A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK T HE fact that the Foreign Secretary took
his doctor with him on so comparatively short a journey as that to Strasbourg and Paris will not have escaped notice. It is hardly calculated to alleviate the anxiety which many who have been watching Mr. Bevin closely in the new Parliament feel about his health. He may be better than he looks. He has often in the past shown remarkable resilience. He is determined, moreover, to carry on, till it becomes physically impossible, with that consolidation of Western Europe in which he so profoundly believes and which he has already done so much to further. None the less the possibility of a fairly early vacancy at the Foreign Office must be faced, and it is not surprising that there should be speculation in the coufisses about a successor. The field of choice is limited. I do not see Mr. Hector McNeil being put in charge yet, and though Mr. Philip Noel-Baker knows more of foreign affairs over the last thirty years than any other Minister, the Ministry of Fuel and Power hardly looks like being a stepping-stone to the Foreign Office. Whom does that leave ? I should say Sir Hartley Shawcross. The Attorney-General has attended most (or it may be all) of the Assemblies of the United Nations and has not lost faith in that organisation. He has, of course, great ability, a profes- sional capacity for mastering new subjects, sound judgement and an attractive personality ; and he carries guns. I should be surprised if these qualities did not weigh with the Prime Minister if the occasion arose. Hereditary feuds unfortunately rule out another solution for which a great deal could be said—the recall of Mr. Malcolm MacDonald from Singapore to Downing Street.
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