A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
AM not sure how much truth there is behind the report
I
that Sir John Reith is anxious to bring the British Council under the authority of the Ministry of Information. In one way I could wish the report true, for the spectacle of a conflict between two such forceful personalities as the Minister of Information and Lord Lloyd would have con- siderable entertainment value—if there were not another and a larger conflict in progress. On every other ground the annexation would be very definitely a step in the wrong direction. The British Council is undisguisedly semi- official, but not more, at the outside, than semi, and its aims are quite different from those of the Ministry. It is pur- suing a long-term aim of building up permanent centres of British culture, not necessarily and not generally political, all over Europe and much of Asia and Latin America. No doubt it is serving immediate Allied purposes at the present time, but to tar it with the brush of war-propaganda would be to handicap it gravely, in some countries even fatally, for years to come. All the independence it has it ought to keep. * * * *
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