The Home Guard detachment which cele-prated its frst birthday by mounting guard Buckingham Palace contained five of the palace servants, two chartered accountants, A managing director and a parson. The Gevelopment of the Home Guard even to the' untutored eye has been remarkable. Good uniforms, coats and solid boots came fairly eatly; then followed the discreet push Ing out of well-intentioned muddlers who got themselves into positions of authority. From merely nightly patrolling, done somewhat haphazardly, the Home Guard's duties have-developed into elaborate practice in repelling every kind of invasion' that may oc~ Cur. Large supplies of the most up-to-date aveapons, are now being distributed and from Maj.-Gen. Eastwood's Directorate, parties of officers and N.C.O's are sent round the coun= fry giving Instruction and advice. Each unit acts in its own district, but the lawson be~ {ween districts Is carefully fostered. Taken fall in all the Home Guard is becoming as formidable. a force of volunteer defence as any country has ever possessed.
Lord Woolton, the Food Minister, has collected an army' of private detectives—they fare said really to look: like ordinary citizens and not to give themselves away by wearing Yegulation police boots—and has sent them out to track down the food speculators. The tamp in non-rationed foods is undoubtedly very serious and has caused -great public anger. Recently I wrote of the disclosures by the North Midlands Food Prices Investiga~ tion Committee of tins of soup that more than doubled in price between, wholesale and consumer and were gambled In, like stocks and shares, without ever leaving the wwareho\ "The only result was a blast from the Food Ministry, charging the Committee with "improper conduct," in making these tacts Known, This Is the sort of thing which justly fies all the hard words said about permanent departments. One concludes that, the oMlcials of the Food Ministry took the Com~ ittee's revelations as a slur upon -themselves; and it is, of course, far more import dut that officials should appear impeccable than that the public should buy their food at proper prices.
The Ministry has been repeatedly urged to license retailers, so that only those who tin. food stuffs before the war should be able to do so now. There is good ground for believing that numbers of people have pushed into the food racket who would Beaveely know a tin of soup from a tin-tack. In the early days of the war, some of them bought up all the supplies they could lay: hands on and are now cashing in. tt is also pretty well known that a sort of blackmail of shopkeepers goes on; with a small supply fof what they do want, they are compelled to buy a large supply of something they don't. But it is hard to got them to give evidence for fear the food racketeers should cut off supplies of everything, These latter gentry are very difficult to nab, Now and then people read of some Wreiched shopkeeper bein punitively fined for selling a tin of marmutade for a penny or.so more than it should be. But the big gamblers remain invisible. Fumbling attempts by the Ministry to protect the public by fixing prices merely result in the disappearance of the article in question. Of course the rationing of foods should have been enforced on a far wider scale many months ago. This was not done, and hence the scandal revealed by the North Midlands Committee, the affronted dignity of the Food officials and the fleecing of the public.
Apropos of the curious story that Hitler, whose belief in astrology is well known, had begun to look with evil eyes on Hess because the latter warned him that the stars were turning against him, our own astrologers in their recent annual convention at Herro~ gate fixed on December 31, next as the date for the end of fighting. This is a month earlier than they had previously agreed upon, It is extraordinary how many people are attracted by the supernatural in wartime. There is one lady, in everything else remarkably matter-of-fact and even cynical, who will relate marvels foretold by the stars with apparently implicit faith. For such, of course, any falsification by event is, not that the stars are wrong, but that human frailty has misread their message.
There is an undeniable attraction, in astrology. Its great antiquity (did not "the stars in their courses" fight against Sisera the majesty of the heavenly host, the curious Jargon In which its supposed revelations are framed—all this tends fo bewilder and impress. But if you ask yourself in cold blood, Is there any Selence by which we can re-ably foretell the future, there can. be but one answer, the Point A mencuanr in Dallas, Tex, asked the police help him decipher' the" signature on a MBoriness check, The police aid i was, "U.
ok."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.