A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WHAT has aroused my curiosity most in connexion with the Hore-Belisha affair is the undelivered speech. I mean, of course, Lord Beaverbrook's. Nobody, clearly, has felt more strongly about the affair than the proprietor of the Daily Express and Evening Standard, which, incidentally were, I believe, the only papers to publish the "We Must Have Hore-Belisha " advertisements which other papers refused. It was the Express which blazoned on successive days in immense headlines the declarations HORE-BELISHA RESIGNS Generals Resented His Drastic Reforms and GREAT BELISHA CRISIS GROWS Were Generals Reprimanded?
And Did They Take Revenge?
Where, then, was his Lordship when the matter was dis- cussed in the House of Lords, of which he has been a member so long? His papers have insisted that the affair be probed to the depths. Was he unavoidably prevented from attending on Tuesday to ensure that? He is an ex- perienced Parliamentarian, and a former Minister. When a Member of either House of Parliament chooses to agitate an essentially Parliamentary matter in his papers, and eschews discussion of it in the place where his charges can be answered on the spot, there need be no surprise that the loudest and most general cheer in the House of Commons debate is reserved for Mr. Atdee's declaration that "if we object to military pressure we also object to newspaper pressure."
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