14 MARCH 1952, Page 5

Read:ng Sir Frederick Ponsonby's Recollections of Three Reigns I came

on a reference of some domestic interest. Dur- ing the constitutional crisis of 1910, Sir Frederick relates, King George V asked Mr. Asquith. then Prime Minister, " whether he had read an article on the subject in the Spectator, and Asquith replied that he rarely read and never agreed with the Spectator, but in this case he had read the article and thought it excellent." This " rarely read and never agreed " is rather a sweeping judgement, and rail;es the question whether it extended to the period when for ten years or more in early life Mr. Asquith helped to keep himself by contributing to the Spectator with some regularity. Conceivably not.