A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
MR. ATTLEE'S minor ministerial changes are not very impres- sive and not a little perplexing. The promotion-of Mr. Hugh
Gaitskell to the Parliamentary Secretaryship of the Ministry of Fuel and Power is abundantly deserved, for Mr. Gaitskell is probably the most promising of the many promising younger men on the Labour benches. As has been observed, this is a significant replacement of a trade unionist by an intellectual ; and it is perhaps not surprising that the miners' M.P.s should protest. Mr. Gaitskell's advancement, if it does not (as inaccurately stated) add one more union to the Treasury Bench, does add one more Wykehamist to companion Sir Stafford Cripps. Much stranger is the substitution of Mr. A. G. Bottomley for Mr. John Parker as Under-Secretary for Dominion Affairs, for Mr. Parker has done well in a post made important by the fact that the Secretary of State, Lord Addison, is in the Upper House. Mr. Parker is perhaps being held in reserve for something better ; otherwise the change seems inexplicable. The Dominions Office deserves better than it has got in either House.
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