A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
NOW that Mr. J. H. Thomas is out of the' Cabinet his reputation, a little paradoxically perhaps, will stand higher. For more people will look past the foreground, to the days when Mr. Thomas was simply member for Derby and one of the greatest trade union leaders this country has known. He became president of the old Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants in 1910, the year he entered Parliament, and Secretary of the National l'inion of Railwaymen, into which the A.S.R.S. was merged, in 1918. He was a great negotiator, and in the General Strike of 1926, though he found himself necessarily among the strikers' leaders, he Was, as always, a moderating influence. Cabinet office had not the best effect on him. His dress-suit is much more than a cartoonist's convention. But he only has one failure on his record, the attempt to cure unemployment in strange partnership with Sir Oswald Mosley and Mr. Lansbury in the Labour Government of 1929. What he wanted when that Government was formed was the Foreign Office, and Mr. MacDonald meant him to have it ; Lord Snowden has told in his Memoirs an entertaining story of the manoeuvres that ended in 311. Henderson's installation in Sir Austen's chair. Mr. Thomas will be remembered primarily for his trade union work, and if he is wise he will ask nothing better.
Speculation about the two new appointments (for the Admiralty is virtually vacant, as well as the Colonial Office) may be set at rest by a definite announcement before these lines appear. Common rumour, which gives the .first post to Sir Samuel Hoare and the second to Mr. Ormsby-Gore, follows the Erie of what is' obvions and sensible so closely that it is hardly Worth while to .discuss alternatives. The return of Sir Samuel will unquestionably strengthen the Cabinet, and no one can be found half as well qualified as Mr. Ornisby-Gore for the Colonial Secretaryship. That Lord Beaverbrook disapproves of him—as evidenced by a leading article in The Evening Standard devoted solely to a bitter protest against his appointment, will certainly not lessen his chances.
The Press must, I suppose, get the news at all costs, and the question of intrusion on privacy no longer arises. Mr. J. H. Thomas very intelligently prefers to pass the week-end in seclusion. But Where is the seclusion? "Our Special Correspondent" Must be dis- patched to ferret him out, and does it. Lord iirintertOii entertains half a dozen political friends his country house ; down goes Our Special Correspondent to. get all there is to get. And what is there to get in the end ? In the One case the name of the house where Sir. ThoMas is staying with a personal friend, and a photograph of the gates that were kept locked daring Mr. Thoniiis' visit ; in the other quotations from the sapient converse- tion • of the village worthies in the kcal bar-parlour. If jesting Pilate had asked " What is news ? " and had been willing to stay for an answer he would have got some singularly strange ones.
To the Nazis and Fascists we must now add the Resists. The success of M. Leon Dcgrelle's new party at the Belgian elections has surprised everyone, and the, personality and aims of the new party leader have suddenly become a matter of curiosity. There is not so far a great deal to go on. The character of M. Degrelle's movement can _best be gauged from his weekly journal Rex (the movement, which is roughly Catholic-Fascist, was originally called " Christus Rex "). Three main lines of policy emerge. Firstly, the Socialist leaders are charged with betraying the working classes, especially by permitting the devalua- tion of the belga. Secondly, the " banksters " are denounced generally and indiscriminately, and particu- larly in connexion with devaluation. Thirdly, the Conservative Catholic parties of Belgium are vigorously attacked for confusing. the issue of anti-socialism with religion and morals, thus failing to put nationalism first as the basis of anti-socialism.
.* The Reform Club is not venerable, as London Clubs go. To White's and Brooks's and Boodle's mere centenary is nothing. But the Reform has an air about it. Originally a Whig stronghold, it has almost ceased to be a party institution, though the Liberal.. flavour is still largely predominant. But the Bench and the Bar, journalism and literature and business and the civil service, are all largely represented. The table in the large dining-room, and the corner in the smoking- room, where Arnold Bennett in his . day, H.- G. Wells, J. A. Spender, A. G. Gardiner, T. E. Page till he -died the other day, and generally a member or two of both Houses of Parliament, have or had a kind of prescriptive tenure, is a fairly typical cross-section of. the Club's membership. It 'is' .essentially a place where the library is more frequented than the billiard-room.. • • * The work the National Art Collections Fund is doing is too- adequately concealed under its rather prosaic title.. Founded to steni the flow of notable pictures from this country to America, it has actually succeeded in several cases in making the tide flow the other way, as its latest report demonstrates. Its contribution of over £2,500 Made possible the purchase of Holbein's portrait of Mrs. Pemberton when it appeared in the Pierpoint Morgan sale; and the' Armada Jewel was waited at the same time. Both are now in the Victoria and .Albert Museum Few societies fulfil their original function si3 completely or deserve their annual guinea so
Previous page
