A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
IHAVE received from the Yugoslav Government Information Office a document whose arrival causes me some astonishment— a reprint of the speech delivered by King Peter of Yugoslavia to the Foreign Press Association in London on April 20th. It was on that occasion that the King made the remarkable statement that
"During all this time my people are struggling alone. They are shedding their blood, forsaken. The aid sent to them by plane and parachute would not serve to equip even one battalion."
The charitable assumption, for which there is, I believe, some basis, was that this was an addition to the speech pushed into the King's hand at the last moment by his Prime Minister, M. Puritch, and that the sooner it was forgotten the better, in view of the notorious fact that the Allies had been pouring in munitions for Marshal Tito's forces, and had British officers, notably Brigadier Maclean, M.P., maintaining permanent and effective liaison with the Partisans. If this passage, carrying the plain implication that Tito's forces and the population whom they represent are not included among "my people," is deliberately circulated as a statement of official policy, an issue is posed that can only be resolved in one way—and it will not be a way propitious for King Peter.
The human capacity for forgetting is considerable. I was dis- cussing this week with three Members of Parliament the question whether the Prime Minister, who is not reputed to be a con- spicuously enthusiastic admirer of women-politicians as such, was a supporter or an opponent of women's suffrage in the days when that ideal was still Unrealised. None of the four of us could re- member, and the researches in which I have engaged mildly since have been so far resultless. At the North-West Manchester election in 19°6 Mr. Churchill, vigorously assailed by various Pank- bursts, declared that nothing would induce him to vote for giving women the franchise. Such assertions, as the Prime Minister recently implied in an observation on the vicissitudes of his own career, are not of necessity binding for all time. Actually I still do not know how Mr. Churchill voted on the Bill that gave women the franchise in 5917. But I can get along without knowing.
If information that reaches me from various sources is to be relied on, and I think it is, there has been a good deal of exaggeration in some of the reports about the troubles of Jews in the Polish Army in Scotland. That there are anti-Semitic elements in the Polish Army is admitted ; it is, or should be, admitted that adequate steps have not been taken to deal with them ; I believe something in that direction is in progress now. As to whether the Jews who deserted had adequate cause for their action is an arguable question ; in one case in which physical ill-treatment was alleged examination of the complainant by a British doctor disproved it. The men were no doubt encouraged by the fact that earlier a number of their fellows had been allowed to transfer from the Polish to the British Army. That they did desert seems indisputable, and by the Polish military code (as, I imagine, by most other military codes) when desertion is proved the Court has no option but to impose certain sentences ranging between a possible minimum and a possible maximum. In this case I believe most of the sentences represented the minimum, and there is every prospect that the execution of them will be suspended and the men concerned given a chance of rehabilitating themselves. Obviously if that happens, and the men return to their units, the Polish authorities ought to take the most stringent steps to stamp out any sign of open anti-Semitism in the Army. The enquiry now being opened is a step in the right direction, but it is essential, even at the cost of important resignations; that the Polish Govern- ment should make and keep the military authority definitely subordinate to the civil.
The adoption of Captain Mark Bonham Carter as Liberal candidate for Barnstaple at the age of twenty-two is interesting from the point of view of both the constituency and the candidate. Barnstaple has a long Liberal tradition, which is not conspicuously maintained by its present member, Sir Richard Acland—who has decided to stand for a Liverpool division next time. Captain Bonham Carter, who was wounded at the Mareth line, posted as missing and given up as lost, subsequently came into the public eye by escaping from the prison- camp in North Italy, where he had in fact been taken, and walking 500 miles south till he struck the Eighth Army. As Lord Oxford's grandson, he inherits all the family brilliance, and demonstrated that both at Winchester and during the year he spent at Oxford before joining the Army. He is obviously the kind of recruit whom the House of Commons, irrespective of party, badly needs.
Relations between British other ranks and their equivalents, the American G.I., notoriously vary; the disparity in pay in particular raises perpetual difficulties. A story touching on that has just been told me, and bears re-telling. A group of British privates and a group of Americans struck up a considerable friendship, which, however, soon began to wear thin through a certain coolness on the British side. The Americans wanted to know what was wrong, and pressed the question. Well, it was the cash ; the Englishmen couldn't stand not treating the others as the others were treating them, and their pay wouldn't run to it. That cleared everything up. "Tell us what your limit is," the Americans said, " and well undertake to make that ours too." That settled it ; fraternity was resumed, the temperature rose again and all the sky is clear. (G.I., by the way, said to stand for General Issues, = P.B.I.,--just infantry.) I am nothing if not delicate, so let me put it this way. I learn from the descriptions of Lord Portal's prefabricated houses that each house has a bathroom, and something else separate. Let the some- thing separate be known as X. In one of the newer Government departments an official said he couldn't stand his present room any longer. He was told he would have to stand it because there wasn't another inch of space available anywhere. "No," he persisted. "I'm moving to X, because that's the only place in the whole build- ing where people who are there know what they're there for."
* * This story must unfortunately be told in respectful periphrasis. After a recent debate in the House of Commons a noble Lord and a Labour member were leaving the Chamber—where they not infrequently coflaborate across the floor—in company. A master of epigram, whose identity nothing on earth would induce me to
disclose, observed sardonically "Arsenic and Old Lace." JArms.
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