25 OCTOBER 1946, Page 5

I have been involved in some discussion about whether the

new verse of the National Anthem, sung at the United Nations service at St. Paul's on Sunday, is better or worse than the one it displaced. Manifestly it could not be worse ; nothing on earth could. And if it were substantially better it would only create a grotesque incongruity. The National Anthem is naturally so consecrated by tradition that it is Use maiesti to say a word against it. I will therefore say only a very few words—that the dreariness of the tune seems admirably calculated to match the doggerel of the rhyme. Compare the Marseillaise, or " Land of My Fathers," or almost anything else you can think of.