A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WHEN someone asked me what the King would wear at the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's on Monday I said, without much thought, presumably some naval or military uniform. But the monamt I saw that slight figure walking up the long aisle from the great west door in a simple morning coat, with the Queen in as simple a costume of powdered blue, I realised how right the choice was. This was not a day of pageantry but a day of simplicity, of humility if you will, in thanksgiving. Seme pageantry indeed there was—in the Lord Mayor's procession, and the two processions of archbishops and bishops and Dean and Chapter, while the robes of the City Councillors and the American Ambassador's scarlet doctor's gown (how happy a thought to associate the United States thus formally with the Commonwealth's thanksgiving) gave the choir stalls a brilliance which the rest of the cathedral lacked. Nothing in the service could have been changed with advantage. The choice of the Prime Minister of Canada to read the First Lesson and the Moderator of the Free Church Council to read the second was pregnant in its symbolism. Two memories will stay with me longest—the marvellous purity of the trebles singing the second verse of Cecil Spring-Rice's "I vow to thee, my country," either unaccompanied or so little accompanied that the organ was inaudible, and the splendid clarity and sonorousness of the blessing with which the Archbishop of Canterbury closed the service from the altar steps. A deeply impressive service, of which the Archbishop of York's practical and challenging sermon was fully worthy.
Sir John Simon's unexpected visit to the Spanish children's camp at Southampton on Sunday was a kindly—and, it may be added, characteristic—act. The Home Secretary (as I must still call him, presumably for the last time) is a great lawyer, and he has had plenty of critics as Minister, particularly as Foreign Minister. But anyone who thinks of him as either a bloodless jurist or a mechanical adminis- trator has seen no more than the Home Secretary's obvious outward side. So far from being lacking in human emotion, he has more than once displayed that quality surprisingly. His intimate tribute to his mother, published when she died last year, will be in most people's memory ; and some at least will remember the devotion with which a few years ago he took up his wife's anti-slavery campaign and supported her constantly on the platform at meetings which he can have had no urgent personal desire to address. Officially he has, I believe, been entirely helpful over the Spanish children, and the sympathy he showed by visiting their camp the day they landed deserves recognition.
* * * * After diligent and comprehensive surveys at various official functions indoor and out in the past three weeks I have concluded that by far the most imposing of our Coronation guests is the Alake of Abeokuta (Abeokuta is somewhere Nigeria way). His height—he is both black and comely —his umbrella and the splendour of his blue silk robes,' confer on him a magnificent supremacy. At the Chatham House Garden Party on Tuesday he lorded it incon- testably- over the whole Commonwealth ; put Mr. Mackenzie King or General Hertzog beside him, and who are they ? That particular function had other innovations to offer—in the person, for example, of the delegate described (on the whole misdescribed) as clad in a morning coat and a loincloth. Actually the latter garment was a kind of short kilt, and knees were bare ; the general impression created being that their wearer began in Savile Row and ended in a Boy Scout's camp (or vice versa if you §tart from below). But the bestowal of my apple, if I were Paris instead of Janus, would not raise a moment's doubt. It would go, in two equal pieces, to Dr. and Mrs. Ba Maw, from Burma. The delicate cream tint of their complexions, matched perfectly by the delicate cream tint of their clothing, and set off by equal delicacy both of figure and of feature, made them a pair on which the roaming eye was well content to rest.
* * * * I observe that one of the new destroyers to be included in the 1937 programme, just announced, is given in anticipa- tion the name C Kipling.' This represents one of the Admiralty's rare excursions into literature. The only names drawn from that field are borne by two flotilla-leaders called respectively Shakespeare' and Spenser' (I assume it is after Edmund, not Herbert, though the statement on which I draw gave it as 'Spencer '), and at this rate we shall get to an H.M.S. ' Austin ' before we finish. If we followed the French navy's practice it would be H.M.S. 'Alfred Austin,' for its cruisers bear, or . have borne, such names as 'Ernest Renan," Victor Hugo' and 'Jules Verne ' ; its battleships, on the other hand, have usually been content with surnames—as 'Voltaire,' Diderot," Cou- durier.' If the Admiralty seriously thinks of going literary it should appoint the British Academy or some such body as adviser—though it happens at the moment to have a First Lord who is quite capable of advising himself on such matters.
* * * * How far political considerations should be allowed to affect the conferment Of such distinctions as honorary degrees is a nice question. It has just arisen at Dublin University in the case of Mr. J. L. Garvin. The Board of the University agreed to offer him an honorary degree, for which the con- currence of the Senate and the sanction of the Caput (consis- ting of the Senior Master Non-Regent, the Chancellor and the Provost), which must be unanimous, are necessary. One member of the Caput having announced, during the Senate discussion, that he would veto the proposal, the whole project has been dropped. The avowed reason was the attitude the Editor of The Observer adopted over the Abyssinian question. The outcome of the affair has, I gather, caused some division of opinion—the veto annoying the older school and evoking considerable approval from younger dons and undergraduates. Mr. Garvin, it is safe to assume, will go his characteristic way unperturbed.
* * * * "If ever a saying was true politically it is The lettet killeth and the spirit giveth light.' "—Mr. Baldwin, according to the Daily Telegraph.
True 'politically it may be ; true Scripturally it decidedly isn't. And if the Devil is capable of quoting Scripture for his purpose, Mr. Baldwin is quite certainly incaptb!e of
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