Spectator's Notebook

The truth is that while the NPD, which did not exist at the time of the last elections in 1962, gained 7.4 per cent of the vote, the other extreme nationalist fringe parties (chiefly the 'refugee' GDP, which has now virtually disappeared), which won 6.5 per cent in 1962, saw their vote completely wiped out. In other words, the extreme nationalist vote in Bavaria has increased in the past four years by less than 1 per cent—and this at a time of power vacuum and intrigue at Bonn, when disaffection with the 'respectable' parties could be expected to be most pronounced.

The real implications of the Bavarian elections are nothing at all to do with neo-Nazism. The first is that the Socialists, whose vote hardly in- creased at all, are now seen to be on a plateau rather than an upward trend, which must con- siderably weaken their hand in the negotiations for a new government now going on in Bonn. The second is that this further success for Herr Strauss consolidates the shift in the CDU-CSU balance of power from the atlanticists to the gaullists reported by Conrad Ahlers in last week's

SPECTATOR.

Meanwhile, poor Dr Erhard, manoeuvred out of office by shrewder politicians who exaggerated the German economic crisis to the point where the FDP members of the ruling coalition walked out on him, may yet face the galling experience of watching the FDP crawl back again and a new German Chancellor, in a few months' time, sud- denly discovering that there was no economic crisis after all.

Eleventh Hour I can't say that I blame Mr Wilson for sending Mr Bowden off to Rhodesia in an eleventh-hour attempt to put off the decision, to which he foolishly committed himself at the last Common- wealth conference, to turn the whole problem over to the United Nations.

It's perfectly true that the careful wording of paragraph 10(b) of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' communiqué lays down that the UN

sanctions against Rhodesia must be agreed by the Commonwealth UN members (i.e., approved by Britain) and are to be selective rather than com- prehensive. This clearly gives Wilson further opportunities for procrastination and ensures that, at the end of the day, the sanctions need be no different from those already in force under the voluntary scheme. But what does this achieve? Rhodesia will be hurt, but she will not surrender (Dr Vorster will see to that); and we shall con- tinue to suffer both economically and, increas- ingly, politically, as our equivocal policy (which alienates black and white African alike) is made even more apparent when attention turns to the question of UN sanctions against South Africa. Hence the Bowden visit. But perhaps it is not quite the last chance. There's always David Frost.

Disarming

Mr Robert Neild, who is to give up his job as economic adviser to the Treasury after the next Budget for a post with the somewhat more ideal- istic Peace and Conflict Research Institute at Stockholm, has been far and away the most in- fluential of the various outside 'experts' brought into Whitehall by the present Government. This is partly because the others—with the exception of the part-time Professor Kaldor, who has suc- ceeded in doing considerable damage to the British taxation system—have had virtually no influence whatever. But this in turn is because Neild, uniquely, thanks to his previous experience of how Whitehall works, has been able to bring his opinions to bear on the senior civil servants involved (which is the key to real influence) in- stead of on ministers alone. I don't want to exaggerate: as a devaluer and anti-Marketeer Neild can hardly be said to have had his own way on the really big decisions, but there is, I believe, a clear lesson here for anyone contemplating the future of the outsider experiment.

Incidentally, Neild's departure may have one specific beneficial consequence. Although a man of civilisation and (appropriately enough, in the light of his new job) disarming charm, Neild suffers from an inexplicable antipathy towards the motor industry and its products. Since the Government is sooner or later going to tumble to the fact that the only quick and effective way of getting the economy out its nosedive is by easing car HP restrictions, the voluntary exile of Neild will remove an impediment to economic recovery that was already beginning to worry one or two of the shrewder heads in Whitehall.

SJ

Under 'Jesuit' in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary you will find what must surely be the only entry

in that admirable work that might conceivably be actionable under the Race Relations Act:

Its [the Order's] secret power, and the casuis- tical principles maintained by many of its repre- sentatives, and generally ascribed to the body as a whole, have rendered its name odious not only in English. but in French and other languages. If that's not incitement, I don't know what is. But even if the Oxford lexicographers aren't aware of it, the old Order changeth, and so has its image. Nor could there have been greater evidence of this change than the Pope's unprecedented warn- ing to the Jesuits last week of `rumours and re- ports' of 'strange and sinister' happenings in the Society of Jesus, and his call for orthodoxy and loyalty. What on earth have the Jesuits, with their traditional military discipline, been up to?

Although they contain noted liberal catholics among their ranks—the church's recent Declara- tion on Religious Freedom, for example, can be traced back to the writings of the leading Ameri- can Jesuit, Fr John Courtney Murray—the main trouble seems to be the movement within the order for organisational reform, including some decentralisation of power. But why on earth should the Pope intervene publicly this way? The answer, I'm told, by an impeccable Catholic source, is that he was put up to it by the recently- elected 'Black Pope,' the General of the Jesuits himself, Fr Pedro Arrupe, a Basque who spent much of his career outside the Order in Japan. If this is true, it could well, it seems, prove too jesuitical for a number of the modern Jesuits themselves.

Flood victim

My note on Florence the week before last has, as I might perhaps have guessed, got me into deep trouble with several readers. My purpose was to suggest that tourists, as well as Italians, should contribute financially to making good the heart- breaking damage done by the Arno floods to the masterpieces of Florentine art. However, I also wrote (and this is what incensed my correspon- dents) that it was particularly sad that the brunt of the flood damage had been borne by those incomparable works of art, rather than by the buildings of Florence, which I find rather un- distinguished.

Let me first make it clear to my correspondent from the Athenaeum (and anyone else like him), who assumed that I would like to see Florence razed to the ground and rebuilt in steel and concrete, that this is not so. I was merely assuming that the Arno floods were a fact, and wishing that the lesser rather than the greater works of man had been the victims. I do plead guilty to forget- ting that the superb Ponte Santa Trinita had been rebuilt (pointed out to me by the reader who called in aid Shelley's Ode to Naples); but, that apart, I can only reaffirm that for me Florence is as superior to Rome and Venice in painting as she is inferior to them in architecture. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it : if it's insen- sitive, so be it. I've been charged by other readers that this isn't my own opinion, but 'routine fashion-conscious grimacing, so typical of England today,' snobbery,' and so on. Well, it's not. I don't even know whether my views are fashionable or not : I suspect not.

Finally, implicit in most readers' letters is the charge of bad taste in writing anything at all critical of Florence at such a time—a sort of de mortuis doctrine. Taste is a tricky concept. On the whole, my definition would be that if the Duomo had been destroyed it would be bad taste to say, just now, that it wasn't much cop anyway; but that since it wasn't it isn't. But I'll have to be more careful next time. And what's wrong with the railway station, anyway?

NIGEL LAWSON