A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
AGOOD deal might be said about the Stanhope episode of a week ago, and much of it is better left unsaid. But the Portsmouth speech has at least drawn attention to the fact that Lord Stanhope is First Lord of the Admiralty, and set a good many people asking themselves why Lord Stanhope is First Lord of the Admiralty. The question is not easily answered. Lord Stanhope is a brave and distinguished soldier who has pursued a normal and undistinguished political career. He has been associated with various Minis- tries—the War Office, the Foreign Office, the Office of Works, and the Board of Education. And he was Civil Lord of the Admiralty from 1924 to 1929 and Financial Secretary for a couple of months in 1931. As a peace-time First Lord he might serve as well as many First Lords of the last fifty years. But we are not living under peace condi- tions, and we need a First Lord in whose direction of naval policy complete confidence can be placed when the fleet may be in action at any moment. It is possible, of course, that the Prime Minister has persuaded himself in all sincerity that he has searched the kingdom for the best man to control the British Navy in a crisis in which that Navy may deter- mine the destiny of democracy, and has found him in the Earl of Stanhope ; but I should doubt it.
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