The vacancy in the representation of the English Universities in
Parliament caused by the death of their senior member, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, will, I should imagine, bring several candidates into the field. If there is any feeling that a woman should follow a woman, then the obvious choice would be Mrs. Mary Stocks, Principal of Westfield College, who at the General Election stood as an Inde- pendent for London University, and gave the sitting Member, Sir Ernest Graham-Little, the fright of his life. Mrs. Stocks was for thirteen years on the staff of Manchester University (one of the con- stituent units of English Universities), of which her late husband, Professor J. L. Stocks, became Vice-Chancellor. Liverpool Univer- sity, on the other hand, might well think of Mr. Graham White, the former Liberal Member for Birkenhead East, who was educated at the University and retains a close association with it. But if wider considerations prevailed this would clearly provide an admirable opportunity for bringing back to the House of Commons one of the most valuable of its late Members, Mr. Harold Nicolson. He is associated with no political party, and would therefore stand as a genuine Independent ; his literary and scholastic distinction would confer honour on any university constituency ; and the gain to the House of Commons from his return to its deliberations would be very substantial. Such a man—and such men are greatly needed at Westminster—could only get in for a constituency which disregards party labels.
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