A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
GENERAL EISENHOWER'S announcement that V-Day will not be proclaimed till all important enemy pockets on the West front have been wiped out needs a little elucidation—does Norway come into that category? or the so-called Bavarian redoubt?—but in its essentials it is obvi- ously wise and will be generally welcome. There has been too much V-Day talk here at home, and too soon. The interval that will elapse now .should be eminently salutary. The national instinct seems to be thoroughly sound, for there has already been a healthy reaction against exuberance in celebration, and the idea that a normal citizen can greet V-Day both on his knees and in his eyes produces nothing but revulsion. The Army, I fancy, has been sounder on the whole business throughout. I have just been read- ing a private letter from a young Staff officer on the Western front. "One thing," he writes, on the subject of V-Day, "is the almost childish lack of reality displayed by the Press and wireless at home." Me points out that aftcr the apparent total defeat of Germany sporadic fighting will go on -for weeks or months, and asks perti- nently, " how is the mother going to feel whose son is killed during the V-Week celebrations? " I quote one other sentence from a very striking letter: " Let us by all means celebrate, give thanks that the German Army is beaten, the loss of life has become less, but realise that convalescence is often the worst part of a disease like tins." All that is incontestable. One task will end, only for another, different but hardly less formidable, to begin. The dominant notes of V-Day should be thankfulness, restraint and resolve.
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Observations made here last week regarding the importance of the Universities returning independent, rather than party-labelled, mem- bers to Parliament has since received a striking commentary in the return of Sir John Boyd Orr at the Scottish Universities bye-election by a majority of 12,020 (20,197 against 8,177) over his Liberal National opponent—a result the more notable in that the retiring member was Liberal National. Sir John Orr, with his extensive knowledge of every aspect of the subject of nutrition, will bring to discussions in the House of Commons precisely that contribution which a University member ought to bring, especially in regard to such A question as the international Food and Agriculture Organisation, which Mr. Stettinius commended to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week.
* * These are days in which, very satisfactorily, a number of people are beginning to ask what voluntary public service they can do in the anxious and critical days of reconstruction. There are obviously many answers. Here I only offer one. The work of Children's Care Comniittees in London (why so far in London only I don't know), has always seemed to me singularly valuable and important. There is a grave shortage of personnel, and I believe a public meeting is being held next week to bring the need to the attention of persons, men or women, capable of serving on such committees. The com- mittees concern themselves partly with the health and general wel- fare of children in primary schools, partly—and the importance of this is manifest—with the entry of the children into suitable employ- ment. The work, which involves visiting homes and engaging the in- terest of parents, can be done, and is often best done, in the evening. Hardly anything affects the national future so much as the welfart of the rising generation, and nothing, probably, after the efforts of the teachers, affects the welfare of that generation so much as the work of an able and conscientious Care Committee. Where can volunteers apply? To the Central Council of Care Committee% Room 161, London County Hall, S.E. I. * * * *
The ways of the Ministry of Works at a time of acute shortage of .men and materials are sometimes past finding out. In a Home Counties village last summer a flying bomb did considerable damage to a building consisting of a cottage and garage standing in the grounds of a larger house. The cottage has been repaired by the local authority in accordance with the normal practice. To put the garage into its original condition would, it is estimated, cost between Aoo and £5oo. Actually it. is being turned into an extension of the cottage, two extra bathrooms being constructed in addition to one already existing, as well as bedrooms with fitted basins, at a cost of k1,3oo—under licence from the Ministry of Works. This, it should be noted, is not for the benefit of the original owner, who has died since the place was blitzed, but for a newcomer who has never resided in the locality before. To add to the anomaly, this private work has absorbed all the local. labour, leaving none available for what is most urgently needed, the repair of a public building (blitzed at the same time) in which the life of the village is bound up. Does Mr. Duncan Sandys approve? * * * Of the many suggestions for a British memorial to President Roosevelt, the one that appeals to me most on its merits is the erection of a statue in Parliament Square somewhere in the vicinity of the Lincoln statue. London has Lincoln ; it also has a statue of Washington (half-size for some reason, in the grounds of the National Gallery for some reason). To argue which of these great men will ultimately fill the largest place in history would be futile and invidious. But this at least is incontestable, that Roosevelt did more for this country and this continent than either Washington or Lincoln. There is no danger that that will ever be forgotten, but to have him standing among us as Lincoln stands, as a reminder and a tribute, in the shadow of Parliament and the Abbey would satisfy peculiarly the emotions of this and coming generations. A statue, of course, need not exclude some further memorial.
* * * * The. B.B.C. is well accustomed ro both kicks and ha'pence- possibly getting more of the former than it deserves and fewer of the latter. Anyhow, here is one little bouquet for it to put in its window. The group of distinguished French medical men who recently visited London sent, after their return to Paris, a message expressing " in their own name and that of all France their gratitude to the B.B.C. for the support and encouragement it had unceasingly afforded through all the long and painful years of France's ordeal." There is no question that the tribute is well merited. The same sentiments are being voiced perpetually in every occupied country. * * * *
It would be bard to imagine anything in more deplorable taste than the heading—the sole heading—a London evening paper put over its account of the Memorial Service to President Roosevelt at St. Paul's:
CHURCHILL IN TEARS AT ROOSEVELT SERVICE Can private grief, however honourable and however deep, never he
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