Sept. 4.
Mr. Anthony Eden is again indisposed, having fallen a victim to that troublesome infantile malady, chicken-pox, which can be truly distressing to the adult, so Viscount Halifax continues his benevolent labours at the Foreign Office as Lord Privy Seal. Mr. Neville Chamberlain has been taking the waters at Harrogate, to the scorn of the Yorkshire grouse (vide "Punch") who thinks the Chancellor must be daft to search for water during this terribly wet summer. Mr. Stanley Baldwin is on holiday but it has been stated that he Is a tired man and has suffered much from insomnia, Too much should not be made of these signs that the Cabinet Minister is not necessarily bursting with rude. health, Critics have written as if) the moderns were weaklings as pared with their robustly gigantic [predecessors Yet Pitt was a martyr' to gout, Gladstone's health always a source of anxiety in his Jater days, even if he did find holiday employment in felling trees at Hawarden. Still the democratic counlry—there are still a few left— may be inclined to rejoice at the news that M. Josef Stalin is "under the weather." Of late it had seemed as if the dictators, in spite of the enormous burdens on their shoulders were able to escape the ordinary. consequences of the wear and tear of public life. Signor Mussolini, for example, until the other day, juggled with several portfolios in governing Italy and waging "the most, righteous war of the age" in Abys-sinza and still, obviously, has much to say in the decisions taken by his' depaziments. Yet, at any moment, he is prepared to come out on that balcony and make a welkin-ringing speech and, if he be called. upon to make an aeroplane trip to. Elba or encircle that Island in a motor-boat besides discovering its magic qualities as a bulwark of Fascist civilization, he takes it all in his stride without losing a single pound of his fighting weight. No boxer keeps fitter than he, Theoretically responsibility brings strain. Dictators, then, bear strain better than democratically established rulers. Democracy must look to it. If it wishes to preserve its integrity against the advance of the totalitarian idea it must make service in its administration less exhausting. The democratic politician may, of course, retort that the remedy is obvious. The Dictator has no opposition or even critical press. Abolish the press or bring. it severely under Government control, the politician might be heard to assert, and the democratic Minister—it the epithet will then remain with him—will trouble no doctors or health resorts. Withou: mocratic Minister is the victim of an out-of-date system of adminl~ strative procedure. Assuming that there is substance in the contention that Mr, Eden should keep fitter than he does and that his lack of health is due to the impossibly heavy strain imposed on him, steps might be taken to overhaul the whole programme of the Cabinet Minister to see whether he cannot be relieved of obligations which, however appropriate in more spacious and primitive days, are clearly anachronistic in the 20th Century. Mr, Baldwin's health has been giving even more anxiety because there Is so general an im= pression that he cannot readily be replaced. His attempt to case the burden by absenting himself from the House on a certain occasion lately was made the subject of hostile criticism from the Opposition benches. The House of Commons can be a ruthless tyrant, especially if the ery be raised that the Front Bench to the right of the Speaker is negligent in respect to the House, On such occasions back-benchers on both sides are apt to forget party allegiances and horribly combine to castigate august personalities.
Parliament itself has a holiday—or recess—until October 29. The private member may have certain duties in his constituency; he may have to get off some of the arrears of his personal affairs; but generally he can indulge the holiday mood. Not so the Cabinet or other Minister: for him the recess is a time when Whitehall inexorably says to him in so many wor "Young man or Good Sir, as the case may be, you are now rid of the obligation to doze in the gas works, you can return to your regular and really serious duties at your desk in the carpeted roo the alist floor. There are many files for you to see, read and, having read, to mark with your endorsement of the wisdom of the High Priests presiding over their com~ pilation, There are deputations to receive and personages to interview. In fact, you must turn from the frivolities of Westminster to the austerities of Whitehall." So the poor slave of democratic ambition meekly puts on his black hat, takes up his despatch case and tries to get what exercise he can by walk= ing rom Pall Mall down the Duke of York's Steps across the Horse~ guards to the place of his servitude, London, in the mellowing sunshine of August, September and October, discreetly sympathizes with him but she does little more. Has she not enough to do to compose the differences between the clans which took their holidays unluckily and damply early and those which are now exulting shamelessly in brown skins and peeled noses? Various suggestions have been made for easing the burden of the Prime Minister in particular. It is urged that he should automatically be elevated to the "other place"—shade of the Marquis Curzon attend!—but with the right speak, at need, but not vote in the Lower House.' This idea has long been mooted: it has found practical expression in the constitutional position of Ministers in the Indian Legislature, but Westminster in reforming itself disdains logic and hates innovations as the devil hates holy water, although it is perfectly prepared to inflict those innovations on other people. So democracy must, accept the position, select its Ministers as Cambridge selects her r0wing eight or, in some way, ensure that indisposition is not so frequent~ ly a cause of Cabinet defections. In point of fact nothing will probably be done, for these alarms often fade away as soon as they threaten to disturb settled habits, And after all what is more likely to reduce a giant oarsman to impotence than the prospect of an hour's hard labour at a file? Oxford might note for guidance, Ma, Liang Lung, recently _promoted from Charge d'Affaires to Minister in Czechoslovakia, formally assumed his post on Sept, 3,"
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.