A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
LORD WOOLTON may be blamed for many deprivations forced on a people that in the matter of food has its tastes and likes to gratify them, • but there is no doubt at all that he has substantially improved children's health. There may be some shortage of vitamins, but the fact that Council school children can no longer suck cheap sweets half the day— it is remarkable how finance seemed to run to this, but you can get a lot for very little—has had a marked effect on both their teeth, as any school doctor will testify, and their interiors. The effect of rationing is that, though it may represent something very different from your normal choice, you do, in fact, use all your coupons on the foodstuffs to which they give tide, and as a result put yourself on a much more sensible and wholesome dietary. In the case of the children, moreover, the fact that most of their mothers are now out working all day brings unexpected benefits, for it means that a school meal (at 5d., 4d. or 3d., as the case may be) is substituted for the midday meal at home, and in nine cases out of ten it is very much better for the child. This is an encouraging state of things in the fourth winter of the war. It will be correspondingly discouraging if peace spells relapse.
* * * * In the fourth year of the war we ought to have got reasonably familiar with the strength of various Army units—battalion, brigade, division and so on—but in my experience that is by no means the case. Seeking enlightenment for myself on certain points I have received this information from a semi-official source. The regiment, which in the German army is a unit with a definite strength similar to that of a British brigade, is not a unit in Britain, and it may embody any number of battalions. The Royal Fusiliers during the last war, for instance, recruited 59 battalions, and some 235,000 men passed through them. The divisions also vary con- siderably. The United States Guard " square" division, for example, has a war strength of 18,300 men, while the " triangular " divisions have a war strength of 15,000. The British units consist of the battalion, the brigade and the division. The corps is a formation, and, having normally two, has frequently three, divisions. The battalion has, at present, a strength of about 750 officers and men. The brigade contains three battalions, with services and ancillary troops which i bring it up to about 3,000. The division contains three brigades and, with its various divisional troops, amounts in all to about 12,000. Each of the units from the batalion upwards, it will be observed, has troops attached for special purposes ; and this applies also to the corps, which has its artillery, signallers, engineers, and so on. This seems as specific as it is possible to be. * * * A curious libel action, of considerable interest to publishers and booksellers, was heard before Mr. Justice Tucker last week. It was brought by the Library Press, Limited, a company associated with the well-known publishing house of Hutchinson, against the trade paper the Bookseller, which had dealt in a recent issue with the methods pursued by the plaintiff company. It appears, accord- ing to the learned judge's very able judgement, that an agent of the Library Press had canvassed employees at a certain factory for orders for a Pictorial History of the War, Volumes i to 7, to be paid for at the rate of 5s. weekly. An employee, a Mr. Moss, who signed an order form, thought mistakenly that he was to pay 5s.
a week for seven weeks, and when he realised the total cost was £4 ns. sought to cancel the arrangement. He was, however, firmly held to it by the Library Press and threatened with legal pro- ceedings if he refused to pay. Regarding that, Mr. Justice Tucker commented on the fact that no copy of the contract had been left with the purchaser, and stated that in fact the company was entitled at the most to recover 5d. from Mr. Moss, if that. The Book- seller's comment on the transaction had been to the effect that it was a strange thing that at a time of acute paper-shortage a set of books should be forced on a man who did not want them, particularly when, on the vendor's own showing, this publication was in great demand and in short supply (the judge referred to this as an admitted fact). In court the Bookseller pleaded fair comment on a matter of public interest. The judge ruled in its favour on the latter point and against it on the former, on the ground that the article contained some inaccuracies, due to the fact that Mr. Moss had not kept copies of his letters to the Library Press and had not summarised them quite correctly from memory. The judge ex- pressed the view that damages ought to be exceedingly small, and concluded : "I have hesitated for some time between two con- ventional sums which are often awarded in these cases, and I give the plaintiffs the benefit of my doubts on that matter by awarding them 40s. There will be judgcment for the plaintfffs for 40s. without costs." I can make no comment on this that any intelligent reader cannot make for himself.
* * * * By the appointment of General d'Astier de la Vigerie, with whom I have had some conversation recently, to be his personal adjutant General de Gaulle has added substantially to the authority of his entourage. General d'Astier de la Vigerie is one of France's foremost airmen ; he, in fact, commanded the French air forces in Northern France in September, 1939. In 1940 he was trans- ferred to Morocco, but was relieved of his command as being too pro-Ally. He was actually in France till little over a month ago, for it was not till a day or two after the German occupation of Southern France that he quietly boarded an aeroplane and flew to England. He has brought with him valuable and up-to-date in- formation about the extensive support of Gaullism as against Vichy, and of the co-operation Allied troops will receive when they land on French soil.
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I am glad to see the name of Governor Stassen, of Minnesota, getting into British newspapers. Mr. Herbert Agar mentioned him in his Observer article last Sunday as a progressive force comparable to Mr. Willkie, and the News Chronicle on Tuesday published a report from its Washington correspondent of a seven-point pro- gramme for the organisation of the post-war world put forward by Mr. Stassen at a meeting at Detroit. Governor Stassen is a Re- publican, and very distinctly Presidential timber. He may be in process of leaping as suddenly and decisively into the public eye as Mr. Willkie did three years ago.
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A philanthropist of my acquaintance, at a loss what to give his housekeeper for Christmas, asked a friend's advice. The answer was immediate : "A bottle of gin and a framed photograph of Mr.
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Mullins." Gin and bitters, so to speak. JANus.
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