A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
FROM time to time someone tells us authoritatively what it is that the men in the army are most concerned about—their pay, their billets, their food, a second front. Higher than any of them, I am inclined to think, comes the question of employment after the war. Can the men who have been serving count on getting jobs— their old ones or others as good or better—and if they do can they count on keeping them? In some ways this is the paramount post- war problem and it is useless to discuss it in isolation. It is obviously tied up with the whole question of national economic policy. The report of the Beveridge Committee on social security, to be expected in a few weeks now, will certainly have a bearing on it, for the purpose of the committee's recommendations will be to point to ways of banishing want. But that is only a short part of the road to the desired goal. What will be demanded, and rightly, will be solid work and work worth doing, not subsidised idleness. Failure to respond to it—and the difficulties are not to be under-rated—may have serious consequences. All parties ought to be realising that and framing plans in the light of it on a non-party basis. A good deal, I know, is being done behind the scenes in Whitehall. But paper plans are only a beginning. Without resolution and goodwill on a national scale tens of thousands of men returning from the army to civil life will find themselves superfluities. And they will not stand that role for very long.
* * * * The relation of the blockade to possible relief work in occupied Europe—a question to which Mr. Harold Nicolson devoted some salutary observations last week—is exercising a good many people's minds. Everyone with any balance sees both sides of a singularly harrowing situation clearly. On the one hand it is imperative not to help Germany by promoting relaxations of the blockade, on the other the contemplation of the sufferings of children in particular in countries which Germany has swept clean of food is almost intolerable. A committee, I understand, has been formed under the Bishop of Chichester to try to arrange—of course, with the approval of the Allied Governments ; it could not be done without that—for the supply of vitamins and certain milk-products for children and nursing mothers in Belgium and Greece. It is thought that the commodities could be obtained and money raised to pay for them. Shipping-space represents a more formidable problem and adminis- tration another possibly more formidable still. But the committee hopes, I believe, that both will be soluble.
* * * * Announcements about the enrolment of women for fire-watching and Press pictures of new deep shelters in London are a sobering reminder of the- possibility of the renewal of air-raids on this country on a substantial scale. It is obviously essential that we should be ready for anything that may be impending in this field, but it is sensible to try to form some reasonable estimate of the possibilities. On the whole, there is not much likelihood of a recurrence of raids on the scale of 1940 and the early months of 1941. At that time the Luftwaffe had virtually nothing to do on the Continent. There was no war with Russia, the war in France was short and sharp ; the vast majority of the bombers could be concentrated against Britain. The situation is very different today. The wastage on the Russian front is immense ; it is by no means unreasonable to conclude that it is roughly equal to production ; the consequence being that the total effective strength of the Luftwaffe in the East is far lower than the layman would tend to assume. It is quite true that high figures of German production have been quoted in the past, but these included fighters, training machines, and various other types than long-distance bombers. The bombers take much longer to produce than fighters, and the wastage, as has been said, is very high. Even, therefore, if Russia could be so completely contained as to permit of the switching of the bulk of the Luftwaffe to France for attacks on Britain, a smaller force than in 1940-41 would be pitted against defences that have been greatly strengthened since them. Heavy blows no doubt could be dealt, but not worse than we have sustained, and almost certainly not as bad. Even that, moreover, would depend on the " neutralisa- tion " of Russia, and some self-abnegation by Rommel. * * * * Various eminent students of affairs have called attention to the valuable information about the coal situation to be gleaned from my esteemed contemporary, The New Statesman. The position was convincingly elucidated on two consecutive pages of its last issue. Thus: " The plain truth is that in many areas the miners, who are largely oldish men, are getting tired out, and that exhorta- tions to them to produce more are bound to be ineffective, because they are physically incapable of the required response." —Editorial Note, page 134.
"The early morning news of the Dieppe raid reached the coalfields, filtered down into the pits, circulated from mouth to mouth along the coal face, growing as it went, until in a couple of hours the men underground believed that the Second Front had been opened at last. As a result, in a single South Wales pit, we are told that output for that day of renewed faith rose from 8o tons to 168 tons. Reports which reach us from pits and factories in other parts of the country suggest that this was not an isolated example. The story is a measure of the possibilities within reach."—Leading article, page 135.
Almost a case of "Debout les mortsl '1
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In breaking it to the public that their green clothing-coupons must last them 5+ months instead of 4+, Mr. Dalton had a pertinent word to say on hats. " Anybody," he affirmed, " who retains his natural hair ought to go without a hat." - This raises large questions. How much natural hair? This is a field in which there are infinite gradations, from the late M. Paderewski to, let us say, Mr. Dalton (or, I may add with great modesty, myself). And why, for that matter, only natural hair? A wig (or, more tactfully, toupee) surely stands in the same category in relation to hats and hatlessness. Per- sonally, I think that polished and hygienic domes like the two I have delicately indicated already are better covered. If Mr. Dalton decides—and acts—otherwise it will cause me great exercise of mind.
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Miss Violet Markham's committee on the Women's Services has produced a report that apart from its intrinsic importance is refreshingly readable—a quality which the chairman probably had a good deal to do with imparting. " Virtue," it is observed per- tinently, " has no gossip value "—and unfortunately not much news value either. Another observation also unfortunately true is that " alcohol has become a symbol of conviviality for women no less than for men." The incapacity to be sociable without spirits or something similar is an odd- but prevalent aberration. Psychologists might hi consider how it could be altered. JANUS.
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