gift of merry accession, we shall practise to you very particular conditions about our two qualities :—
REs ImPERATOR EDWARD VII.
"Vintage 1921 by case of twelve bottles .. 100 shillings. "Vintage 1926 by case of twelve bottles .. 90 shillings.
"We -hope easily that you shall avail yourself of this offer, and we shall be glad to receive your orders. "In the meantime we are, Dear Sir, "Yours obediently, "SOCIETY OF CHAMPAGNE OF " JEANSON'S VINE-CELLAR."
Surely not Edward VII—if any Edward. Jexcs;
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