Communication

A Letter from Oxford

[To the Editor of Tun ScEeyrron.]

is recorded that Mr. A. P. Herbert. having avoided forfeiting his £150 deposit, has hurriedly collected the paltry £10 or so which he needed in order to take his B.A., Oxon., and has proceeded in one stride to that degree and his M.A. too. Perhaps, after all, it is the function of University .It epre- mutation to salt the vulgar seriousness of polities, and not (as.old-fashioned people thought) to enable men of intellectual eminence to sit in the Commons. 'Mr. Herbert's election has at least killed two legends : first, that the country parson sways

the University vote, and secondly, that \TI'Sity electorate' has more sense of responsibility than the uneducated classes.

There is, however, another and more serious lesson to be

drawn from this election. The vast majority of the votes cast for A. P. H. were east against the Conservative caucus and for a brilliant election address. It is clear that the National Government is viewed by the educated classes as something entirely different from a Conservative Government. Had the Conservative Party organisation tried to control the National Elections, as the caucus tried to dictate to Oxford, the results might have been vastly different. The Oxford elector wished to vote National ; he was ordered to vote Conserva- tive and he refused. Surely this is a straw showing which war the wind is blowing. The Conservative Party must Move with Mr. Baldwin, or die of petrification as Liberalism has died. In Oxford it refused to move, and I doubt if any candidate will risk the support of the caucus again. It has cost Mr. C rul t well, a progressive and a strong supporter of the League, £150. Had he stood on his own feet, he might have got in.

But Mr. Herbert has not been our only political sensation.

Despite the rain, Mr. Gordon-Walker doubled the Socialist vote in the city, and in the Municipal elections Oxford recorded the biggest Labour gains of the whole country. These results are yet one more sign.of the revolution which is slowly trans- forming a University City into an industrial town. In spite of Lord Nullield's strenuous veto on trade unions, there are over two thousand more unionists in Oxford than there were a year ago, and at long last the 'busmen have defeated the company upon this issue. The Socialist vote in Oxford is directly due to these changes, and is not—we may assure uneasy readers—the result, of a wholesale conversion of North Oxford to the Red Flag. North Oxford—in spite of the trans-. formation of many of its Gothic homes into most unserviceable flats— is still safely National. It is Oxford beyond the Cherwell and the Thames, an OxfOrd of which most, members of the University are still unaware, which has caused the change. The University is now an island surrounded by a sea of

Villaettes," and connected with the .agricultural mainland. only by those two long and depressing bridges, the Banbury. and the Woodstock Roads.

It is indeed a strange and melancholy experience to wander

round our new industrial suburbs. Unplanned, unbeautiful and naked, they are being run up at a pleasant profit to the speculative builder. You reach them often across a muddy field or even an open ditch. They are just dumped anywhere

where a field is for sale and. drainage available. The roads, which are still the property of the owners of the building

estate, are, naturally enough, pocked with pot-holes. . . . Of course, this is just the normal development which progress brings, but it is particularly depressing in a University town once famed for its beauty. The Preservation 'fruit struggles. manfully against it, saving an acre here and five acres there, but it can achieve little. Now we are promised that a. town-planning scheme is to be pushed through in the near future ; but it is a grim thought that a little foresight ten years ago could hart saved ns from Most of our present horrors. All that is left us is to plan the last relies of a once beautiful town, and to realise that we are still faced with the problem of building those thousands of workmen's cottages which our Peacehaven policy has failed to provide. It is too late to save very much.

But most of us have been too busy with polities this term to worry much about aesthetics. The Abyssinian crisis pro- Voked a remarkable discussion in the 'Union on the second Sunday in term. Delegates from every description of Club and Society solemnly gathered together to enunciate the attitudes of their respective members, and a " publicity value " resolu- tion was passed. It was an interesting symptom of the modern passion for organisations that there was no debate in the usual sense of the word. Organisations cannot debate : they can only propagand. And so the delegates could do no more than repeat the " slogans" of the societies which they had the honour to represent. The whole affair was a stage demon- stration, an unconscious parody of the modern political con- ference. This desire for political action instead of political thought was manifest also on election day. Undergraduate helpers were very prominent on both sides. Indeed, one Labour committee-room in a working-class area was mistaken for an undergraduate tea-party by an ignorant proletarian. No one can deny the efficiency of the work they did, but it was perhaps with an eye to the danger of premature political activity that. Mr. G. D. H. Cole in his inaugural address to the Labour Club solemnly reminded his hearers that they had, come to Oxford for the purposes of academic study and that the best service which they could do Socialism was to study their books and do well in the Schools. If •the Buchmanites would give the same advice many a tutor would heave a sigh of relief. Of the University itself there is little to relate. The Master

Balliol has set up one record as Vice-Chancellor : he is the first holder of his office to continue bicycling to work. The plans for the new Bodleian (architect, Sir Giles Scott) have been on view.. It would be impudent for your correspondent to pass judgement upon then', but it is safe to say that he is making the best of a bad job, and that he will probably do less. damage than any architect alive to one of the most beautiful corners of Oxford.—I am, Sir, &e.,

Yota OXFORD CORRESPONDENT.

P.S.—If this letter has a sour tone the cause is probably iti fortnight of incessant rain. The floods are rising : and the • wary Don removes any garment which is hanging against the walls of his room before it is soaked through. Oxford is un- pleasant in November. Two sights alone have relieved the gloom. One was the match against the All Blacks, the other is the newly repainted front of Mr. Basil Blackwell's shop.