A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
LAST Saturday M. Pierre Cot, Lord Cecil, and other representatives of sane opinion throughout the world met to consider how the bombardment of open towns might be prevented and the victims of war be speedily and economi- cally cared for. With a realism sometimes denied to peace- makers, the delegates accepted M. Roger Martin du Gard's statement that such bombardments cannot be prevented or regulated while the will to war persists, and turned at once to practical matters, details of the administration of relief. For example : Spain, lacking fodder and needing food, kills off her cows. Is it better to keep an eye on the future and send forage so that the remaining beasts may be saved ? Or, looking to immediate distresses, buy tinned milk with which to carry on ? So with agricultural implements. The tractor costs more than the plough ; on the other hand it can be worked by semi-skilled labour ; and since the army needs horses and the people kill oxen for food, it is probably better to have an implement whose motive-power is less vulnerable. Thus the spontaneity departs from applied benevolence. It is no longer a gesture but a science, " with all that that implies."
* * * * This Conference recalled to memory and perhaps to use a forgotten product for which we in this country once had good reason to be grateful. Sphagnum moss was used by the R.A.M.C. during the War in great quantities ; almost, it superseded lint for dressings. Its absorptive capacity was great, it was easy to prepare, it grew at home. All these considerations recommended it. Then came the Armistice ; the need for such adjuncts to war seemed to be over for ever, and moss went out of medical favour. Now the exigencies and forced economies of strife in Spain have rediscovered it, together with one or two other humble substances and expedients for the cure of wounds whose services the years of peace allowed us willingly to forget.
* * *. * " Clouds of good omen discernible in times of peace " was the title of an anthem suggested by Japan as suitable to be sung by the Chinese of the invaded areas. Copies of this would be welcomed by the British taxpayer ; and the Admir- alty, which has just paid for two ships something like three times the original estimates, should be charged with their distribution. This really remarkable piece of spending, which even drew a question from the Committee of Public Accounts, could be explained on the supposition that the contracting firms have succeeded in discovering one of those Sesames to which the Navy is sensitive. A personal reminis- cence may illustrate one of these. During the War I was despatched on an Admiralty errand to France. Returning after 48 hours I reported at Whitehall, and presented to the appropriate department a statement showing my expenditure on food, transport and lodging during that period. This was rejected without comment. • Next day, primed by an official older in guile, I re-stated the account, presented it again and was immediately paid, also without comment. The three items had been run together into one total under a single heading : Porterage. How long has England been agriculturally sluttish ? And with an air, too, of saying like Audrey : I thank my God I am foul. It seems to be something quite new. Thirty years back, less perhaps, the trim English countryside made legend overseas ; neat hedges, grass of a texture not known in ex- tremer climates, water disciplined, not a rabbit on show. Nowadays the walker comes everywhere upon evidences of a breakdown in this excellent economy ; fields dirty with thistles infecting their neighbours, gaps in hedges mended with twists of rusty wire, and above all a plague, a very sending of rabbits. I invite any person who is interested and strong on the leg to take a stroll of six or seven miles along any hill- side in southern or midland England ; he will find exquisite downland turf which ought to be fattening the world's best mutton given over, nibbled bare, and the faces of the slopes cheesy with burrows. Nowhere, not in America which has all a big country's licence to be casual, nor in Australia where the pest is notorious, have I seen rabbits so unchecked or land so rotted with their mischief.
* * * * In fact the land, with apologies to Mr. Morrison and to the expert who writes on another page of The Spectator, is at present nobody's business. (Odd that this phrase should, across the Atlantic, imply admiration.) The great landlord who was the land's capitalist and banker no longer has money to match his responsibilities. The State, though it pays in subsidies a certain amount of conscience-money, cannot make up its mind to 'take these responsibilities over. The farmer meanwhile does as best he can, hastily thrusting old bedsteads into the gaps in his hedges, letting the brook flood and sour his land for want of time and labour to clear its channel. The labour exists in England, as in finance a frozen credit may exist ; neither work nor money can be made available, it seems, without the application of some formula as yet not understood. The farmer waits the time when it shall be made known, living from hand to mouth. The result of such methods must in the end be loss ; loss of productivity, of pride in hus- bandry, and—for what it is worth ; much to many Englishmen —loss of that beauty which derives from order. * * * * The French are an economical people ; that is axiomatic. Besides knowing how many beans make five, they are reputed to understand the art of love. The combination of these two qualities sometimes perplexes the foreigner, more especially as it shows itself in that newspaper column headed " Petites Annonces," which covers Positions Wanted, For Sale, Bar- gains, and Personal, with such extras as Occult Sciences and Marriages thrown in. From this last subdivision of the column the following example is taken ; it has been chosen as showing sentiment and economy blended at an inclusive rate of 15 francs the line : Mr. 4o a. ay. empl., gr. fort, des. renc. D. ou Die. bne, sent., sinc. aff. prof. s'abs. p. int. PAC.
This masterpiece of compression, with its insistence on affection and sincerity, and its final warning to professional matchmakers to keep off (thus saving commission), does credit as much to the advertiser's head as to his heart.
HELEN SIMPtON.
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