A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK

FOREIGNERS in London, and there are of course many of them today, must sometimes be considerably mystified at reports of proceedings in the House of Commons. In last Saturday's Times, for example, they read (or might if they chose) in a report of the Prime Minister's speech on Commonwealth relations: " I remember well times of great anxiety about the British Empire at the end of the last century. I remember the South African War (loud laughter)."

Someone may well ask, in classic House of Commons phrase, " whence this simian laughter? " The point of the reminis- cence, of course,—and I have no doubt it gained much by the inflection the Prime Minister imparted to his reference—is that one of the historic episodes in that campaign was the Capture by the Boers of a young war correspondent named Winston Churchill, who was taken prisoner by a Boer named Louis Botha, escaped and was given a commission in the South African Light Horse under the future Lord Byng of Vimy. All things considered, it is not very surprising that the Prime Minister remembers the South African War.

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Though last week's papers duly recorded the death, at the age of 79, of the Right Hon. Henry Snell, P.C., C.B.E., C.H., first Baron Snell, of Plumstead, Kent, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, no one who knew Harry Snell will ever speak or think of him except as Harry Snell. And no one who knew him could think or speak of him except with deep respect. He was the best type of Labour politician, self-educated (he began employment at eight years old as a bird-scarer), shrewd, reasonable, genuine through and through—qualities which, combined with a natural fluency, made him an admirable speaker. Labour politics produce strange personal situations. Only one thing could be more surprising than to see Harry Snell in the House of Lords ; that was to see him Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms. He sat for East Woolwich from 1922 till he went to the House of Lords in 1931, and when Labour for the first time got control of the London County Council in 1934 it at once secured him as chair- man of the Council, an office which he filled with universal approba- tion. He was a bachelor, living of late years at a residential club, and one of the leaders of the ethical movement in this country.

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A detailed examination of the plans for the reconstructed Plymouth reveals the handiwork of Professor Patrick Abercrombie and Mr. Paton Watson, the Borough Surveyor, as something really impressive. There can have been no better piece of town-planning in recent years. Geographical conditions—Plymouth is bounded to the south by the sea and on the east and west by two rivers, the Plym and the Tamar, so that it is in effect built on a peninsula—both impose limitations and provide opportunities. The blitz provided oppor- tunities, too, in that while it laid the whole of the congested shopping centre flat, it hardly touched the principal residential districts, and old Plymouth, clustering between Charles II's Citadel and the original harbour at Sutton Pool, also suffered little. It is possible, therefore, to build a new Plymouth, based on a wide parkway driven imperiously from the Hoe on the south to the North Road Station of the Great Western and Southern Railways on the north, side by side with an almost intact historic Plymouth. The devastated area gives nearly all the space needed—though there will have to be some demolition at odd points—for the new shopping centre, civic centre, law courts and other public buildings, and for the first time, I believe, a city plan (as befits Plymouth, whose Lord Mayor, Lord Astor, is so deeply interested in agricul- ture) extends to the planning of agricultural land on and beyond its borders. Since the southern commons of Dartmoor come to within three or four miles of the city's boundary, the preservation, or wise planning, of the agricultural land intervening will give ideal access to a great open space that seems destined inevitably to become a National Park. The new Plymouth will be something

unique. * * *

The entry of Mr. Clarence Hatry into the bookselling business on a considerable scale is an interesting development Mr. Hatry explains, I believe, that he was doing a good deal of reading a few years ago, and got thoroughly interested in literature. In consequence he acquired a controlling interest in Hatchard's in Piccadilly, in Stonehams, 'the City booksellers, and at least one smaller concern. As a financier he is no doubt alive to the fact that the only difficulty about selling books today at a good profit is getting books to sell. I believe Mr. Hatry has his eye on the publishing side too, but whether he is at present publisher as well as bookseller I am not sure. Methuens was at one time open to purchase, or thought to be, but re-financed, and with Mr. Stanley Unwin and Mr. I. J. Pitman (Oxford and England footballer. Oxford runner, Chairman and Managing Director of the famous shorthand firm, and Director of the Bank of England) on its board, the firm which E. V. Lucas used to direct is now unassailable (if

that is the right word in the circumstances). . * * * *

It is odd to read of Tranby Croft becoming a girls' school, but

I suppose Tranby Croft wakes few memories in these days. But it is only now that it passes out of the hands of the Wilson famil) (the Hull shipowners, whose head today is' Lord Nunburnholme).

whose entertainment of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, at Tranby Croft in 1891 gave rise to one of the causes celebres of last century. Baccarat was played for high stakes, a player was accused of cheating, a slander action followed and the Prince of Wales was a witness at the trial, his appearance in that capacity, as one of the baccarat-party, evoking considerable censure from middle-class England, under the sting of which the Prince wrote a pained letter of explanation and self-defence to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Benson. The case incidentally did a great deal for the forensic reputation of Sir Edward Clarke, who led unsuccessfully for the army officer who brought the action. And now Tranby Croft, with all its memories, is to be a girls' school. * * * *

In writing of Mr. W. P. Crozier, the late editor of the Man- chester Guardian, I did not mention (for the good reason that I was not then aware of the fact) that in days—some fifteen or twenty years ago—when The Spectator used to publish provincial

letters, Mr. Crozier acted as its correspondent in Manchester. * * * *

Several thousand persons, I compute, made the same joke (if the word will pass muster in the context) this week. "No ONE TO LEAVE BRrrAn4," they read in the headlines. "Does that include the R.A.F.? " they asked one. another in the railway-carriages.

Jews.