A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK S IR STAFFORD CRIPPS' informed and admirable speech
in the debate on the Gresford disaster in the House of Commons on Tuesday raises a question of some interest both to Parliament and the Bar. Sir Stafford appeared as counsel for the Miners' Federation in the Gresford enquiry conducted before the Chief Inspector of Mines and two assessors (incidentally he renounced his fee), and therefore possessed unusually full knowledge of the whole circumstances. But it is, I believe, an established convention that a barrister, if he happens to be an M.P., shall not take part in a debate on a subject which has concerned him professionally. The reason is fairly clear. In this case, for example, the House was theoretically considering, if not in a judicial capacity at any rate in a judicial spirit, the Gresford findings, and for one who appeared as advocate at the enquiry to transmute himself suddenly into judge is obviously open to some objection. But whether there is not more to be said against the convention than for it is arguable. There is definite loss if men who can contribute to a debate from special knowledge are debarred from doing so. In this particular debate what applied to Sir Stafford Cripps applied equally to Mr. Arthur Henderson.
* * * *- A casual visitor to London would find it hard to believe that a campaign for the election of a body governing four and .a half million people was within a week of its climax. One reason, no doubt, is that the L.C.C. does not, in fact, govern ; it only administers—or very little more. Anyhow, public interest in the election is singularly small, and I confess with some sense of shame that I do not even know whether there is a contest in my own borough or not. For that reason I find the best judges reluctant to prophesy the result. The swing of the pendulum will tell against Labour, but it has the whole machinery of the trade unions, trade councils and co-operative societies to back it, and one way and another is said, rather surprisingly, to be spending more money than the Municipal Reformers. It is not a good thing for London that the parties in municipal politics should have become as clear-cut and rigidly disciplined as they are. In the old days of Progressives and Moderates members used to vote against their party freely when they thought their party wrong. Now Parliamentary classification has been introduced, and with it Parliamentary regimentation.
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The world will suffer some loss of entertainment when the Oxford election campaign ends on Saturday. The corre- spondence in The Times between Professor Lindemann and the Bursar of New College on the general question of whether it was Professor Lindemann or Sir Farquhar Buzzard that " butted in," and whether the Conservative Committee was a discredited caucus or a body of weight and influence, has done a lot to relieve the dullness of a university contest, and the bland comments of the Daily Telegraph's Oxford correspondent on " the fact that Sir Farquhar Bn77ard by his candidature has split the Conservative vote," should have a sharp effect on the emotions of the official candidate's supporters. In the midst of it Sir Arthur Salter (who, incidentally, has still further split the Conservative vote by enlisting under his banner Conservatives like the Principals of Hertford and Brasenose) is left very much the tertius gaudens, and if those of his supporters who have put off voting till the last moment do not put it off altogether, he may very well find himself Member for Oxford by Sunday. But which way the country voters will go is unpredictable.
* * * * A subject on which I, and I daresay some people in Whitehall, would like to have more information is Pantellaria. What, it may be asked, is Pantellaria, anyway ? Well, it is an island, belonging to Italy, and lying roughly half-way between Sicily and Tunis. Actually it is rather nearer Sicily, the distance being 44 miles, against 62 between Pantellaria and the African coast. As an aeroplane and submarine base the island virtually controls the passage between the western and eastern Mediterranean. News about what is happening there seems hard to come by, but it is certain that plenty would be heard of it in any war in which Italy was engaged. It adds to Gibraltar and Alexandria a third point at which communications through the Mediterranean could be blocked, and it is pretty certainly far stronger than it was twelve months ago. * * * * The German play about Lody, the first German spy to be shot in England during the War, is hardly likely, I imagine, to be brought here. I am sorry, because I attended part of the trial, and a comparison between the actual proceedings and the stage version of them would be interesting. Actually there was nothing remotely dramatic about the court-martial (Lord Cheylesmore, if I remember rightly, presided), con- ducted in a sombre and by no means spacious room at West- minster, and Lody himself was a very =theatrical and unimpressive figure. There is no reason to believe that he sent home secrets of importance, but he was undoubtedly guilty, and he gave the impression that, having risked his life with his eyes open, he was reconciled to his Me.
* * * * There are some conventions that die unnecessarily hard. Journalism, with all its enterprise, can be. surprisingly hide- bound. Take The Times, whose frolicsome headlines I have more than once had occasion to admire. Its ban on the first person singular where its regular correspondents are concerned is to all appearance as rigid as ever. Last Tuesday, for example, in a despatch from Almeria—" Your correspondent has visited several sectors of the front." Seventeen letters instead of one, where the one would have been about seventeen times as effective. Still, of course, the habit makes for so satisfying a sentence as " Your corres- pondent has corresponded with the co-respondent."
* * * * The Quick and the Dead " The Bench at Saffron Walden, Essex, yesterday decided that a motor hearse carrying a coffin was rightly classified as a goods vehicle. An undertaker was fined Lz for exceeding the 30 m.p.h. speed limit with a goods vehicle. It was alleged that the hearse's speed was from 40 to 45 miles an
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