Since it took place on a Wednesday afternoon, I shall
not be able to comment on the debate Viscount Simon was initiating in the House of Lords on that day on the affairs of U.N.E.S.C.O. It is extremely desirable that .a critical, though not necessarily hostile, discussion of this rather amorphous organisation should take place, and the House of Lords is a very good place for it to take place in. The report of the latest U.N.E.S.C.O. conference is not yet, I believe, available, but the booklet containing documents relating to the 1947 conference includes some remarkable entries. The summary of the 1948 Budget is one of them, for it shows that out of a total expenditure of 7,682,637 dollars more than half-4,245,268- is expended on "personnel," which I suppose is another way of saying "staff." Among other entries I note that " U.N.E.S.C.O. will in 1948 undertake, in the Humanities and Philosophy, a pro-.
gramme of enquiry into the humanistic aspects of cultures, from the point of view of their mutual relations and their subjective valua- tions." This is very encouraging, though I don't begin to understand what it means, and I rather fancy Lord Simon doesn't either. On the other hand, I believe I do know what " enquiries into the conceptions which the people of our nation entertain of their own and of other nations." It means " what nations think of themselves and one another." Whether it is prudent to put the results in print is, as Ministers so often say, another question.
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