A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE most wholesome feature of the transition from King to King is the universality of the desire to regard the thing as settled and done with and to get on with every task that was temporarily interrupted— including preparations for the Coronation. It is a pity the question of the broadcasts is to be raised in the House of Commons, for no possible good can come of recriminations about that now. The ex-King's address has been described as "the greatest broadcast of all time," and the description need not be challenged, though it means rather less than the phrase would suggest, for "all time" in terms of broadcasting is well under twenty years. But admirable as Prince Edward's statement was in its simplicity and humanity, it needed the corrective of the Archbishop's words to keep the balance just. Prince Edward was abundantly entitled to be heard in his own defence, but the plea for the defence is not and should not be the last word. The Archbishop was no censorious or ungenerous judge— any more than the 'bus-conductor who declared to me sorrowfully but decisively, "'e ought to 'ave acted different "—and it is worth remembering that he was talking of facts of which he had knowledge that not one in ten thousand of his hearers even in this country possessed. In any case, what he has said he has said, and it is far best left at that.
Now what concerns us is the reign of King George VI, and nothing is of better omen than the fact that it is obviously to be modelled on the reign of King George V. Sandringham at Christmas, Balmoral in the summer, Lord Wigram back as trusted adviser—signs that the • old well-trodden ways are to be trodden again in small things as well as great are just what give the needed confidence at such a juncture. I, like most people, have heard King George and Queen Elizabeth criticised as ordinary. (So was President Lincoln, and he made a historic comment on it.) All that need be said about that—and the critics are mainly people who have never seen or heard the King or Queen—is that " ordinariness" is no bad quality in a constitutional king, that King George V and his consort might without discourtesy have been so described when their reign began, and that by the testimony of those who do know King George VI there is a great deal more in him than meets the undis- cerning eye. And the recall of Lord Wigram (still more familiar as Sir Clive) from premature retirement—he is only 68—assures to the King counsel based on experience as well as wisdom, for King George V appointed Major Wigram his assistant private secretary on his accession in 1910 and he succeeded Lord Stamfordharn as private secretary in 1931. Never was the return of a dropped pilot more reassuring.
One legacy from the crisis may yet cause some embar- rassment. If the Duke of Windsor does marry Mrs. Simpson and return in due course with her to this country, his wife will enjoy precedence next after the Queen (and, I suppose, the Queen Mother) above the Duchess of Kent or the Duchess of Gloucester. That would not today be popular,. but time is mellowing in its effects, and it may be some while before the question arises. * * * * The dispute between France and .Turkey before the League of Nations Council will awaken certain memories in the minds of Geneva habitues. For this is not the first time those two nations have sought a peaceful and orderly settlement of their differences. I well remember a day during the Assembly of 1927, when, the Permanent Court of International Justice having on the previous day ruled against France in a case in which a Turkish Court had condemned the commander of a French ship, M. Briand mounted the platform and made a speech the gist of which was that he would rather see his country lose any case by arbitration than win it by war. That is the Geneva spirit which it pleases the shallow-minded to deride. * * * * "Greatly begin." How far the Popular Front move- ment has carried out the poet's injunction I hardly care to determine. It began, formally, last Monday, with a platform which reached comprehensively from Conservative (Mr. Robert Boothby, M.P.) to Communist (Mr. John Strachey). United they stood, with all their faces to the foe. But to what foe ? In Mr. Boothby's eyes (and I imagine in most Other people's) he was Sir Oswald Mosley. But on the comprehensive platform was Mr. G. D. H. Cole with the Conservative and the Com- munist, and for him the foe was the Government of which Mr. Boothby is a sworn if rather embarrassing supporter. So the Popular Front, which might have been born and duly breeched, was born and promptly breached. For Mr. Boothby, with maledictions on his lips, left the platform, the hall and the movement. But the Com- munists, the Socialists, and a Liberal or two carry on. * * * * A book published last year under the title of No Mean City described in what some readers May have thought too lurid colours the gangster feuds, marked by razor- slashing and bottle-fighting, which disfigure the life of Glasgow. It has more than once since its appearance been vindicated by unvarnished reports of police-court proceedings. No longer ago than Tuesday of this week the Glasgow gang fights figured in a murder trial in the Glasgow High Court. The gangs in this case were styled the Billy Boys and the Arcadians. A member of one of them deposed that fights between the tivo were frequent, and that what they usually fought about was "religion." Another witness declared that he saw one Arcadian jabbing the dead man with a broken bottle and a second hitting him over the head with a, hatchet, while a third (according to a further witness) was striking him on the head with a poker. Clydesiders are as difficult a set to handle as can be found north or south of Tweed, but Glasgow's good name is at stake. That great city cannot afford the reputation of the
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