SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
How many connoisseurs of constitutional crises can identify the characteristic these names have in common : Bertrand Russell, Gilbert Murray, Thomas Hardy, J. M. Barrie, John Wallop, and Sir E. J. Boyle, Bart? The answer is that all appeared in Asquith's secret list of possible peers, prepared against the day when he would have to ask the king to bring their lordships to heel with a mass of new creations. (What part, one wonders, would our own Sir Edward Boyle have played in recent days if his father, a sturdy Gladstonian Liberal, had in fact been summarily ennobled?) This week one could pic- ture Mr Wilson, with his keen sense of tradi- tion, doodling his own little list: 'Gerald Kauf- man, Cecil Skeffington-Lodge, Ted Castle. . . And those teeming ranks of Labour councillors, turned out of office at the local elections by a heartless electorate : surely they could be a whole advancing army of new noblemen, marching to end the hereditary principle? Alas, no; this is one way of taming today's militants in ermine which Mr Wilson will not be tempted to employ. Edward VII stipulated that there should be general elections before he con- sented to a horde of new peers. No doubt the Queen would feel obliged to follow the pre- cedent. 'When -would be a suitable date for the general election, Mr Wilson?"Well, Ma'am, I — er All swing together
Something interesting has happened to the anti- Labour swing at by-elections in recent months. Not long ago it was moving up and down rather unsteadily : in the four by-elections of 28 March, for instance, it varied from 15.1 per cent at Acton to 21.2 per cent at Dudley. Then last week, at Oldham and Brightside, it suddenly settled down firmly at a shade over 17 per cent. What happened? One happily in- genious theory (needless to say which party it comes from) is that the electorate, once again displaying its deep intuitive political wisdom etc, has awakened to the fact that a swing of only a trifle more than 16.9 per cent is all that is needed to turn Mr Wilson out of his constitu- ency of Huyton. There's another by-election at Nelson and Colne next week. We will, as Mr Asquith used to say, Wait and See.
Gleam of hope
As I write there seems a new hope of a cease- fire in Biafra : at any rale, the British govern- ment is engaged upon a new burst of diplomatic meetings with that end in view. Perhaps last week's Commons debate, by drawing attention to the strength of feeling about Britain's part so far, helped to push things on a little. There was one oddity : a violently anti-Biafran speech by Mr John Cordle, a Tory se, who appeared to take the view that British sympathy for the Bia- frans could be dismissed as merely the result of some skilful public relations activity. Well, he's entitled to his view, however foolish. But he is not entitled to misrepresent those (in particu- lar the SPECTATOR) who have tried to awaken the British conscience to what we are, by proxy, doing to Biafra—which is what he proceeded to do. Speaking of the arms supplied by Britain to Nigeria, Mr Cordle said: 'I believe that these weapons, in the main, are small arms and not heavy armaments, F 1 1 ls or napalm, contrary to what appeared in another of those mischievous leading articles on the matter in the SPECTATOR.' Few MPs, it is to be supposed, would swallow that; most of them might be expected to know that this country doesn't possess any F Ills, either to fly or to sell. For the record, though, Mr Cordle was talking non- sense. What this journal has repeatedly objected to is the supply of arms and ammunition to the federal troops on the ground; Russia, as it happens has taken care of the bombing. Mr Cordle has a duty to be more accurate.
Out of the doldrums
I have found myself talking to several artists recently about the insurrectionary art students of Hornsey, and all seemed to think there was much sense in their criticisms of the present state of art education. The inherent difficulty in this field, of course, is that 'art education' is almost doomed by its nature to be imperfect; one thinks of some municipal academy en- deavouring to hatch out annual clutches of Michelangelos, and incredulity supervenes.
Nevertheless, so I'm reliably advised, the art student's lot has already improved immeasur- ably in living memory. English art schools were in the deepest doldrums not so many years ago; their role seemed to be to train art teachers, who then trained other art teachers, and so on ad infinitum. One of today's most distinguished artists remembers that in his student days the key discipline was shading drawings with parallel lines at exactly forty- five degrees to the vertical; and the models to copy were not old masters but the works of previous students who had gained examination passes. That was the only criterion, after all. And in the dim academies of the period the academics were often suitably obscure; one still remembered at the Royal College confined his utterances on aesthetics to the maxim, 'You must cultivate your sense of this and that.' No one ever knew what it meant. Even eminent painters can be difficult mentors, of course. Wilson Steer is said to -have attended the Slade school for months' on end without saying anything to his pupils; at times, suc- cumbing to a sudden urge to communicate, he would pause beside a student's easel and sigh. Things were no doubt rather livelier at Hornsey even before the revolution.
Soft sell
Letters from the Inland Revenue seldom bring cheer to the breakfast table. Thanks to some dynamic reorganisation of that department, however, certain tax demands for London residents now emanate from Newport, Mon- mouthshire, and one such envelope arrived this week bearing a mysterious and magical slogan in its postmark : 'Ship Through Newport (Mon), the Home of the Mole Wrench.' I can't guess what kind of creature the Mole Wrench may be, but its gentle entreaty has persuaded me that it would be heartless to do any shipping I may engage upon in the future through any other port. It also stirs memories. 'There is nothing,' said Ratty dreamily, '—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about with a Mole Wrench . .
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