A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK .
THERE are times when the spread of rumours is pernicious, and times when it has its advantages. This is one of the latter. All the world is waiting in impatience and curiosity for the launching of an Allied offensive, but nowhere is the curiosity so earnest and
so anxious as in the Axis camp, and the rumours with which the air is thick make the perplexity admirably perplexing. The Allied radio is helping here particularly. Belgians are told that a systematic bombing of their war-factorids is about to begin. What does that portend? The French in France are sent: repeated messages about how to behave when the now imminent invasion comes. Italy is being given repeated warnings and exhortations. Gibraltar harbour, overlooked by relays of German observers at La Linea, is full per- petually of invasion-craft arriving one day and gone the next, only to be replaced by others like them. So is the harbour at Bizerta. The Turco-Syrian frontier is closed and opened again. To the information thus scattered on the winds Cairo and Ankara— the latter with pertinent references to the Balkans—add their helpful quota. Where is Germany to concentrate her anti-invasion reserves?. What coast-line is vital ; what can she afford to hold lightly? The chief menace is apparently thought to be to Italy, and German troops are boing rushed there. But where from? The Russian front? If so the Allies are already doing. Russia notable service. How much of this is calculated manoeuvre on the Allies' part .I have no means of knowing ; certainly by no means all. But every scrap of it is doing valuable work.
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Lord Wootton has been expressing satisfaction in the non- existence of any black market in this country. That is altogether too complacent. It depends, no doubt; to some extent on what that rather vague term " black market " means. But any reader. of the daily papers knows that people are constantly beinj convicted of buying or selling goods at something above the con- trolled prices. Less than a month ago one of the largest London hotels was heavily fined, and two persons connected with it sent to prison, for obtaining much above the legal amount of fish in a given period. I know of a purchaser for a well-known catering establishment who says he can get as many chickens as he wants if he will pay 2s. 6d. a lb. for them, but at the controlled price of is. Ind. none, or virtually none. So it is with all kinds of other commodities, and if Lord Woolton does not know it his ignorance must be unique. It can safely be assumed that for every con- viction there are hundreds of undetected illegal transactions, for the good reason that the transactions are verbal, between two parties without witnesses, and if one alleges he has been offered goods- at higher than the market-price, the other has only to deny it if charged with an offence. That makes it impossible for the Ministry of Food to prosecute in 99 cases out of too.
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Commander King-Hall, I observe, has formally launched his Friends of Hansard on its, or their, precarious career. The trouble is that while there is always something of interest in answers to questions there is all too frequently nothing to kindle appetite in the speeches. As evidence of the truth of my first statement, I need only turn to the last Hansard to come in, even as I am writing. I learn from it with some surprise, but with no dissatisfaction, that a number of plays now drawing large audiences, like Love for Love and The Moon is Down and Tobias and the Angel are relieved of Entertainment Duty on the ground that they are produced for partly educational purposes by a society, institution or committee not conducted-Or established for profit; that; in the opinion of Mr. Noel Baker, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of. Transport; sharks " are not as dangerous- as- is- commonly believed. They rarely attack a boat, and can usually be scared off by: vigorous
splashing or by a crack on. the snout " (L should like to see a demonstration of this by Mr. Noel. Baker and a shark or two in the experimental tank at the National. Physical Laboratory) ; and that the foreign papers and. periodicals published in London without assistance from any Government department in the matter of paper include 24 Polish, xs Czechoslovak and—rather surprisingly—it German and 7 Austrian. All this, and a great deal more, for sixpence.
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The root of the trouble in the French National Liberation. Com- mittee was, L understand; General de Gaulle's insistence on. getting
rid of a number of the older Army officers, and replacing them. by younger. men. In that he may have been right or wrong, but it is of some interest to recall some observations by General Wavell on that subject, he himself being 46 when he made them in the course of his Lees-Knowles lectures at Cambridge. Discussing the demand for young generals, he observed: Julius Caesar and Cromwell began their serious soldiering
when well over the age-of 4o ; Marlboiough was 61 at the time of his most-admired manoeuvre, when he forced the Ne Plus
Ultra lines ;"Turenne's last campaign at the age of 63 is said to have been his boldest and best. Moltke, the most competent of the moderns, made his name at the age of 66; and con- firmed. his reputation at 70.
But General Wavell conceded all the same that " there is no doubt that a good young general will usually beat a good old one "—which goes some way towards establishing General de Gaulle's case. * * * * Ever since January I have been waiting for the 1942 issue of the Annual Register, in the absence of which all sorts of things that should be easy are irritating and difficult. Now it has come—from Longmans, who publish it at 42s.—so when you want the facts or the data of anything of importance that happened last year, you have only to reach out a hand to the Annual Register shelf and take down the latest addition to the long row of volumes. Burke bene- fited humanity as signally when he wrote, or got written, the first volume of the Annual Register in. 1758 (I happen to possess the 1765 volume, and fascinatingly interesting it is) as when he wrote down his Thoughts on the French Revolution. I have one comment to make on the volume before me. The names of the writers of some of the articles in foreign countries are given, and for the most part they are not impressive. Anonymity throughout might be better.
* * * * "Now Humphrey Clinker is in 'Everyman's Library' I intend to read it again."—Desmond MacCarthy in the Sunday Times.
—and perhaps discover in the course of that exercise that Smolktt did not spell Humphry Humphrey.
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