A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE tragic death of the Duke of Kent leaves the King only one brother, the Duke of Gloucester, available to help him in dis- charging those numberless formalities which royalty in this country shoulders so readily and executes so well. I was present at the Duke of Kent's wedding in Westminster Abbey eight years ago, one of the last public occasions, I suppose, when King George V and Queen Mary, their daughter, and their four sons, were all assembled as a family. The Duke of Kent deserved particular recognition for the way he carried out his public duties, for he was undisguisedly shy, and would always obviously prefer an unobtrusive to a prominent place. It may be impossible ever to
discover with certainty the cause of his death, unless, indeed, it is found, from the position of the flying-boat that it crashed into a hill- side in bad weather. For an aeroplane simply to drop from a height and crash is most unusual, and in the case of so reliable a machine as a Sunderland would be almost out of the question.
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I am interested to note the respect with which The Times, itself markedly more liberal in recent months, is referring to the Liberal Party—meaning by that Sir Archibald Sinclair's Liberals, not Lord Simon's. Its leading article on "Civil Service Reform" on Tuesday made extended reference to the Liberal Party's report on that subject, and on Wednesday it devoted nearly two-thirds of a column to the agenda for the Party's annual conference next week. It may be, of course, that Lord Mcston is right in thinking the stage is set for "a Liberal come-back" and that The Times, with laudable sagaci:y, is seizing occasion by the hand. But I cannot feel very sure myself about the come-back. The real trouble for the Liberal Party is that the country as a whole is so Liberal. The Conservatives have no objection to including an almost Liberal left-wing, or the Labour Party to an almost Liberal right. Liberals, moreover, are so individualist that they do not easily cohere. It is true that a few strayed sheep are drifting back to the part-y. I wish a record had been made commemorating the Par:y officials' ejacula- tions of welcome on the return of Mr. Clement Davies, who has signalised his transference of allegiance by presenting the Party Conference with a rival resolution on things in general as long as the Executive's own. Independence and unity, both admirable qualities, can be a lamentable nuisance to reconcile.
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Sir Archibald Sinclair's speech on the bombing of Germany raises issues of considerable importance, which only the War Cabinet' can decide. There can be no question that the raids on centres like Cologne, Rostock and Lubeck have done immense damage to war- industries—examination of the photographs taken subsequently dispels all doubt about that—and though the destruction of civilian property is no part of the R.A.F.'s purpose the amount of destruction that inevitably accompanies the bombing of military objectives is presenting Germany with a grave re-housing problem, and—so far as new houses have to be provided some distance away—with a grave transport problem. All that reduces efficiency considerably, and as one centre after another is attacked the effect is substantial. Notable results, moreover, are obtained at a small cost in personnel, as the Air Minister showed when he mentioned that the raid on the Renault and Matford works at Paris destroyed the equivalent of the equipment of five armoured divisions for the loss of 25 British lives. At the moment raids on Germany are the only way in which we can give help to Russia, and the effect, admittedly, is not immediate. At Dieppe, on the other hand, we pretty certainly dealt the Luftwaffe such a blow as to make reinforcement from the Russian front necessary. And Germany, whose losses in the east are very heavy, has by no means as large an air-force there as is commonly supposed. We too need to build up our strength before we can hope to cripple Germany from the air, but at present it seems the most likely way of crippling her. Some, no doubt, of her industries have been dispersed, but the most important of them are tied down to the iron and coal deposits.
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The time-honoured question about what books you would take with you to a desert island (the Bible and Shakespeare running neck- and-neck for top place) is suggested by a letter from Malta which has just been sent me. Malta, it is true, is by no means a desert island, but sojourns in rock-shelters during air-raids impose enforced leisure on a generous scale, and reading can be an invaluable solace. The writer of the letter concerned wisely took with him to Malta three years ago a selection of volumes in the handiest of all the various series of reprints and finds himself turning,, as a good many people here are, to the Victorians, mentioning in particular Trollope and Constance Holme (a writer too much forgotten) and rejoicing in the discovery of Gait's The Entail.. (Let me commend to him the same writer's Annals of the Parish.) But there are, after all, other things than novels. Boswell, for example, I should find a place for in even the shortest list. But chacun a son gofit.
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Talking of books, and of Boswell, I have just been reading some obGervations made by Dr. Johnson, so described,,on August t5th, 1942 (not 174z). He was speaking of his writings, and mentiowd that one of them "had a wider circulation than any book in the English language except the Bible, or perhaps Pilgrim's Progress." I ought properly to offer a small prize for the first correct identifi- cation of this classic, but such quixotry only tends to encourage greed. Moreover, I am not quite sure myself what the volume is. It is not Rasselas or the Vanity of Human Wishes. I fancy, indeed, that it .is something on Russia. The writer, on the same occasion. informed his audience we very nearly came into the war on the wrong side—historians would tell how near. In the same vein he added, among the indisputables, that we ought long ago to have given Russia a second front ; also that Russia was the only country he knew where front seats in tram-cars were reserved for pregnant women (surely a rather self-conscious prominence). Elsewhere in the report he is more spaciously designated the Very Reverend Hewlett Johnson, M.A., B.Sc., D.D.
* * * * Amenities
THE SECOND FRONT.
SIR,—In this week's leader you write: "The Second Front can never be a purely military operation ; it is—whether we like it or not —part of a European revolution against Fascism. That may be one of the real reasons why it is postponed so long."
Do you seriously believe this? KEYNES. [Yes.—En., N.S. and N.] From The New Statesman and Nation—of which Lord Keynes,
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