SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
GEORGE HUTCHINSON
An unseasonable gloom, more dismal than the weather, seems to be settling over much of our sceptred isle just now. As the summer days slip by I find that you can hardly go anywhere without hearing the awful notes of national doom and ruin. 'Another sterling crisis by the autumn,' they say, or even 'A second devalua- tion in a few months.' One is reminded of Mr King, or overseas bankers are cited, or there is flesh word from the City, or else it's the simple personal conviction that nothing can prosper under Mr Wilson and we must therefore ex- pect the worst. I go halfway with Lord Beaver- brook's prewar slogan, suitably adapted, and predict that there will be no devaluation this year.
What of the corollary that usually accom- panies these forecasts of impending disaster-- that a further severe financial crisis, even with- out a devaluation, would force Mr Wilson to resign and go to the country at once? Myself, I don't believe it. Mr Wilson would be much more likely to explain things as best he could and stay right where he is, at 10 Downing Street.
There is, however, one slender ground for hope in this unhappy event, and it involves the Queen. In his hefty Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, Dicey, our greatest authority, asserts that the Sovereign would be justified in dissolving Parliament against the Prime Minister's advice if 'there is fair reason to suppose that the opinion of the House is not the opinion of the electors.' By 'opinion' he means, no doubt, opinion on more than one issue of fundamental importance —i.e. confidence in the Government. 'A disso- lution is allowable or necessary,' Dicey con- tinues, 'whenever the wishes of the legislature are, or may fairly be presumed to be, different from the wishes of the nation.' Right. The Opposition could frame a broad motion of censure. Whatever majority the Government might whip up in defending themselves, the public opinion polls could quickly discover whether 'the opinion of the House' was also the opinion of the electors. If it wasn't, the Queen could act. Whether Sir Michael Adeane and her other advisers would have the nerve to recommend this is perhaps a little uncertain.
'Only three survived, While our minds are on constitutional affairs, let's glance at the Lords.1 have a little footnote to the larger hoo-hah. Just in-case Mr Wilson does what he would really like to do (of course the Cabinet may not let him), the hereditary peers, except first creations, had better prepare themselves for expulsion from the Upper Hduse. But three of -them, according to my reckoning, can face the future untroubled by the late now threatening all the others who sit there by inheritance. They are the Lords Salisbury, Egremont and Longford, two Tories and a Socialist. These three, before inheriting older peerages, had already been created peers in their own right. Lord Salis- bury, before succeeding his father as the fifth marquess, joined the House as Lord Cecil of Essendon. Lord Egremont was made a peer under That title, which he still uses, before he became the sixth Lord Leconfield. And Lord Longford, years before we knew him by that name, had been raised to the peerage as
Lord Pakenham. So they ought to be safe enough. That's real privilege.
And here's a Imely irony. peers, when ex- pelled from the lords, will inevitably become eligible to stand for the Commons. I foresee a House of Commons rich in Lords.
Who is for liberty ?
A British aeroplane with two British pilots is hijacked over the Mediterranean, an important African passenger, always friendly to Britain, is kidnapped and he is then placed in captivity by the government of the country in which, willynilly, they all land. What happens? Natur- ally, Britain acts to secure the release of the pilots, who have also been imprisoned, and the return of the plane. But have we no duty to the captured passenger as well? A year later, a year this very weekend, Moise Tshombe, former prime minister of the Congo, is still held incommunicado in Algiers—and the British government have done nothing for him. I find it quite shameful that apart from the writer Ian Colvin nobody of consequence seems to take any interest in his fate. The Foreign Office have told Mr C'olvin. author of The Rise and Fall of Moist Tshombe, that Britain is under no obligation to intervene with the Algerian government.
Some experts in international law think differently, however. Seven years ago, eighty hirs signed a motion calling for action to obtain Tshombe's release from political detention in his own country. He was then a rebel, but before long he was released. Whatever our legal re- sponsibility now, couldn't some of them do the same for him again by applying pressure to the Foreign Secretary on the simple ground of humanity?
Silliness in Surrey
Many able and successful MPS would not be in Parliament today if they had been subjected to the deplorable method of selection inflicted on Geoffrey Howe and Christopher Chataway by the Reigate Tories. They would have been turned down as candidates because they didn't shine under the prolonged strain of television or because their wises didn't appeal to the massed ranks of the selectorate. As an exhibi- tion of pretentious self-importance, the antics of Mr Waugh, the Reigate chairman, and his fellow impresarios would be hard to beat.
Betting bureaucracy
Aren't the advocates of a national lottery, for which the Finance Bill makes tentative pro- vision, a bit reckless in assuming that the Exchequer would gain by it? The Exchequer could easily lose, and lose heavily, because a large-scale lottery (costing a mint to administer) Would take business away from the football pools. And the pools. 1 am told, are now pro- ducing some £42 million a year in betting duty, all collected without pain to the taxpayer. Myself, I'd rather have this and let the pro- moters enjoy their no doubt swollen profits (profits swollen, that is, by the national mania for gambling) than see yet another addition to the bureaucracy in the form of a State Lottery Board with an expensive army of officials.
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