A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK M Y paragraph of last week regarding the
impending contest for a successor to Lord Hugh Cecil as Mem- ber for Oxford University could not then be made more explicit without breach of confidence. Now that it is known that the prospective candidate to whom I referred is Sir Arthur Salter, and that he is being sup- ported by an all-party committee including Mr. Cruttwell, Principal of Hertford, who was Conservative candidate at the last election, Professor Gilbert Murray, the last Liberal to stand, and Mr. G. D. H. Cole, the most con- spicuous figure in the Oxford Labour world, it only remains to congratulate Oxford on its breadth of mind in disregarding party distinctions and setting itself to secure the return of a man of wide knowledge, ripe experience and independent outlook, who combines in a peculiar degree the qualities requisite in the ideal university member. A great deal less, indeed, would be heard of the disfranchisement of the universities if they could send men of the calibre of Sir. Arthur Salter to the House of Commons, As Professor of Political Theory and Institutions, Sir Arthur has the advantage over Lord Hugh Cecil in being a. resident. The part he has played in working out the constructive policy of the Five Years Group, both domestic and foreign, no doubt indicates the platform on which he will stand. If it were only a question of the resident vote, his election would seem assured, but " the country parsons " are always an uncertain quantity.
* , * * * Governor Landon, the Republican candidate in the United States, is taking his candidature—or, as they say there, candidacy—seriously. His experience so far has lain exclusively in the domestic field, but he realises that something more than that is required of a potential President of the United States. So, I am told by a well-known American now in Europe, he has been picking the brains of the best authority he could find on Latin-American problems, and a friend who called on him lately found on his shelves a series of books on Neutrality. ‘Asked what they were doing there the Republican candidate answered that he didn't know much about the subject, and he'd got to. It seems the right spirit. • * * * * An American preacher, I see, has been proposing the abolition of sermons, and accompanying the suggestion with a certain amount of no doubt merited denunciation of the sermon the average American church-goer gets. There is, of course, an obvious comment. What is wanted is not no sermons but better sermons. " I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men ; " how often is that type of sermon heard in churches of any denomination today ? But in fact comment of this kind is too facile, and a good deal less than fair. Men who have as a matter of routine to produce two sermons every Sunday know all too well that " we cannot kindle when we will the fire that in the heart resides." Public worship,, moreover, was instituted for other ends than listening to sermons alone, and it might well be considered whether the order of worship in any church is all it might be. Can there, for.example, be no place for silence ? But great preaching has been the spear-point of the Churches' crusade in every age, and it would be a profound misfortune to encourage the idea that the sermon is either superfluous or unimportant. * * What the fate of the world would be if the " artificial heart," in whose invention. Colonel Lindbergh has played a leading part, became the means of extending the average span of human life to a hundred years is a subject on which I should like to hear the considered views of sociologists and economists. Everything, no doubt, would depend on whether the added years were years of vigour or senility. The lot of Tithonus does not appeal to most of us. But it is well to remember that the average age of men and women in most civilised countries is still increasing. That means that youth with its originality and initiative tends to be increasingly sub- merged by middle age and old age with their conser- vatism and settled ways. So, at any rate,, it would seem in theory. To prove that that is in fact what is happening is not so easy. There , are not many lessons based on age-averages to be drawn from developments in Germany and Italy and Russia, though in all those countries, particularly the two former, it is to 'youth that the appeal of the dictator is made with the greatest effect. And in those countries, it is worth observing, the campaign, for larger families will for some yews increase the proportion of the " under thirties ". to the whole population. * * * * My paragraph of a week or two ago on the shortage of shorthand clerks has brought me a letter which evokes some sympathy. The writer mentions a statement he has seen in print to the effect that in • the present circumstances wages of £4 to £5 a week for stenographers are quite usual, and continues : . .
I myself am a public school boy of nearly 30 and with 8 years' business experience of stenography, secretarial, clerical and adminis- trative duties. I am supposed to be a first-rate stenographer (though a mere male). I have in my spare time gained a B.Sc. (Economics) Degree at London. I have also been Match and Team Secretary of my old boys' rugger club. I am vain enough to think that this record shows that I possess ability, energy and personality that fit me for responsibility. Yet I am in a dead-end job with remote prospects of making a move. Perhaps you can put me in touch with the employers who pay such princely salaries and who cannot nevertheless find suitable employees."
Why the feminine secretary so completely holds the field is an interesting question.
* * * * The reference to the Emperor of Abyssinia in this column last week has brought from various, sources the information that the Emperor is, or was, (a) at Worthing, (b) at Bath—not necessarily simultaneously. He has also, now I come to think of it, been in Scotland. _ * * * * A Word in Season " Civil war is terrible enough, but when -General Franco imports native troops in order to wage it he commits the unpardonable sin against his own country- men."—Sir DANIEL HALL in The Times.
JANUS.
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