A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WE are so afraid of seeming credulous, most of us, that suspiciousness becomes a necessary ingredient of save& faire. Any obvious explanation of an event must be wrong, and as sagacious beings we plunge assiduously into the search for the hidden meaning. If the Prime Minister is stated to be coming to London to be treated for nasal catarrh, the one thing certain is that he is not coming to London to be treated for nasal catarrh. We know all about these diplomatic illnesses. If we were told it was for nasal amputation, and the operation actually took place, that would only show how grave the international crisis was which led the Premier to such a sacrifice for the sake of secrecy. An American journalist has just written a book on the truth behind the censorships ; the genius he displays in investing plain facts with sensational interpretations would do credit to the imagination of Mr. Wells. The plain facts in this case I believe to be (dull though it seems) that the Prime Minister came to London to be treated for nasal catarrh, for that and nothing else ; that since Lord Halifax happened the next day to be sitting in his office on the other side of Downing Street the Premier saw no reason for re- fraining from a talk with him ; and that the same applied to Mr. Malcolm MacDonald when he dropped into Whitehall again after his day in Jerusalem. How characteristic of Mr. MacDonald's quiet, efficient methods, by the way, to slip off unnoticed like that. (And how differently would another Minister I could mention have staged his progress.) * * * * The evidently unwelcome publicity accorded to Mrs. Claud Mullins, and not less to her husband, Mr. Claud Mullins, the Metropolitan magistrate, as the result of the attempted suppression of Mrs. Mullins' name in a speed- limit case in which she was a defendant, is a salutary warning against all such endeavours to restrict publicity in the Courts. If Mrs. Mullins' name had been mentioned in the ordinary way, or what ought to be the ordinary way, when the case was called, there might have been a brief paragraph in the Press to the effect that the case had been dismissed, and that would have been the end of the matter. As it is, all the world has learned that an attempt was made, which the magistrate at the Court very properly quashed, to keep Mrs. Mullins' name out of the affair (there is nothing in the smallest degree to her discredit in it from first to last) and that Mr. Mullins, who has been more generously treated by the Press in the past than any other Metropolitan magis- trate of his seniority, banged the door in face of one journalist and told another to go to hell. Wise. men—and wise magis- trates—do not run foul of the Press ; it can always have the last word.
* * * * Sailors are blunt people, sometimes commendably blunt, and it is not particularly surprising to find Commodore Irving, of the ' Queen Mary,' remarking that he did not propose to claim for his ship the blue riband trophy, for the Cunard Company did not recognise it. The non-recognition is not _particularly surprising either. The trophy, which is, I believe, a silver cup, was instituted by Mr. H. K. Hales, who, according to his rather extensive autobiography in Who's Who, " presented the Trophy for the fastest crossing between Europe and America, held formerly by the Italian steamship Rex ' and later by the French steamship ' Nor- mandie.' " Why Mr. Hales, you possibly ask, and who, moreover, is Mr. Hales ? Read Arnold Bennett's The Card and you will know. For Mr. Hales was the prototype of The Card ; he has indeed written an " Autobiography of ' The Card.' " And he sat in the House of Commons for four years. Since then the ' Rex,' and later the Normandie have conferred on him equal, fame with their designers and navigators as the donor of the trophy. Commodore Irving and the Cunard Company prefer not to ; and perhaps they are right. Mr. Hales lives at a house called Selahrble- Selah, as the perspicacious will ahead y have noted, being Hales spelled backwards. Commodore Irving, I should judge, prefers it that way round (if, as some hold; Selah means full-stop).
* * * * A word further on the political situation at Ormskirk, to which I made reference last week. Commander King-Hall, the National Labour candidate, about whose chances the sitting National Labour Member, Sir Thomas Rosbotham, expressed doubts, is a swift and resolute strategist. His speech to his local committee in Ormskirk was a vigorous and entertaining performance, and as result of it Sir Thomas Rosbotham has found it was all a mistake, and has under- taken to write to the Press (including the London paper which had decided that Commander King-Hall should not sit for Ormskirk) saying how ardently he desires the Commander's election—which the whole episode should make distinctly more probable.
* * * * The offer of Sir John Dashwood, the owner of the famous mausoleum on the hill over West Wycombe, to hand the edifice over to the National Trust if the Trust can raise £600 to put it in order seems a little perplexing. The mausoleum is stated to be in " a serious state of disrepair," which the National Trust is to remedy if it can find the money. But why is the mausoleum in this state ? I understand it contains the tombs of Sir John Dashwood's ancestors, and Sir John, who owns over 5,000 acres, is not reputed to be a poor man. Are the National Trust's the right shoulders to bear the burden of the dilapidation ?
* * * * A Berlin registrar has refused to accept the name Joshua for a new-born child on account of its Hebrew associations, and the Courts have upheld him. This is very worrying. What is Dr. Josef Goebbels going to-do about what in the circumstances had better be called hisprenotn? It is true that has an alternative, for his full name is Paul Josef Goebbels. But there was another. Paul, who also made 'speeches, and said in one of them that God bath made of one blood all nations of men. If Dr. Goebbels' parents had only had some foresight !
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