A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE Government, it seems, is very much to blame for the hold-up in Parliamentary business resulting from the regretted death of the Speaker. The intensification of the changes and chances of this mortal life in a time of frequent blitzes was, I understand, brought to the Speaker's notice by a private individual eighteen months or more ago, and Captain Fitzroy himself took the matter up with the Law Officers. They realised the importance of making provision' for a contingency which, however improbable, was always possible, and a Bill providing that in the event of a Speaker's death the Deputy-Speaker should act ad interim has been in draft for over a year. For some reason or other the Government never put it before the House. Hence the present deadlock, which though not grave in its consequences is inconvenient and irritating and quite unneces- sary. Captain Fitzroy's family, I am told, let the Government know, earlier this week, that they were anxious, and they were sure the Speaker himself would be anxious, that no consideration for their feelings should stand in the way of any steps it might be thought. necessary to take to provide against difficulties that would arise should the Speaker not recover. Now the House must suspend its sittings for some days. The very election of the new Speaker will be irregular, for the House cannot, strictly speaking, be in being till the Chair is filled. As to personalities, it is next door to certain that either Colonel Clifton Brown, the late Deputy-Speaker, or Major Lloyd George or Mr. W. S. Morrison will be chosen, with slight odds in favour of the first-named, though either of the others would fill the position admirably. One lesson to be learnt is that while old customs and traditions may be picturesque they can have consider- able practical disadvantages.
* * * * Sir William Beveridge, I think, was fully justified, in his Observer article last Sunday, in emphasising temperately that what is at issue between him and the Government is essentially a question of principle. His purpose was to produce a plan under which freedom from want would be achieved by securing to every person in health or out of health, in work or out of work, the means to a reasonable subsistence. By certain of its reservations or revisions the Govern- ment has definitely abandoned the subsistence principle. That may have to be. I should never suggest that the financial side of the plan could be subordinated, much less ignored. But there Is a substantial difference between an amended insurance and pension scheme and the freedom from want scheme, which gives . everyone a minimum subsistence as a right. Realisation of that is necessary if the extra sacrifices and the extra productive effort on which freedom from want depends are to be forthcoming. • * * * *
It is not generally known, I think, that the Encyclopaedia Britannica has just become the property of the University of Chicago. In thus acquiring so important an asset and so great a responsibility the University of Chicago is following in the steps of the University of Oxford, which became the owner of the Dictionary of National Biography as the legatee of the patron of the enterprise, the head of Smith, Elder & Co. It is from a somewhat unexpected source that the University of Chicago has received the Encyclopaedia Britannica. We may be inclined to think of the Encyclopaedia as a public possession, but, in fact, its ownership has changed several times in the last generation. Its latest owner was the great mail order house of Sears, Roebuck, and Sears, Roebuck, in the past, has been a great sponsor of good causes ; its head, the late Julius
Rosenwald, was one of the most intelligent of American ph thropists. Nevertheless, it will be generally agreed that a gr university is a fitter owner of an enterprise like the Encyclopae Britannica than even the most enlightened business man can Since the head of the University of Chicago, Robert M. Hutch has lively and very personal views on the unity of knowledge, learned world and the educated world in general will look interest on the future history of the Encyclopaedia. The Univers first task will be to appoint an Editor and arrange for a new edit' for it is quite time preparations were made for that. The edition appeared in 1929, under the general editorship of Mr. J. Garvin. The next edition must clearly be deferred long enou for it to cover the whole of the present war—but, it may be ho not longer.
* * * * While the importance of last Monday's heavy raid is not to underrated as a landmark in the development of the air-war, I ho the evening papers and the B.B.C. will think again about th treatment of such events. For my part, by the time I had heard nine o'clock news on Tuesday evening, I had had much more th my fill of exultation. And when I read in Wednesday's paper so observations by Mr. Duncan Sandys, M.P., to the effect that " the ` cookies ' are being made in quantities which should more th satisfy even Nazi appetites," exultation gave place to some disgu The . dropping of an 4,000-lb. bomb—or " cookie " if Mr. Sand prefeks that—on Berlin has results as hideous and horrible as dropping of an 8,000-lb. bomb on London. Such a raid may be hideous and horrible necessity ; war is as hideous and horri today as it ever was. So far as a raid on Berlin brings the end the war nearer it can be welcomed. So far as a raid on a gr capital anywhere means a horrible death for men and women children buried in the ruins of their houses, it is something deep sobering. It is no service to decency or truth to disguise that and glib phrases about " cookies which should more than sat Nazi appetites." More than one morning paper on Wednesda it may be added, treated the raid with an objectivity and restr which set a standard that might be generally accepted. * * * *
Since I took, up the question of pyjamas for the forces in column some months ago I have retained a certain interest in th particular article of clothing. Now the question has been raised the House of Common, and in consequence engaged the attention The Times. What arrests me in the treatment of the subject that great journal is the dogmatic assertion that " those aggressiv pyjamas have won a Blitzkrieg, and in the course of at mo fifty years have swept the nightgown from the face of the civilis world." (The civilised world seems to keep its face in strange places. But is it the fact that the western world existed without pyjamas till fifty years ago? It seems that it actually did—though not the eastern. The chase of pyjamas through the Oxford Dictionary is a
heartening exercise. We get in 1800 " pai jamahs "; in 1834 " paigammahs " (now obsolete, like digamthas); in 184o paijamahs
in 1889 ." pyjamahs "; and not till 1893—exactly fifty years ago— the current " pyjamas." But we use the term all wrong. It means only half what The Times tbinks its readers wear at nights, to wit, loose drawers or trousers usually of silk or cotton." I am glad The Times leader-writers should have given their great minds to
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