SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

STRIX

The epithet is monosyllabic, which should re- commend it to sub-editors. Its meaning is clear. It occurs frequently in the works of Shakes- peare. It is unlikely to be employed by my obituarist.

When did you last hear an individual de- scribed, in public or in private, as 'wise'? In print the word is more likely to crop up in the provincial than in the national press, where valedictory tributes to retiring aldermen do not enjoy the equivalent of squatters' rights; but even there its. appearances are rare. And yet wisdom is a quality on which the human race has always set a high value.

I don't think you could say that wisdom has become ddmode, in the way that other antique virtues have: chastity and patriotism, for in- stance. Progressive persons, who set the fashion in these matters and would not in the least mind being described as unchaste or anti-patriotic, would be hurt by the suggestion that they were lacking in wisdom, which I daresay some of them are. One would expect more education to result in an escalation of wisdom; but has it? We all know that the Prime Minister is a clever man, but does anyone believe him to be a wise one? The Pope and Mao Tse-tung don't sound wise, whereas (to me) Lady Stocks does. I sus- pect that Lord Goodman and Sir Alec Douglas- Home have wisdom in them; I know that Sir Alan Lascelles has, and also Sir John Master- man. But offhand it isn't all that easy to muster candidates for a Witanagemot, and Westminster strikes me as a particularly poor recruiting ground. Perhaps it always has been.

The efficiency stakes

Eighteen months ago, with the indispensable connivance of my bank, I put in hand an ambi- tious agricultural project; about 75 per cent of the construction work, most of which will even- tually be grant-aided by the Ministry of Agri- culture, is now complete, the main buildings

and their equipment are already in use, and everything seems to be working well. The other day we made out two lists. One had on it the principal contractors (numbering thirteen) on whom we had relied, the other recorded the government departments, local authorities. nationalised industries and other official agencies who had been involved: there were nine of these. We marked them all for efficiency, ten being the top mark. Private enterprise scored an average of just over seven; the state got five and a half.

In fact, these results were slightly unfair to the state. Only two of its organs—the Agricul- tural Land Service and the National Agricul- tural Advisory Service—were closely involved in the project; they had a lot of intricate work to do, they bore—since they had to authorise the grants--a direct financial responsibility, and they both got full marks.

Also ran

In a subsidiary but essential role the Ministry of Transport scored two. They had to authorise the diversion, by a few yards, of a footpath which was shown on the map as crossing one corner of the building site. Having completed the elaborate proforma on which you apply for the closure and re-routing of a public right of way, I appended a short note pointing out that this particular footpath had not been used in living memory and had for at least fifty years been blocked by a hedge without a stile in it.

My excursion into local history was a mis- take. The Ministry of Transport riposted that they could not set in motion the machinery for diverting a public right of way if that right of way no longer existed; I had told them that it had been effectively obstructed for years. They needed an assurance that the footpath had been reopened before they could take any action in the matter.

It all ended happily. A local official trudged through deep snow, at the height of the foot- and-mouth epidemic, to affix a typewritten notice to a remote gatepost, asking if anybody objected to my application. Time passed. No- body did object and in due course I was em- powered by the Ministry to divert what technically as much a public highway as the M On reflection. I think we marked them raz, low; but at least they did better than two of largest contractors, both firms with a high rec u- tation. They only scored one between them.

Incommunicado

From a Swiss village, but 'as from' the Hou-- of Commons. Mr Joel Barnett MP and Mr Helfer MP last week addressed to The Tine% long, plaintive letter about what they describ as 'a serious constitutional issue.' This, it turned out, was the absence, in a crisis, of any format machinery for notifying members that Parlia- ment has been recalled; the poor brutes are left to find out about it for themselves from press, radio and television.

Messrs Barnett and Heller, in faraway, shark- infested Switzerland, found this impossible. 'Shortly after the Russians moved in, we were told of the news by local people who also men- tioned reports of a recall of Parliament.' But they had left their addresses behind and, receiv- ing no summons from Westminster, dismissed these reports as unconfirmed rumours. Days passed, until, on Monday 26 August, the re- sourceful fellows 'went into the nearest large town and managed to obtain a copy of the Sunday Times.' Surprise, surprise! The uncon- firmed rumours were true! Parliament was assembling on that very day! The constitution had let them down; they regard it as 'vital' that the necessary reforms should be implemented without delay.

A person of sensibility cannot but be moved by the thought of these two legislators as the truth dawned on them, the Monday before last, in that large Swiss town. At what risk, by what ruse, they had 'managed to obtain' a copy of the Sunday Times we do not know; but it is only too easy to imagine the mixture of astonishment and chagrin with which they hoisted in its message. It seems, nevertheless, a little strange that they should have treated with automatic scepticism the 'local people' who told them that Parliament was being recalled. The party to which they belong having reduced the British traveller abroad to a state of chronic penury, Messrs Barnett and Helfer may not have been able to afford a telephone call or a telegram to London; but they might surely have made known to friendly natives their desire to listen to the news on the BBC. or they could at a trifling cost have rung up the nearest news- paper, or the nearest British Consul, to find out whether their presence at Westminster was re- quired. They did none of these things; waiting for the Serjeant-at-Arms to bicycle up with a piece of parchment in a cleft stick, they let the world pass by..lf I had been as wet as they were, I wouldn't have written to The Times about it. On the evidence available it is not the constitu- tion that wants reforming, it is the infantile behaviour of Mr Barnett and Mr Heller.

Footnote to above I wonder, incidentally, what action these inno- cents abroad would have taken if those uncon- firmed rumours had been to the effect that they had shared a six-figure win on the football pools?