LONDON LETTER BRITAIN’S NEW MINISTER

Southland Times, Issue 23677, 28 November 1938, Page 4

LONDON LETTER BRITAIN’S NEW MINISTER

Responsibility For Civilian Defence

A BRIGHTER HOUSE OF COMMONS

(From Our Own Correspondent)

LONDON, November 5. One reason why there will never be a dictator in England in the Continental sense is that there are here so many dictators already and new ones can be created any day in the week. The latest is that sturdily-built, granite-faced Scot, Sir John Anderson, new Lord Privy Seal, who has been named by the Prime Minister this week “Minister of Civilian Defence.” The whole problem of air raid precautions and home defence generally is transferred to him, and he can do practically what he likes about it. Mr Attlee asked in the House of Commons if he is to be a responsible Minister in charge “or merely a co-ordinating Minister running round and bringing people together.” The Prime Minister said he would be both. Sir John, who has been in Parliament little more than eight months, was once known as a “strong man” at the Home Office, where he was permanent under-secretary during troublous times in Ireland. He was a “strong man” also in Bengal, where he was for five years Governor. He will be a “strong man” still as Minister for Civilian Defence. Once again the British system of government has proved the most flexible in the world. In the Ministry there have always been several" posts, regarded more of less as sinecures, the occupant of which may find himself suddenly burdened with some enormous task. The office of Lord Privy Seal is one of these posts. Of the first importance in Tudor times, when the Lord Privy Seal really had charge o£ the Privy Seal, and stood between Parliament and the Sovereign, the office has become such a minor affair that a single room at the back of the Treasury building in Whitehall has been sufficient to house it. Sir John Anderson, in this backwater of Georgian calm, found one mahogany desk, some easy chairs, and one girl typist, the private secretary borrowed two years ago from the Home Office having been recently returned. Yet the office of Lord Privy Seal carries a seat in the Ministry and £5OOO a year. Obviously it will be no sinecure in future, and the solitary girl typist will have something else to do than make tea for herself and powder her nose. She can never have expected such a vulgar thing as work to disturb the peaceful serenity of the office, of the Lord Privy Seal. They are getting rooms ready for Sir John Anderson at this moment in the Home Office, and the girl typist of Lord Privy Seal will soon be one of many coping with an avalanche of work.

Members returning to the House of Commons this week have found that many changes have been made during the recess. The Mother of Parliaments, late in the day it is true, has joined in the prevailing fashion- of brightening and refurnishing the house. Dingy corridors and rooms have become gay with new coats of paint and indirect lighting. Tire beauties of old oak have been revealed. Depressing luncheon and tea-rooms have been redecorated. Even chintz curtains have found their way into this Palace of Westminster.. The most striking improvement is in the Central Hall. It is in this imposing hall that people from the constituencies far and wide, having sent in their cards, wait to see their members. It is here that women come who are to dine in the precincts of the House with members. And here also lobby journalists wait to pounce upon an unsuspecting member. In the evening the hall presents an animated scene, with many people in evening dress and countless groups standing under the huge brass chandelier, which now also has been modernized and carries 96 40-watt electric “candles” instead of the ordinary electric bulbs. Cleaning has revealed the beauty of the mosaic ceiling, which is enhanced by an ingenious system o f diffused lighting, and for the first time members and the public alike are able to see clearly the stained-glass windows, each of which has been illuminated by six 500-watt projectors fixed outside the building. NEW BEAUTY ON EMBANKMENT When overseas visitors come to London next summer they will see new beauty in the building-line of the Embankment, for London’s latest palace of business, the New Adelphi, has just been opened. Rising next to the Shell Mex Building, which has on its other side the Savoy Hotel, it seems worthy of its position and its conception. The 1769 Terrace which it replaces is, of course, mourned by many. Famous men lived and worked and died there, but it was an object of no great beauty. Darkness falls in these November days before the working afternoon is over, and walking along the Embankment this week I could not help thinking that these gigantic buildings with their illuminated windows have beauty of their own. Beauty is not a constant quality—each generation makes its own. There are 12 floors to the New Adelphi and more than half the offices they contain have an outlook oyer the Thames. Nothing is lacking to make the building a useful commercial centre with amenities that will be appreciated by all who work in it. There are boardrooms, furnished and sound-resisting, equipped with ante-rooms and telephones, storage and muniment rooms, letter-chutes, porterage and high-speed lifts, kiosks for utilities and a roofgarden. It may well be that at last we may count among the blessings of

this generation improved working conditions for men and women engaged in business and commerce. An attempt is to be made to discipline the Londoner. He is naturally a dawdler and, when he crosses the road, a jay-walker. When a mass of traffic is approaching, he is suddenly seized with a determination to dash across the road. Selected London policemen are now armed with little cards which they hand to adventurous individuals who thus risk their lives. The policeman says something like “That was a near go, sir” or “You, were nearly caught that time, madam” and pushes his “safety-first” card into the reckless pedestrian’s hand. So far, no breach of the peace has resulted.. On January 1, bus queues are to be introduced “at recognized stopping-places where queue notices are exhibited or when an official of the Transport Board makes the request. The board has secured legal power for this, and any person who fails to queue up, or attempts to board the bus out or turn, will be liable to a fine of £2. Australians who have climbed up to the famed Whispering Gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral may be interested to learn, on the authority of Mr Arthur T. Bolton, curator of Sir John Soanes museum, that it was not Wren’s idea that the gallery should whisper. The whispering is a purely accidental feature of the construction and was not foreseen. Mr Bolton is editing a monumental work on the life and work of the great architect which is being compiled with the aid of research writers of the Wren Society. It will consist of 20 volumes, at a guinea each, and the Queen is among the subscribers. Five volumes are being devoted to St. Paul s. These will contain many facts new or forgotten. It is, for instance, little known that the first design which Wren made after the Great Fire showed a Cathedral only half the size of the present one. There was so much wrangling among the clergy about the chapels which Wren had designed at each end that the great architect wept and shelved the plan although King Charles had passed it. Only £BO,OOO was subscribed by the public towards the cost of the cathedral (stated by the London historian, Walter G. Bell, at £747,600). The rest came from a tax on coal from Newcastle and other parts of the country. BANNED PLAY IN LONDON It is only necessary for something to be banned for people to rush for it, and there is naturally a heavy demand for seats at the Arts Theatre where the play “Oscar Wilde” by Leslie and Sewell Stokes is being performed. This play, which is having a long run in New York, is not permitted to be performed in a licensed theatre here. The Arts Theatre of London is an integral part of the Arts Club, and only members can secure seats for the performances. They are filling the small, modern theatre every night. From what one hears from New York, the •production there is more effective than the one here. This no doubt is due to more elaborate staging than is possible in the Arts Theatre and to a larger and better all-round company of actors. Two court scenes are an immense tax upon the resources of a producer. Nevertheless, the play is intensely interesting, and in Francis L. Sullivan the Arts Theatre has probably as fine an Oscar Wilde as could be found in this country. Through three acts with seven scenes we see Wilde at the height of his fame and he heedlessly taking the steps that must inevitably lead to his downfall. We see him at the hearing of the libel action and enjoy his witticisms in the witness-box. We see him later at his trial, breaking down under the cross-examination of the young barrister who was to become Lord Carson. We see him from prison to his study, and finally tno last tragic phase when he is cadging and drinking in a seedy Paris resauthors admittedly had little need to draw upon their imagination. The two court scenes occupy the whole of the middle act, and were taken practically wholly from the records of the libel action and the subsequent trial. And much of the dialogue in the other scenes was in Wilde’s own words. His carefully prepared impromptus are found in the books and plays m which he was wont to incorporate them alter he had giver, them utterance m the drawing-rooms. ' . Opening his “The Picture of Dorian Gray” after the play I encountered some of them again: “Intellect destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid.” “I choose my'friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good character, and my enemies for their good intellects.” „ ’ I quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the upper classes. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property.” “The mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust.” There is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty.’’ “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well-written or badly-written. That is all.” Oscar Wilde’s path to fame—and infamy—was strewn with words like these.