SPECTATOR'S NOTE BOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
Life in London may or may not be improved by the proposed bulldozing of a new system of motorways through its streets. I suspect it won't be, but I can tee that other views are pos- sible. What is indisputable in the argument about the plan is the presence of an angry sense of injustice such as all these planning problems tend to create. It is as if the individual citizen's welfare were to be dependent upon the whim of some restless, unpredictable tyrant. People are discovering, for instance, that streets in which they live are to be—not knocked down to provide space for motorways, which would at least mean compensation, but turned into 'feeder' roads, resulting in heavier traffic and tower property values but no compensation. And all over London people will find the noise, stench and ugliness of motorways thrust into their private worlds by the tyrant's decision, again with no redress.
This process is the modern equivalent of the old naval press gang. The 'public interest' (fre- quently a fraud anyhow) decrees that certain things must be done: whereupon anybody with- in range is pressed into service to make any sacrifices necessary to get them done. The ships of Nelson's time obtained their crews in much the same way. The men were simply captured if they happened to be around on shore when needed. Some people are to be compelled to subsidise the motorways financially, through lost property values, some through having their 'amenity rights' confiscated. It is all decided on the random, press gang method. If you're lucky, you're exempt; if you're unlucky, you're clobbered. This is not something to be dealt with by chit-chat about 'greater participation' I am amazed that no political headway has yet been made by the admirable ideas of Dr Edward Mishan, especially his notion (in The Costs of Economic Growth) of legal protec- tion for 'amenity rights,' with a guarantee of compensation if they were infringed. There is a vast amount of unformulated public indigna- tion about this which pdliticians ought to grasp. It would be better employment than grotesque tomfoolery with Nabarro.
Mot juste
Mr Quintin Hogg, either because of or in spite of the many vicissitudes of his political career; sometimes discloses a priceless ability to see things in perspective when hysteria is in the air. His behaviour at what appears to have been an odious session of the Young Conservatives' conference last weekend was a good example of this. At a time when extravagant opinions are in fashion it is only natural to find extremists surfacing on the right as well as on the left, and some of these made their views heard on the subject of immigration and race. Mr Hogg very satisfactorily banged them on the head. He castigated 'this sort of snivelling campaign against people who have come here either be- cause they were persecuted in their own country or because they were poor,' thus in one apt word seizing upon the deplorable characteristic of so much that is said about racial questions: the mean-spirited, self-pitying, whining note of the bully. It is scarcely fanciful to detect in it distant echoes of the cringing complaints against the Jews by means of which the Ger- mans furnished the Nazis with their national scapegoats. How much healthier it would be if all political leaders followed Mr Hogg's example and named this for what it is instead of making half-ashamed gestures to appease its authors.
Open mind
Reactions to the proposed 'Open University' are disappointing. From the opposition front benches, from the leader columns of The Times, from wherever the voice of disdainful Oibridge is to be heard, in fact, this venture has been sniffed at and found wanting. It is quite possible; of course, that the sceptics will be proved right. The idea of providing higher education' for anyone who wants it by means of television may be absurd. But it has not yet been proved absurd, and it is a generous and imaginative scheme worth a trial. It is surpris- ing that at least the hint of Samuel Smiles-ish self-improvement about it hasn't pleased the Tories.
The Open University will introduce a new diversity into the educational system, which is desirable, and a new factor into television— also desirable. Why should ry stay in the hands either of the soap salesmen or the communica- tions-administrators exclusively? Certainly people who welcomed' commercial television are inconsistent if they fail to see advantages- in having yet another (and this time educational) operator in the field. This university is even thought by the Department of Education to be likely to become financially self-supporting one day, which will make it unique among such institutions in that respect at least. Next year, I calculate, the cost will be approximately .06 per cent of our total spending on education. As a taxpayer I don't begrudge that proportion of my contribution.
Accusation
The Western European Union is not a forum of the first importance: in fact it is something of 'a left-over. However, it exists, and govern- ments send representatives to its meetings, and public positions are adopted there. Lord Chal- font- selected. the latest meeting for one of the most remarkable of all official statements in justification of this country's support of Federal Nigeria against Biafra. After• stating with re- markable coolness that Africans did not wel- come European interference in the war (it de- pends which Africans, and what you mean by interference, presumably) he made the accusa- tion against Colonel Ojukwu and the Biafrans that they were using starvation for political and military purposes. This seems frankly indecent. Possibly the Greeks made the same charge against the Trojans; maybe Stalin found the kulaks guilty of the same crime. All the same, such Biafrans as survive the deadly blockade maintained by means of British arms will question Lord Chalfont's right to level this accusation against them. He ought to read Aspects of the Biaf ran Affair, a brilliant pamphleteering study of British attitudes and policy by George Knapp. This booklet, by an avowed partisan and just published by the Britain-Biafra Association, is enough to shake the complacency even of a junior- minister at the Foreign Office.
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