SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
One man's Post-Impressionist is another man's Cortina. Get rid of the pounds and Jenkins will take care of the pence. Waste not, enjoy not. Never put off till tomorrow what you can buy today. The inherited maxims of many generations are being nervously rewritten as we struggle through the quicksands of dissolv- ing money values. Some people even sense the . approach of that spectre which has not before crossed the English Channel, threatening a col- lapse of faith in the essential durability of money. If I were Mr Jenkins this would worry me more than anything. It's true that prices have always edged upwards for as long as most people can remember, and true that people still moderately young have tiresome memories of cigarettes at ten for sixpence and newspapers at a penny each. But the pace and predict- ability of such a process are crucial. When every few months—or weeks—or days—bring a fresh upward jerk, the credibility of those bits of paper and metal we carry in our pockets wears thin. People remember all those grisly stories of ruined continentals papering their walls with worthless banknotes: stories which are beginning to lose their comfortable remote- ness. It won't happen here, of course. But who hasn't, in recent days, had a frightening sus- picion that it could?
Mild and bitter
Part of the gathering distrust comes from the utter confusion with which the Government has dealt with the whole question of falling money values. Half the time ministers (led by Mrs Castle) are boasting of their success in forcing traders to keep their prices down; the rest of the time other ministers (led by Mr Jenkins) are telling us with infinite self- righteousness how they are gallantly tackling the odious task, indispensable for our sal- vation, of forcing prices up. If they don't.know or won't admit what they are about, what is the prudent citizen to do but protect himself as best he can? This chaos was perfectly illus- trated last week with that most homely and traditional of politicial criteria, the price of beer. One day the Minister of Agriculture was proudly addressing the House of Commons on his department's triumphs in getting brewers and licensed victuallers `to cooperate with the Government' in pegging beer prices (a pledge to hold the price steady was given, it may or may not be remembered; as recently as Octo- ber); one Labour Member even wanted `action' to be taken against unpatriotic brewers who basely put up pub prices in disregard of the national well-being. Only forty-eight hours later the Chancellor of the Exchequer, without actually invoking Dunkirk or Agincourt but coming close thereto, proclaimed that he had resolutely decided to meet the national crisis by (among much else)—putting up the price of beer! After which farcical scenes, I am left wondering what `action' that indignant Member (Mrs Renee Short, to be specific) proposes should be taken against Mr Jenkins.
Double standard
We have all had our say now about Mr Enoch Powell's lapse and no doubt' many of us feel
better for having-said it. I hope. however, we don't permit this virtuous mood to persuade us that illiberal sentiments are thus extin- guished: they aren't. For example, it was shocking that a gathering of Sikh delegates this week urged the Government to suppress 'in- flammatory speeches' like that by Mr Powell. I have, I am afraid, noticed no general rush to denounce this disgraceful attempt to inter- fere with free speech: yet those who denounce illiberalism in Mr Powell ought to be equally ready to condemn it in the spokesmen of immigrant communities. Why aren't they? To apply a soppy double standard to coloured people is in reality to be far more insulting than many a saloon-bar Powellite would ever prove himself to be in practice. At this same conference there was a call for the teaching of the Sikh religion in state schools. Perhaps they did not realise that this would be a privilege not at present enjoyed by Jews, Roman Catholics, or even Anglicans. Possibly there ought to be enough flexibility to permit different denominations and faiths to teach their beliefs in state schools; but at present the law permits no such thing. If the Sikhs wanted their own state schools they could no doubt
get them as, say, Roman Catholics do, by raising a large part of the capital cost them-
selves. There seems much to be said for this idea. Of course, if Mr Powell had put it forward it would have been attacked as segregationist or discriminatory.
Did anybody ask?
I quite like the idea of giving votes to people at eighteen. It doesn't seem a constitutional reform of great significance, but there are arguments in its favour (especially, I believe, if you are a Scottish Nationalist). What interests me about it at the moment is a purely his- torical point. I think it true to say that every previous extension of the franchise has been granted only after a period of agitation, right up to universal male suffrage and (not least) votes for women. The newly enfranchised, in short, have had to make their demands heard very plainly first. But of all the multifarious demands which the young have been proclaim- ing up and down the country of late, from the abolition of examinations to the ending of the war in Vietnam, the one demand which (I think) has never been raised by any of them, anywhere, is that they should have the vote at eighteen. It does just occur to me that it is mildly strange that this, nevertheless, is one of the outstanding electoral reforms which the present Parliament has been whipped into approving. Especially as Gallup has reported that only a bare majority (56 per cent) of the new voters is actually in favour of gaining the vote. But then, I am not and never shall be a politician.
Dialogue
`To-morrow's Times will have something im- portant to say,' proclaim the posters. I've always felt that this message called for some response. Someone at Paddington Station has now made it by scrawling alongside: 'Damn! I've just bought today's.'
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