MARGINAL COMMENT
HAROLD NICOLSON
IALWAYS feel sorry for those eminent persons who year by year are invited to deliver the main speech at the annual meetings of the National Trust. It is all very well for the Chairman, who can fill up his time by toying with the profit and loss account or by giving a list of resignations and appointments and describing the new properties acquired during the year. It is all very well for the Chairman of the Publicity Committee, who has his own fascinat- ing story to recount. But the eminent stranger who is asked to address the members of the Trust on Otis auspicious occasion must be hard put to it to find something both original and uplifting to say. It is not at all difficult, when addressing an audience which is totally ignorant of the Trust and its beneficent activities, to compose a lecture which will both inform and stimulate. But it is awkward to have to make a speech about the Trust to an audience composed entirely of members of that happy band, most of whom know far more about the subject than does the speaker himself. Sir Norman Birkett is a delightful orator, and one who has fully mastered the technique of rhetoric. He speaks without script or notes and with a fluency which is all the more agreeable since it does not tempt him to overrun his time. He takes an unconcealed pleasure in the intricacies of our native tongue, enjoying the parenthesis and the deferred solution, and marking the rhythm of his sentences by modulated pauses and neat verbal punctuation. Above all perhaps he possesses the difficult an of suggesting feeling, even emotion, without sliding into the sentimental. I therefore enjoyed his speech last Friday to the National Trust, not only because he had many interesting and suggestive things to say, but because it was agreeable to sit there and observe the skill and confidence with which this gifted orator handled the cadences of his words.
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Sir Norman was assisted in making his speech by three accidents. The audience were in a satisfied and receptive mood, since they had just been informed of the munificent gift made to the Trust by Lord Aberconway. It is soothing, on a wet November afternoon, when the lamps outside are shining upon wet pavements and fallen leaves, to be told suddenly that one has been given so rich a present as the gardens of Bodnant. Lord Aberconway is something more than a prominent horticulturist ; he is descended from three genera- tions of gardeners. The trees and shrubs of Bodnant have all the grandeur of antiquity and all the zest of constantly renewed experiment. Thus the Trust will now obtain what is perhaps the richest of all the world's gardens, and will at the same time have the advantage of Lord Aberconway's expert guidance and of his ardent interest in all botanical novelties and experiments. Nor are they indifferent to the fact that the Bodnant gardens have been handsomely endowed by the donor, and will thus be preserved and enjoyed without anxiety for the future. A second accident which assisted Sir Norman in his task was that the resignation of Dr. Trevelyan from the chairmanship of the Estates Committee had that evening been announced. Sir Norman thus had the opportunity of paying a moving tribute to the work and personality of that great man. Dr. Trevelyan has been for the Trust a constant friend and a most generous benefactor. The prastige of his name and the readiness with which he was able always to give his services have assisted the Trust in many difficult negotiations. Sir Norman's references to the help given by this illustrious donor were warmly applauded. He was given a welcome theme on which he improvised with admirable spontaneity.
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The third accident which aided the discourse of Sir Norman Birkett was supplied by a member of the audience. After the Chairman had concluded his introductory remarks he asked whether any member of the Trust wished to ask any questions or to add any comments. A man got up and said that he had been lecturing recently to the Services at Malta. He had found, somewhat to his surprise, that of the several alternative lectures which he offered the most popular was that on the National Trust. But he had also found that his audiences were all convinced that the Trust was in some manner a State organisation, supported by the British taxpayer. How, he asked, could this unfortunate and disadvantageous delusion be removed ? It seems that, living as we do in a Welfare State, the adjective " national " possesses for the public associations with " nationalised " and that the expression " National Trust " suggests to many that this wholly voluntary association is in some manner a Government Department. It would be difficult for the Trust, after more than fifty years of constantly expanding effort, suddenly to change its name. Yet it is awkward that so large a number of people should remain under the impression that the thousand or so properties now owned by the Trust are in some manner owned by the Government. This misleading impression has to some extent, and with excellent intentions, been fostered by the Press. When, for instance, Knole was given to the Trust, many newspapers dis- played photographs of the house under the caption, This belongs to you." Knole is not the property of the nation: it is the property of the subscribing members of the National Trust. No person who is not a member (and it is cheap to become one) has any right to claim that Knolc is his or hers.
The officers of the Trust are saddened by this misconception, since they are in urgent need of obtaining as many members as they can. Many of the endowments on properties given or be- queathed to the Trust before the war took the form of farms or agricultural land. The income from these properties, before the war, sufficed for the upkeep of the buildings or open spaces thus bequeathed. With the subsequent rise in wages and costs these endowments are no longer, in every case, sufficient for the Trust to maintain the properties as they ought to be maintained. The Trust is therefore becoming more and more dependent upon the general fund, which, apart from legacies received, is mainly com- posed of the annual subscriptions of members. If the idea gets about that the Trust is in some manner subsidised by the taxpayer, there will be fewer and fewer members who are anxious to join this delightful club, and the standards of maintenance and preserva- tion which the Trust sets itself will decline. Moreover, if the impression prevails that the Trust is a Government institution, property-owners may hesitate to bequeath their homes or lands to so impersonal a body, and the legacies, on which the finances of the Trust have in the past been largely dependent, will fall off. The whole point of the Trust is that it is a voluntary society, supported by its own members, and directed by a committee of many eminent people who devote to its service a large amount of their time. They and their expert staff adopt a human rather than a departmental attitude towards their functions. They have no desire at all that the houses given or bequeathed to them should degenerate into lifeless museums ; they strive as far as possible to preserve the thread of tradition and continuity. And they arc hurt when their club is regarded as a sub-branch of some Ministry. These ancient tradi- tions, these deeply sentimental associations, should not be handled by clerks.
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Sir Norman Birkett spoke with truth of the "respect" with which the National Trust is widely regarded. It requires something more than respect ; it needs affection. The large number of member, who on Friday last crowded to hear Sir Norman's address were certainly animated by that affection ; they like to attend-the annual meeting of their club. But if the public at large is to remain under the impression that the Trust is some departmental adjunct of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning or the Ministry of Works, then the Trust will not increase its membership, its properties, or its appeal. The British public may feel respect, and justified respect, for our exemplary Civil Service ; but bureaucracy does not inspire the more tender emotions. It is to be hoped therefore that some at least of the thousands who visit National Trust properties will realise that it would be a good thing if they also joined the club.
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