4 JUNE 1948, Page 5

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

THERE seems no doubt now that, in spite of recent events, General Smuts will be at Cambridge on Thursday as arranged for his installation as Chancellor. It should be in every way a notable occasion, not merely because Cambridge will be investing with her highest office one of the most distinguished—it would not be invidious to say the most distinguished—of her sons, but because of one other personal factor. The Chancellor will be installed in the morning, and his first official function will be to confer an honorary degree on Mr. Winston Churchill, with whom he first came in contact in 1899 when Mr. Churchill, a war-correspondent of The Morning Post in the South African War, was captured by the Boers, in whose Government Mr. Smuts, still lawyer and not yet soldier, • was Attorney-General. It will be surprising if no reference is made to that episode during the luncheon at Trinity, at which Mr. Churchill is to respond to the toast of the new graduands, proposed by the new Chancellor. By a happy coincidence, Dr Raven, the Master of General Smuts's old college, Christ's, is Vice-Chancellor this year, and will take the chief part in the installation of the College's

eminent Honorary Fellow. * * *