A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
AWRITER in last week's Spectator quoted Professor F. W. Foerster's story of the German diplomat who, during the last war observ,x1 that inthe event of defeat Germany's policy would be to " organise sympathy." Almost startling evidence of the immuta- bility of German ideas has since reached mej The French journal Combat (published surreptitiously in France and openly in Algiers) has just printed a secret memorandum ascribed to General von Stii:pnagel, the Military Governor (Befehlhaber) of France. It is based on the recognition that Germany's defeat is inevitable, and from much that I should like to quote here if space were available there emerges this pregnant paragraph:
" We shall place a few workers at our enemies' disposal for the reconstruction of their devastated territories, and we shall surrender our old machinery. We shall wear out our enemies by our tactics in negotiation, and initiate a propaganda campaign appealing to humanitarian sentiments and the sympathy of the world."
The italics are mine ; I think in * * the circumstances they are justified. * * There appears to be rather a remarkable revival of interest in President Wilson in the United States. A " superfilm " called simply " Wilson " is in preparation at Hollywood (so a friend in Baltimore writes to me), and will be released in July by Twentieth Century- Fox Films, of which, it is interesting to note, Mr. Wendell Willkie is chairman. In addition, a " photobiography," consisting of 250 scenes from Woodrow Wilson's life, with I50 pages of letterpress by Gerald W. Johnson, of the Baltimore Sun, is in an advanced stage 0' preparation, and the well-known writer, Stephen Bonsai, has ready for publication a book of some importance entitled Wilson and the League. What, if anything, all this portends politically I cannot
pretend to say.
* * * * I read with regret the news of the death of Theodor Wolff, the former editor of the great Liberal paper (now, of course, defunct) the Berliner Tageblatt. It apparently took place as long ago as last November, in a Berlin hospital. That in itself is sinister. Wolff found his journalistic work impossible under the Nazi regime, and resigned his post in 1933, being succeeded by Paul Scheffer. He went to live in the south of France, and was deprived of his German citizenship in 5937. He would certainly never have re- turned to Berlin of his own volition, and must have been taken there after the invasion of France. He leaves behind him the memory of a notable editorship of a notable paper—for the Tageblatt under Wolff could stand comparison with any journal in Europe. * * * * Nothing could be more sensible—or only one thing—than to mobilise herrings to the maximum for the future feeding of Europe, as the herring Industry Committee recommends. The one thing more sensible—or, at any rate, on the same level of common sense —would be to mobilise that most •admirable of fish, the Cornish pilchard. As food the pilchard, I claim without hesitation, is far superior in flavour to the herring, though nothing like the same quantity is available, for the pilchard-shoals bear no relation to the herring-shoals, and the season is short. The one market for pilchards used to be Italy, and that, of course, after being dis- organised by sanctions in t935, disappeared altogether in 194o. To bespeak beforehand all the pilchards that the fishermen of Meva- gissey and other ports can net this season would be a great thing for Cornwall—and a greater thing for the about-to-be-liberated countries of Europe.
In connexion with a recent observation of mine that some form of E.P.T. was necessary because of the bad effect on public morale of the spectacle of large profits made out of war-trading, and the further remark that there could be war-profits in wages as well as in company balance-sheets, I have just been sent some striking figures. They show that as between 1939 and 1943 wages (per man per shift) in the coal-mining industry have gone up by 54 per cent., the selling-price of -coal has gone up by 55 per cent. a ton, and the decrease in profit by 4o per cent. a ton. I give the figures as I have received them. They are taken, I am told, from accounts certified
on behalf of employers and workers jointly. * * * * The loss of H.M.S. ' Janus' has evoked a fine Resurgam spirit. The ship had been adopted by Wigan, and that Lancashire town, to its credit, has immediately set itself to find L700,000 for a new destroyer'—which may or may not be named ' Janus,' though it is much to be hoped that it will be. The matter is in the hands of the War Savings Committee, which is already committed to a special drive in the Salute the Soldier Campaign, and must get that disposed of first. The loss of the ' Janus' has stirred the sym- pathies of many readers of this column. Perhaps between us we may be able to render some small service to the next ' Janus.' * * * * Chance led me• a few days ago, just after reading Miss Sackville- West's delightful article on Shepetovka, to re-read Mr. Harold Nicolson's diary of the Paris Peace Conference embodied in his book Peacemaking, 1919. There I found this: "D:ne with Joseph Potocki at the Ritz. A fine anachronism. I tell him how deep'y impressed I had been by hearing Paderewski make his speech at the Supreme Council. He answers ' Yes, a remarkable man, a very re- markable man. Do you realise that he was born in one of my own villages? Actually at Shepziovka.'". So a link is established over quarter of a century. And a very interesting link, for Miss Sackville- West, I need hardly recall, is Mrs. Harold Nicolson. * * * *
It is pointed out to me that the winning entry in the recent
competition for Underground Railway slogans- " On the right it's Stand at Ease,' On the left it's ' Quick March, Please,'" has political possibilities—as either Mr. Aneurin Bevan or Sir Richard Acland may sooner or later realise.
* * * *
My paragraph last week on the hotel which calls on its guests to "remunerate the staff " brings a reminiscence of an under- graduate's search for diggings in Oxford. The price, said the land- lady, was so and so, " and you will be expected to ruminate the
maid." Omne ignotum pro—horrifico ; so the applicant fled. * * * * A sentence in a speech by Flight-Lieut. Teeling, in the recent foreign affairs debate in the House of Commons, provokes fruitful reflection: "People do not realise that only 700 people took part in the Battle of Britain, which was as important in many ways as
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