SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

J. W. M. THOMPSON

Some of the uproar created by Mr Crossman's weekend remarks must be put down to high temperatures and late nights at Westminster.

Even so, no subsequent glosses or wriggles can efface the impression that he blurted out a furiously embarrassing truth: namely, that in another big economic jam the Government would probably turn again to compulsory restraint on wages. The cries of shock and out- rage at this disclosure may sound a bit uncon- vincing (did the thought, rather than the indis- cretion, really take anyone by surprise?) but not half so unconvincing as Mr Crossman's subse- quent denials. And these, at their best, could only offer the threat of 'mass unemployment' instead of the threat of a return to Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Bill. Not very jolly.

Mr Crossman's unhappy performance as Leader of the House had already started talk of a move for him in the much-discussed autumn reshuffle, and this little tempest has given it new zest. But where will he go? The most intelligent analysis of the situation I've heard goes like this. Mr Callaghan is the obvious man to take over as Leader—he's relaxed and avuncular in the House, hardly ever nettled. And since Mr Wilson clearly can't afford to change his economic policy the traditional alternative is to change his Chancellor. But he couldn't send Mr Crossman to the Treasury, surely—sterling wouldn't be seen for weeks. Mr Stewart is the obvious Chancellor to reassure the gnomes. This leaves the DEA to Mr Crossman, a place where the Treasury knights will keep him in order, but where, of course, he will also have lots of time to think about compulsory wage restraint versus mass unemployment.

Puzzle

Stanley Baldwin, whose centenary is being marked somewhat prematurely by a House of Commons luncheon this week, seems in some ways an impossibly remote figure. He took his political style from notions of a rural England which has now totally vanished (and which was a bit of a myth even in his own time). It was very successful then. Today there is only a minor place for squires in politics. Baldwin's country-gentleman, pig- scratching act was highly popular with the elec- torate of the 'twenties and 'thirties; contrast this with the price paid by Mr Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home for their fondness for grouse moors. Lord Butler, whose reflec- tions upon the centenary appear on page 47, himself has something Baldwinesque in his political makeup, being by nature a conciliator rather than a head-on-collision man. He was also. of course, personally associated with Baldwin. notably at the India Office.

I don't suppose any amount of centennial benevolence will rid Baldwin's reputation of the stains of the prewar years. A little more light on some of his meanings and motives might now be cast, however. I have for years puzzled over one of Baldwin's perorations— that to his famous speech on air power: 'When the next war comes, and European civilisation is wiped out, as it will be, and by no force more than that force, then do not let them [i.e., the young men] lay blame on the old men. Let them remember that they, they prin- cipally or they alone, are responsible for the

terrors that have fallen upon the earth.' It is scarcely credible that this archetypal prewar politician actually meant that the blame for the war should go, not to his own kind, but to the young men who would have to fight it: yet that is what he seemed to mean: and if he didn't, what was he saying?

Face value

Roy Strong, the enterprising new director of the National Portrait Gallery, advised me to give

the NPG a miss this week to visit Leggatt's in St

James's Street, where a rather fine portrait of Handel is on view. The point is that this painting

obviously ought to belong to the NPG, but can't unless nearly £4,000 can be raised from private sources. Hence the gallery's first-ever national appeal for money, with an impressive group of musicians lending their aid.

The portrait is by Thomas Hudson, the lead- ing portrait painter of his day and honoured also as the teacher of Reynolds. It shows the old man in plushy splendour with a copy of the Messiah open in front of him, and has a mar- vellous carved frame with trophies of musical instruments. It also happens to sum up the pre- dicament of the National Portrait Gallery, with its very modest purchasing grant (£8,000 a year, or £1,450 less than the price of this one work) plus the frustration arising from the fact that virtually every potential purchase is unique and if missed can never be matched. I hope Dr Strong's hope of raising enough to begin a trust fund to meet these sudden demands is realised. Meanwhile, I see that the National Gallery trustees have been renewing their plea for a rational system of tax incentives to encourage people to give to the national art collections. There doesn't seem any reason why this change has been resisted for so long, except the general one that the Treasury tends to resist all changes, good or bad.

Janeite

I'm interested by Edward Heath's disclosure this week of his enthusiasm for the works of Jane Austen. Eminent politicians often run to literary favourites. Baldwin caused an unex- pected boom in Mary Webb. Macmillan helped to dig Trollope out of obscurity, Wilson favours a rather unfashionable genre of trouble-at-mill novels plus Dorothy Sayers. Mr Heath has at least cultivated the best writer of the lot, although I'm not sure she is quite what the public-relations people would have advised. No novelist can ever have been less political than she, in spite of the tremendous events occurring in Europe in her time. Hence the superficial complaint that a taste for her novels is 'escapist.'

On the subject of. Jane Austen's personal political feelings there is, so far as I know, nothing beyond the evidence contained in the memoir published in 1870 by her nephew, the Rev J. E. Austen-Leigh. This altogether delight- ful book notes that 'as she grew up, the politics of the day occupied very little of her attention, but she probably shared the feeling of moderate Toryism which prevailed in her family. She was well acquainted with the old periodicals, from the Spectator downwards.' That ought to be good enough for Mr Heath.