A Spectator's Notebook
WITH the Indian debate over and the White Paper accepted by the House of Commons as the basis for discussion, the question now is what the personnel of the Select Committee will be. Certain names—Sir Samuel Hoare, Lord Sankey, Lord Irwin—are obvious enough, and no doubt the Labour Party will nominate, among others, Major Attlee and Lord Snell. The Liberals are in an odd position. Their two chief authorities on India happen to be Lord Reading and Lord Lothian. If, as seems likely, they are offered only two places on the Committee, which is to include twelve members of each House, they will have to choose between a peer with a notable past and a peer with a manifest future, or else (which is surely inconceivable) appoint no member of the party in the Commons at all. Whether Mr. Churchill will be put on, and what Mr. Churchill will say if he is not, is another of the points of livelier interest. Throughout the Indian discussions one man at least has steadily enhanced his reputation. That is Sir Samuel Hoare. His handling of the. situation has increased in firmness and confidence and at the same time in. liberality. Information that reaches me from an excellent source in India indicates that a belief in the Secretary of State's goodwill and good faith is constantly growing, and also that the Viceroy is as convinced a supporter of reform as his predecessor. One of the oddest suggestions I have heard lately, by the way (in more than one quarter), .is that Lord Irwin may be the new Headmaster of Eton.
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