A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK A DESIRE to assure India that she is

being given .everything she ever asked for may result in one more anomaly in the lightly defined relationships of the British Commonwealth. India and Pakistan are being created two completely self-governing Dominions, equal in all respects to Canada, Australia and South Africa. But the Dominions are not independent as France or Norway or Brazil is independent. They acknowledge allegiance to the King, they have Governors-General appointed by the King (on the advice of his Ministers in the Dominion concerned), they regard themselves as members of an Imperial Conference which meets from time to time. The resolution of the Imperial Conference of 5926, out of which the Statute of Westminster emerged, refers always, like the Statute itself, to autonomy or self-government, never to independence. For that reason it seems misleading and rather unfortunate that the measure which passed through both Houses this week should be styled the Indian Independence Bill. The happy feature of the present settlement is that what was (and is still for a week or two more) British India is not now acquiring or demanding independence. It is resolving itself into two fully self-governing Dominions, still within the orbit of the Commonwealth.

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It is plain fact, which there is no temptation to emphasise unduly, that the presence or absence of the Russians makes all the difference to the success or failure of an international conference. The effect of their presence has been seen repeatedly, at Moscow, at London, at Lake Success, at various other centres. Their absence produces results just as notable. A line that reached me from Paris just before the second and most successful session of the Conference for Economic Co-operation ended ran: " The Conference is going well. The absence of the Russians is making an extraordinary difference. It is not just that the whole business of the Conference is smoother ; it is something more than just cutting down the conference languages to two— instead of three ; there is a freer air about it all. People are saying what they think, without cocking an eye at Vyshinsky or Molotov to see how he is taking it. It is very difficult to describe. But those of us who have attended other international con- ferences where the Russians were present, all agree that the difference is enormous."

It is deplorable that this should be so, but there is no doubt that it is so. But there is no reason to decide that it must always be so. * * The book boom, I am interested to learn, is over. For the last seven or eight years, as everyone knows, any book published was sold out as soon as it reached the shops. Now it is otherwise, so far, at any rate, as England is concerned ; in Scotland, I am told, the demand is as strong as ever. That would seem to suggest that economics had something to do with it, for employment in Scotland today is particularly good. But I should have thought it was quite good enough in England to leave book-buying unaffected. It would be interesting, but probably impossible, to know whether people are borrowing books instead of buying them, or whether they are simply reading fewer books and, if the latter, what they are doing with their time instead. Not going to the cinema evidently, for shareholders in film concerns are being warned that film-going has passed its peak. One rather obvious explanation is that, in the

summer, people spend more time out of doors. But the booksellers seem to think there is more to it than that.

The tipping system seems doomed to be a perpetual nuisance ; when the alternative of so per cent. on the bill seems to be working admirably, bang it goes. One of the reasons why I always choose

a Trust House is that the to per cent. method there has always worked so well. Now, instead of the former notice about so per

cent. in lieu of gratuities, you get this :—

"The charge for service, included in all bills rendered in this establishment, is made and retained by the company to meet the increase which it has made in the scale of wages paid to staff at its houses. Tipping is entirely at the discretion of visitors."

In other words, back to tipping. Why the company should shift the so per cent. into its own till, instead of putting up its prices openly, if it has to put them up, I don't understand. Personally, I dislike fundamentally the idea that no one can render the normal service he is paid for without some special extra recognition of it. Waiters are now organised in a fairly strong union ; they ought,

in my view, to insist on an adequate wage and condemn the tipping system as inconsistent with self-respect. The men's leaders, I am told, desire that, but I am not very sanguine about its happening.

Meanwhile the so per cent., if it does not go to the waiters but into general receipts ought not, I suggest, to be called a " charge for service." Why a charge for service more than a charge for plates ?

Inconsiderate parents cause headmasters and public schools a good deal of unnecessary worry at this time of the year by their habit of putting down their sons (and to a less extent their daughters) for ' three or four schools at once. School A accepts a boy, and reduces the number of its vacancies by one, only to find the entry cancelled a few weeks later because school B, which the parents like rather better, finds it can take the boy. It is natural enough from the

parents' point of view, when the run on school places is so great, but it is hard on headmasters to have to refuse boys because of the

length of the ,existing waiting-list and then find that the list is reduced by 25 or 3o per cent. or more, owing to the multiple-entry practice. It might, at any rate, be limited to double-entry.

I note in a recent advertisement the common assurance "distance no object." Furniture-removers and others love to tell the world this; I wish one of them would explain it. If they said " distance no objection " I could understand. If they said " short distances no object " I could just understand. But " distance no object "—? Cliche Corner

I am variously requested to damn " by and large " (again) " staggered hours "

" blue-print " " headache " (for any cause for worry) "staging a come-back," and by bell, book and candle I do. Some of these are arguable, but

I cannot argue, being on the point of fleeing the country.