Frank Pick has left behind a little book, Paths to
Peace (Rout- ledge, 2s. 6d.), which he would have been glad to think of as his testament. In the last letter I had from him, towards the end of last month, he said, " I hope you got my new tract and did not disagree with it too much." There was time, fortunately, to tell him how much the book had interested me. Pick was filled with moral, rather than political, indignation at Lord Vansittart's Black Record, and his "tract" is a reaction to that much-discussed pamphlet. The headings of its two chapters, " The Sword of the Spirit " and " The Armour of Light," reflect the idealistic and religious side of Pick, which was very real, but he was far too sane and able a business-man, as his record at the London Passenger Transport. Board showed, to write any mere " tract " on peace. The book is applied Christianity at its best and, without agreeing with every sentence of it, I recom- mend it unreservedly as a most valuable stimulus to constructive thinking. Another of Pick's many sides was illustrated by his chairmanship of the Board of Trade's Council on Art and Indus- try. In that capacity he was mainly responsible for the British Pavilion at the Paris Exhibition of 1937, and I visited it under his skilled guidance. There is no harm in mentioning now that a recent article in The Spectator called " Puddleton Magna," by Cincinnatus, was from his pen. He declined payment for it, and his fee was used to pay subscriptions to The Spectator to three or four people who could not otherwise have obtained the paper. Letters of thanks, " under false pretences," as he put it, reached him at intervals.
Previous page
