A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WHETHER Mr. Hugh Gaitskell succeeds or fails as Chan- cellor of the Exchequer—and I personally shall be sur- prised if he fails, formidable as the task is—he will quite certainly carry everyone's goodwill with him as he assumes his new burden. In all the offices he has filled so far he has done conspicuously well, grasping complex situations, knowing his own mind and express- ing his view with firmness but with courtesy. Among possible successors to Sir Stafford Cripps Mr. Gaitskell would, I think, be the first choice in informed political circles, as he was Mr. Attlee's. And it is clear that the change was un- avoidable. ,,That Sir-Stafford has spent himself in the service of the country is recognised as fully by his political opponents as by his political friends, but that he is temporarily spent is indisputable. Part of the trouble, I fancy, is a constitutional inability to spare himself. The tasks he has shouldered— responsibility for the nation's economic as well as its financial affairs-,no doubt involved inevitably some overwork, but Sir Stafford, it seemed, could never stop working at all. Now he finds himself compelled to, and everyone will hope that the enforced rest will restore all the vigour that he used to possess. * * * *
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