BOOKS OF THE DAY

Waste Paper

Your M.P. By "Gracchus." (Gollancz. as. 6d.)

" DID you read Guilty Men?" enquires the publisher in purple, yellow and black. " If your M.P. is a Tory you will find him in the index (this is untrue)--" if not read it just the same. The firs three editions total roo,000."

Your M.P., by " Tiberius Gracchus," takes its place with the Trial of Mussolini by " Cassius " and Guilty Men by " Cato" as one of a series of -documents designed to show that upon the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party alone rests the responsibility for our deplorable weakness which led to the second world war and our early disasters in it.

For no apparently adequate reason the contentious political matter of this electioneering pamphlet is woven round the story of an imaginary Conservative M.P.—Major Patriot, O.B.E., whose only son is killed at Dunkirk, and who in the course of an interminable railway journey to Nottingham in order to break the news to his wife reads the late Sir Arnold Wilson's Thoughts and Talks and ultimately seeks the Chiltern Hundreds because he had come to believe that " his politics .has killed his son." This story, told without taste or skill, serves only to divert attention from the main purpose.

To " Tiberius Gracchus " the deeper causes of the war are not worthy of mention. Of the initial defection of the United States from the League not a word is said. The long and tortured foreign policy of Russia between the Rapallo Pact and the Russo-German agreement of 1939 (now happily abandoned) is considered only of importance in so far as Conservative criticisms of Russian policy going back in some cases as far as 1919 are collected and quoted as evidence that Major Patriot " thought Hitler was in his own way rather admirable." To the history of France no attention is given, and there is no discussion of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, the Balkans, Abyssinia or the Far East. No attempt whatever is made to estimate the extent to which the Left over here were right in treating the foreign policy of the Social Democrats or of Stresemann in Germany as genuinely pacific. Except for one passage devoted simply to the interpretation of the Peace Ballot no account is given of the Disarmament and Pacifist movements here or in the United States, and no attempt made to discuss either their effect on public opinion or the extent to which they prevented a realistic view of the situation.

These omissions alone render it impossible to treat this work as a serious contribution to political study. But unfortunately criticism cannot stop there. The book is an attempt to pillory a group of politicians by quoting their less considered utterances. Quite obviously such an attempt may have a slight, if somewhat limited value, on condition either that an effort is made to compare the utterances of this group with the comparable utterances of their

rivals or to suggest a constructive policy tor me future. Unhappily this condition is not fulfilled. Quite obviously "Tiberius Gracchus"

realised that the utterances of the left could not bear scrutiny and that to reprint their speeches would be to convict them of a want of prescience at least equal to that of the Conservatives. He therefore proceeded to omit all reference to whatever facts or opinions did not suit his case. If Your M.P. were the only document on the years between the wars the student would judge that Mr. Churchill, supported by a host of patriotic leftists,

had been unceasingly urging the Conservative Party to pile up arms against Germany and had been defeated solely by the interest of

Conservatives in armament factories or the iron and steel trade. He might puzzle over the question why this interest should produce this paradoxical result, but of the real picture he would get no inkling from Your M.P.

The methods pursued to reach this remarkable position deserve closer attention. The volume contains the names of some three hundred and thirty Members of Parliament of which some three hundred and twenty odd are Conservative or Liberal National, and the remaining ten come in only for passing or eulogistic reference. "Tiberius Gracchus," apparently assisted by two gentlemen some- what whimsically referred to as researchers, writes his history by delving into the sillier speeches of the three hundred and twenty together with such titbits as the discarded refuse of the gossip columns, police court news, and reference books will yield and serves up the product as " evidence " that Major Patriot's son was killed at Dunkirk by the Conservative Party's policy.

Lest the reader should fear that I am overstating the case, let me offer a few specimens of this " research." " was in the

Dragoon Guards and married a niece of Lord Curzon " ". . .

is a director of several Companies, and Managing Director of the Duffryn Steel and Iron Works." " is a Company Director." In each case this is the only reference to the members concerned. Here is another example of "research." " . . . is unlucky in the police courts. He was fined again in 1943 for using improper language within the hearing of the highway." One wonders how in time of war anyone can find the heart or the leisure to waste his time in dismal muck-raking of this kind.

All this would be relatively unimportant, were it not for the fact that it is of some moment for the electorate to study quite ob- jectively the lessons to be learned of the unhappy period under review. To what extent are armaments the cause of war? Are armaments in our own hands or in those of the United States to be treated as the same for this purpose as. armaments in the hands of the Germans or the Japanese?

Would a softer peace have made any difference to the attitude of the German People except to accelerate the present hostilities? To what extent is U.S. participation essential to peace in Europe? What were the defects of the League? Can they be remedied? How can each of us learn to profit by the mistakes of the past?

To none of these questions does Your M.P. suggest an answer. It is perhaps not inappropriate that the same utter disregard of history which caused this electioneering pamphlet and its companion volumes to be concocted led their authors, or author, to adopt as suitable pseudonyms for a Socialist writer the names of a reac- tionary Roman slave owner, the aristocratic protagonist of a more than Venetian oligarchy and an agrarian reformer. Nor is it surprising that " Cato," " Cassius " and " Gracchus "—that bilious trinity—should have preferred the twilight of anonymity to the more decent sunshine of signed authorship.

QUINTIN HOGG.