A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
R. GAITSKELL is to be congratulated on his decision to find the not very considerable amount of money needed to ensure the continuance of the History of Parliament, begun on the initiative of the imaginative, if often incalculable, Colonel Wedgwood in 1933. Two volumes were published before the war, and then the whole enterprise, so far as actual publication was concerned, came to a standstill, though the energetic editor, Colonel Wedgwood himself, went on collecting material which is still available. It is a colossal undertaking, which may take any length of time to complete ; but it is a highly desirable under- taking, and not the most austere economist will grudge the £17,000 a year which is to be paid from public funds for the prosecution of the enterprise. It is to be hoped, all the same, that the history will be kept within tolerable limits. Individual biographies of back-benchers of five hundred years ago can make only a very qualified appeal, even to inveterate Parlia- mentarians, today. The information regarding them must be fragmentary, and to acquire it would involve an incommensurate degree of labour. * * *
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