Vol. 56 No. 10 OCTOBER 1951 Threepence

Notes of the Month

The Forerunner of South Place

New Frontiers in Science

The Passing of Empire

Can We Have Peace?

The Victorians and Ourselves

Correspondence

X. AY.

Hector Hawton

Professor G. W. Keeton

S. K. Ratcliffe

Archibald Robertson

South Place New s

Society's Activities

A •

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL •SOCIETY•SUNDAY MORNIiVG MEETINGS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK

Oct. 7—S. K. RATCLIFFE—"The, New Orthodoxy"Cello Solo by GETHYN WYKEHAM-GEORGE :

ICol Nidrei .. Max Brach

Hymn: No. 54

Oct. I4—PROFESSOR J. C. FLUGEL, D.Sc.—"Psycho-Analysis and Psychology"Bass Solos by G. C. DOWMAN

Trade winds Keel

Still wie die Nacht Carl BohnHymn: No. 81

Oct. 21—ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON, M.A.—"The Idea of Nemesis"• Piano Solo by ELLA I VIMEY :

Andante and Rondo Capriccios() . . MendelssohnHymn: No. 141

Oct. 28—PROFFSSOR G. W. KEETON, M.A., LL.D.—"The Universities in a ChangingWorld"

-Soprano Solos by JEAN BROADLEY :Liebesbotschaft .. SchubertDie Forelle .. Schubert

Hymn: No 64

Overseas Visitors cordially welcomed. Questions after the Lectures.

Pianist: ELIA IVIMEY. Admission Free. Collection.

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS. 6Ist SEASON Concerts 6.30 p.m. (Doors open 6 p.m.) Admission Is.

Oct. 7—AEOLIAN STRING QUARTET. FRANZ REIZENSTEINMozart in D, 1(.575 ; Beethoven in C sharp minor, Op. 131. String Quartets.Reizenstein Piano Quintet (first public performance).

Oct. 14—ENGLISH PIANO QUARTET. MOZART CONCERTPiano Quartets in E•flat and G minor. Diiertimento-in E fiat, K.563 for String Trio.

Oct. 21—MURRAY MCKIE (Tenor). THELMA LAWRENCE (Piano).Schubert Song Cycle "Die Schone I.. JOHN VALLIER, Solo Pianoforte.Mozart Rondo in A minor, IC.511 ; Beethoven, Sogata Pathetique in C minor, Op.13 Chopin Prelude in C sharp minor, Op. 45; Etudes in G gat, Op. 10, No. 5, and

in B minor. Op. 25, No. 10.Oct. 28—NEW LONDON QUARTET. FREDERICK THURSTON

Beethoven in F, Op. 59. No. 1 ; Rubbra in F minor, Op. 35, String Quartets. Brahmsin B minor, Op. 115. Clarinet Quintet.

New AssociateMr. A. Barker, 17 Croft Avenue, Aklam, Middlesbrough.

Change of AddressMr. W. G. Sillitoe, 43 Dorchester Waye, Hayes, Middx.; Mrs. Elsie Hicks,

52 Sunnyfield, Mill Hill, N.W.7.

The Objects of the Society are the study and dissemination of ethical principlesand the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment.

Any person in sympathy with these objects is cordially invited to become a Member(minimum annual subscription is 10s.), or Associate (Minimum annual subscription 5s.).Associates are not eligible to vote or hold office. Enquiries should be made of theRegistrar to whom subscriptions should be paid.

TheMONTHLY

RECORDVol. 56 No. 10 OCTOBER 1951 Threepence

' CONTENTSPAGE

NOIES OF THE MONTH 3

THE FORERUNNER OF SOUTH PLACE 6

NEW FRONTIERS IN SCIENCE,HEVPOF HalVlon 7

THE PASSING OF EMPIRE, Professor G. W. Keeton 9

CAN WE HAVE PEACE.? S. K. Ratcliffe .. 11

THE VICTORIANS AND OURSELVES, Archibald Robertson 13

CORRESPONDENCE .. 16

SOUTH PLACE NEWS .. .. 17

SOCIETY'S ACTIVITIES .. 18

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society.

Notes of the MonthThe Future of Japan

There will be many sequels to San Francisco, -but neither political treatiesnor economic agreements can solve the basic Japanese problem. Now, asbefore the war, Japan his only two alternatives in dealing with an ever-deepening crisis provoked 'by its expanding population—restriction of birthsor emigration. The question of birth control was raised under the MacArthuradministration, but there was an immediate outcry from Japanese Catholics,who form less than one-half of 1 per cent of the total population. AJapanese sociological organisation invited Margaret Sanger to lecture onbirth control, but General MacArthur's headquarters, yielding to Catholicpressure, refused permission for her visit. Pressure-groups forced the editorof the Nippon Times, which had been advocating birth control, to adoptthe term "population control-. In 1949 an Australian cardinal visited Japanand was asked to give his opinion on the population question. As anAustralian he could not hold out any hope for Japanese emigration, andas a Catholic he was obliged to condemn birth control. The only reply he

-3

could make was the negative: "Birth, control is not the solution." Theseinteresting facts were recently given in a letter to the Manchester Guardianby Mr. Emerson Chapin, ex-Civil Information and Education Section,G.H.Q., S.C.A.P. He shows that the result has been to.slow down the dis-semination of contraceptives to the people who need them most. Andso the appalling pressure in Japan of the population on the soil is likelyto grow worse, with.grave social and political consequences that may wellspread •beyond the Pacific.

The Pope and UnityAnglicans who hope for a reunion of Christendom will not find much

to encourage them in the new encyclical Sempiternus Rex. It is publishedon the occasion of the fifteen-hundredth anniversary of the Council ofChalcedon, when 600 bishops agreed to the dogma of the dual nature ofChrist as defined by Leo the Great. This not only rejected the widespreadmonophysite heresy, but established the supremacy of the Bishop of Romeas against the rival claims of Constantinople. It may be doubted whetherany of the oriental bishops believed that they were advancing the extremePapal claims as understood by the Vatican Council of 1870, but there .canbe no question that Chalcedon -was a.victory for the West, and today Romeis celebrating it. The appeal for unity in the latest encyclical is addressedin the main to the schismatic churches of Egypt, Armenia and Ethiopiawhich still hold the ancient doctrine that there is only one nature in Christ.The Italian conquest of Abyssinia would have greatly facilitated the taskof the Vatican, but what could not be won by the sword is now beingsought by skilful propaganda, and we need not be surprised that the dangerof Communism is stressed in the latest appeal for unity. "A very urgentmotive demands that these Christians should unite and fight under one flagagainst the untimely assaults of an infernal enemy." The Erastianism ofthe Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union is a severe blow to Rome. Asfar as one can judge, national churches, which do not meddle in politics,have little to fear; but an international church is another matter. Hencethe diplomacy of trying to prevent the scattered sheep from lying down withthe big bad wolf by enticing them into the Roman fold. That churcheswhich have somehow survived centuries of infidel occupation will makethis submission today seems unlikely. But the real issue is no longer ametaphysical subtlety, and Marxists will see in the latest move a confirma-tion of their doctrine of "ideological disguises".

The Chuirch and DivorceA somewhat unusual sign of protest against the Church of England's

rigidity in the matter of divorce comes from a eathering of Low-churchmenin the North. It was more than an appeal for a modification of the banon marriages of divorced persons in church. There will, of course, be no

- response from Anglican authority, but when, after the usual delay, the RoyalCommission issues its report, we mav expect toffind indications of change-among clergymen as individuals. Meanwhile the question will be revivedonce more by A King's Story, the Duke of Windsor's Memoirs. One pointof marked interest in the detailed chronicle of November-December 1936 isthis. Several members of the inner circle were, until the last stage, tellingKing Edward that he:could and should ignore the Prime Minister and goon, taking for granted that the Coronation could be held on the appointedday, a fortnight only after Mrs. Simpson's decree was made absolute. TheKing had to remind his ill-informed advisers that the coronation ceremonywas a religious service with consecrated oil. Knowing the royal intention,the Archbishop would not officiate, nor, the King added, could he himselfconsent to play the part suggested.4

A Staunch Humanitarian

There are very few surviving friends of Henry S. Salt, who diedtwelve years ago on the eve of his •ninetieth year, after leading thehumanitarian cause in England for some sixty years with unflagging zeal,intelligence and good temper. He threw up an•assistant-mastership at Etonin his early thirties, took a cottage in Surrey, reduced life to its simplest terms,wrote indefatigably and never looked back. His autobiography is SeventyYears Among Savages, a cheery and straightforward record of service andfriendship. This has now been supplemented by a centennial volume, Saltand His Circle (Hutchinson, 16s.). The author is Stephen Winsten who,naturally enough, was able to get a preface from Bernard Shaw, a. friend ofSalt's from the eighteen-eighties. Other members of the circle were EdwardCarpenter, Graham Wallas and Sydney Olivier. Gandhi, as a timid lawstudent, was an attendant at Salt's pioneer vegetarian gatheriiigs.

A Last Message

Henry Salt was a clear-eyed rationalist who remarked that for some reasonhe attracted the mystics. He wrote a brief statement of his faith, which wasread at his cremation:

"I wholly disbelieve in the preserit established religion; but I have avery firm religious faith of my own : a Creed of Kinship, I call it, abelief that in years to come there will be a recognition of the brother-hood between man and man, nation with nation, human and sub-human

'which will transform a state of semi-savagery, as we have it, into one ofcivilisation; when there will be no barbarity as warfare, or the robberyof the poor by the rich, or the ill-usage of the lower animals bymankind."

Salt added that, as he held all supernatural doctrines taught under thename of religion to be actually harmful in diverting attention from the real•truths, he saw in them a tendency to petrify the heart.

Religion and Industry.Sir George Schuster's recent lecture given at the Annual Methodist Con-

ference is now available in book form under the title Christianity andHuman Relations in Industry. It is a thoughtful contribution. Theauthor believes that the application of Christian principles would enablework, even of the most monotonous mass-production kind, to be satisfyingand a constituent of the good life. There need be no quarrel with this aim.but it is difficult to see why the commonplaces of modern industrialpsychology should be regarded as more specifically Christian than the prin-ciples according to which our pious fore-fathers employed sweated labourand made children work twelve-hour shifts to the tunes of hymns. The hardtruth is that after nearly two thousand years of Christianity, very littlehas been done until recently to lighten the burden of the common man.There is some hope that the worst kinds of drudgery will gradually be takenover by machines. And one of the most significant findings of industrialpsychology is that a factory run on democratic lines, with mutual trust andco-operation, yields a higher output than a rigidly disciplined, authoritarianrégime. In this connection the report of a research team from the TavistockInstitute just published, The Changing Culture of a Factory, by Dr. ElliotJaques, is a work of outstanding importance. Although the "good life" is theproper subject of ethics, the road leading to it cannot be found by religiousplatitudes. The quest calls for empirical investigation, and we know now, notby intuition but as a result of painstaking inquiry, that democracy gives thebest results. It would have been awkward if the• contrary had been proved.

5

The Forerunner of South PlaceIt is just 200 years since the birth of the American who formed the con-

gregation that grew into the South Place Society. Elhanan Winchester wasborn on September 30, 1751, near Boston, Massachusetts: His father, amechanic, had fifteen children. He took names for the boys out of theOld Testament, for the girls out of the New. Elhanan, like others of hiskind, was an ardent self-educator, learning Hebrew and Greek, Latin andFrench. At twenty he was a hard-shell Calvinist preacher, devoted to whatwere called "the comforting doctrines" of election, reprobation, and theeverlasting flames. It is related that one day when he was holding forthin a stagecoach a young woman rebuked him, affirming her belief in mercyfor all mankind. The seed fell on stony ground but did not wither away.Winchester could not forget the good word and was soon preaching adoctrine that was denounced by the Calvinists of New England as the vilestheresy. He moved out of his native region.

At twenty-three he was in South Carolina. He had a gift of eloquenceand so was an acceptable preacher in many places. While still a young manhe was settled in Philadelphia where his congregation (Baptist) filled oneof the largest churches in the town. His studies led him to Universalism,a belief that the salvation wrought by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ wasunlimited; the pains and punishments of hell could not be everlasting; thepurpose of God was the salvation of the entire human race. Hence thedoctrine of final restoration and the founding in America of a number ofUniversalist churches.

The announcement of this tenet, naturally enough, produced dimensionin the Philadelphia congregation, and although the majority supported theminister he was obliged to give up. In 1787 he felt a call to England, find-ing himself in a lonely situation. The gospel of eternal hope was his onlyserious heresy. He did not attack the Trinitarian doctrine. AlthoughPriestley, Richard Price and other leading Unitarians were friendly to himhe was not drawn to the denomination and was not invited to their pulpits.At the other extreme John Wesley was a friend of his, and Winchesterappears to have been the only minister outside the Methodist connection whodelivered a memorial sermon on the founder.

He preached in several London chapels and in 1793 his adherentsacquired their own building in Parliament Court, Bishopsgate, a stone'sthrow from Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane). The congregation was madeup of seceders from many sects. The minister made a name among thegrowing numbers of anti-Calvinists as a resolute protestant against thehorror of Hell. He could write to an American friend that in Englandmany doors were open. Moncure Conway described him as a rhapsodistand remarked that he had a boundless capacity for belief. He was a SecondAdventist and was one of those who saw in the violence following theFrench Revolution a sure sign that the end of the world was at hand. Inan age of psalmody he was a prolific hymn-writer, composing more than230.

The closing decade of the eighteenth century was a time of religious asof political unrest. Winchester was enough of an innovator to exert a con-siderable influence. His tracts and other writings had their place in therevolt against Calvinism; and, in view of the fact that a cenfury laterDr. Conway was to be the biographer and defender of Thomas Paine, thereis particular interest in the fact that Winchester wrote a quite respectfulanswer to The Age of Reason,. in the shape of ten letters to the author.His most ambitious production was not printed. This was a poem in twelvebooks, The Process and Empire of Christ.

Winchester's tenure of the Bishopsgate pulpit was very brief. In 1794, the6

year following the opening of the chapel, he returned to America, hisdecision being explained, perhaps altogether, by an unhappy domesticsituation. Before coming to England he had lost three wives and hadmarried a fourth. When she died he was urged by friends to follow the signsthat seemed for him against the holy estate. But he held strongly that aminister without a wife could not be without reproa:ch. For the second timehe chose a widow and she proved to be a virago. He fled, leaving her inLondon. But there was no escape. She took ship for America and persuadedhim to take her back. The Society was hoping for his return when he diedat Hartford, Connecticut, in 1797, at the age of forty-six. The name of hischapel led his American biographer into an amusing error. He assumedthat Winchester was preacher to the House of Commons; and after all,the High Court of Parliament is an imposing legal title.

X. X:

New Frontiers in ScienceY

HECTOR HAWTON

Two BOOKS of outstanding interest to the humanist have recently beenpublished at a price that 'is modest by present-day standards. Dr. J.Bronowski's The Commonsense of Science (Heinemann, Ss. 6d.), is a brilliantcontribution to "Contemporary Science Books" which he is editing; and.Professor J. Z. Young's Doubt and Certainty in Science (Oxford, 7s. 6d.)contains the Reith lectures for 1950. Taken together, these books are aninvaluable introduction to the recent changes in the scientific outlook. Theyare written in language that the intelligent layman can understand, and theycover respectively the physical and biological domains.

The time has gone when a self-educated man could listen spellbound to"Science from an easy chair" and hopefully set about the task of constructinga philosophy in his leisure moments. With a courage which nowadaysseems incredible, the amateur philosopher of fifty years ago rushed. intoprint with a solution 'of the riddle of the universe that seemed to bewarranted by the discoveries of science. Those confident pronouncementson mind and matter, free will and determinism, God, religion and man'splace in the universe, have no relevance for us today. The problemsare seen to be vastly more complex than was popularly supposed. NeitherProfessor Young nor Dr. Bronowski give any support to the superficialmechanism which was widely adopteil in the last century by many whoabandoned religious orthodoxy. On the other hand, although the championsof orthodoxy will make capital out of this fact, their own attitude is equallycondemned. To say that the old materialism is dead is not to imply that"supernaturalism" can be resurrected. We may or may not consider thatthe world is like a machine; but if we do employ that analogy we mustbear in mind that machines are not what used to be thought. They do notpredict with certainty. The idea of "certainty" has dropped out, not becauseof our imperfect knowledge, but because predictive laws deal with statisticalaggregates. This is not an easy notion to grasp. The very syntax of languageconspires to make us think of. causes compelling effects.

As. Dr. Bronowski makes plain, we are in the midst of a revolution inthought as profound as that which overthrew medieval cosmogony. Wecan hardly comprehend what made men once suppose that an apple felldown and not up because it was "in its nature" to fall down. Newtonanswered this question and so laid the foundations of three centuries of

7

scientific progress. And yet the Newtonian model itself was wrong. Theiron determinism that went with it has collapsed. "Therefore", the over-eager theologian exclaims, "Christianity is true after all." He is.. in toomuch of a hurry. The Newtonian model was perfectly consistent with thecurrent theological view, and Newton himself brought God into his systemexplicitly in the "General Scholium" at the end of the second edition ofthe Principle. It is true that Laplace subsequently took a different line:"Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis." But the novelty of the presentsituation is that the world-picture of both Newton and Laplace has beenshattered, and any deductions for and against the existence of God orfree will drawn from it are invalid. We have to think everything out afresh.

With remarkable lucidity, Dr. •ronowski shows what has happened. In1905 Einstein detected a fatal flaw in the Newtonian scheme. You cannotcompare the time in two places far apart without sending a signal andobserving its arrival—but the signal itself takes time. And so the worlddoes not consist of a network of events, that can be unambiguously dated,but of observations. These are the brick and stuff of science. • And philo-sophically this seems to lead to a radical empiricism from the full con-sequences of which Einstein himself 'recoiled. It is a pity that Dr. Bronowskidoes not make it clearer why Einstein, like Planck, would not accept therejection of causality as final, although it is implied in Einstein's analysisof the concept of simultaneity. Some physicists are still hoping to retaina modified version of causality, and an extremely interesting compromisehas recently been proposed by Niels Bohr. The fact that light sometimesmanifests itself as particles, sometimes as waves, leads Bohr to accept both

- descriptions as complernentary features of phenomena. And it begins to lookas though these conundrums may be forms of a single type of problem,namely the difficulties arising from leaving instruments (either humanobservers or their tools) ,out of our calculations from the observation or -experiment in which they really interfere. The problems of free will and .ofself-consciousness, which still exercise some schools of philosophy, maybe clarified by Bohr's concept of complenientarity. But the hard, rigorousthinking that now takes place on the fascinating borderland of science andphilosophy contrasts with the dubious metaphysics enjoying a fashionablerevival in Germany and France. •

Ancording to Dr. Bronowski, the reVolutionary thought in Modern scienceis the replacing of inevitable effect by the concept of prdbable trend. It isimpossible to predict a single event with precision. "A society moves undermaterial pressure like a stream of gas; and on the average its individualsobey the pressure; but at any instant, any individual may, like an atom ofthe gas, be moving across or against the stream." The same concept isapplied by Professor Young to biology. The most significant part of hisbook is not the playful conjectures that have caught the journalistic eye butthe revelation of what has been accomplished by statistical methods bythe study of inheritance and of populations. The human body is a vastpopulation of cells and atoms, ceaselessly changing; a process, in whichpattern or form persists, rather than a steady underlying fabric of stuff,as the old materialists supposed. This perpetual change in the organism ispart of the wider process of never-ending change we call evolution. "Thechanges in evolution occur by natural selection of the differences amongthe members of populations. These differences are produced by the pro-

- cesses of mutation or random change of hereditary factors, and the randomshuffling of these factors by sexual repioduction. Looking at the longcourse of evolution, it seems that by the process of variation and selectionpopulations have been produced that are able to support life under con-tinually more and more difficult conditions. There seems to be a parallelbetween this finding of new environments by evolution and by the forma-8

tion of new associations in the brain. In the brain by association and learn-ing, things that were not previously significant for life are made to becomeso. The whole history of social man has been the continual discovery byrandom trial and error of new tools, technical and verbal, that enable lifeto be lived in ways not possible before. Man, in pursuing this alternateprocess of doubting and then applying the rules that he learns, is carryingon the plan that evolution has always been pursuing."

It follows that methodical doubt is essential to human progress, and thata civilisation that imposed uniformity of thought would halt evolution.Rational thinking presupposes liberty to doubt and challenge the existingorder. Reason has always been a disturber of the peace. But we need notfear its' cold, impersonal touch. Dr. Bronowski reminds us that at thebeginning of the great scientific adventure, science and the arts went hand-in-hand. In the early days of the Royal Society artists, writers and scientistsshared their interests with passion. Today they speak a different language."And it is the business of each of us to try to remake that one universallanguage which alone can unite art and.science, and layman and scientist,in a common understanding."

Both Dr. Bronowski and Professor Young have contributed towards thistask, which is the major undertaking of modern Humanism. They make itpossible—though it cannot be easy—to divest ourselves of what wastransitory in Victorian Rationalism and to rebuild on surer foundations. Itis not true that nature is irrational; but the order found is not of the typethat used to'be looked for. The permanent, enduring entities are not bits ofmatter. The constants of science are formulie, numbers, the velocity of light,Planck's constant of action, etc. Reason doei not passively photographnature; it actively creates new concepts, enriching the language and deepen-ing our experience, as well as giving us material power. In their creativity,scientist and artist find common ground and new frontiers. Progress dependson keeping open and extending our lines of communication, for withoutthis the co-operation on which survival depends is impossible. Communica-tion demands improved education, and Professor Young opens an excitingprospect. "There is no obvious reason why a large proportion of the popula-tion should not read pages of mathematical symbols as readily as they nowread print. By this means we could come to explain all the complexitiesof life more fully to each other and therefore become correspondinglybetter at co-operation." I do not think this is Utopian. Viewed in evolu-tionary perspective it is not necessarily later than we think; it may beearlier.

The Passing of EmpireB Y

PROFESSOR G. W. KEETON, M.A., LL.D.

Two OR THREE recent incidents have rather forcibly reminded iffilabitantsof these islands of our changed international position. The oil dispute withPersia has arisen out of the deliberate violation of an agreement solemnlyconcluded by Persia, nominally with the oil company but actually withthe British Government. How marked is the distinction between this andEnglish nationalisation, when American firms in Great Britain were leftuntouched by steel nationalisation, and in all cases adequate compensationwas paid. The Persia act is one of unprincipled confiscation. At the timeof the Egyptian war with Israel, Egypt illegally closed the Suez Canal tooil traffic, and this still continues. Yet neither Persia nor Egypt are strong

9

powers. Argentinian encroachment on British territory in the Antarctic—persisted in in spite of protests—and Chilean claims to the Falkland Islandsare only a few of many similar acts by minor powers, which irresistiblyrecall the dismemberment of the Spanish Empire in the eighteenth centuryand the dismemberment of Austria after the First World War.

These, however, do not stand alone. Recently the Gold Coast acquireda considerable measure of self-government, and the Prime Minister attributesthe world's present malaise to the imperialist policies of this country, Franceand the U.S.A., adding that, in the event of war, the Gold Coast wouldbe neutral. If Mr. Gandhi had said the same of India prior to 1939, hewould have run a risk, but apparently the Colonial Office was not disturbed,though attitudes such as this, if persisted in, lead directly to anarchy. Again,we have recently seen a rather juvenile exhibition of Scottish nationalismin the theft of the Coronation Stone. In the days of a nation's strength andprosperity, all are eager to share, or at least quiescent in sharing in it. Todaythe outlook has changed.

Wendell Wilkie, in One World, remarked that everywhere he went hefound the greatest evidences of friendliness and gratitude to the U.S.A.Gratitude is a lively anticipation of favours to come, and Britons foundprecisely the same attitude abroad towards Great Britain prior to the war.Apart from this meaning, gratitude has no place whatever in the relationsof nations. Nor has sentiment, which should never be mistaken for policy.

At the time of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee (1897), British powerstood at its zenith. The colonies of British settlement were self-governing,but not yet independent (though they had embarked upon the process ofraising tariff walls against us). India was a dependent empire. Britain hadruled the seas, and imposed a.general peace, for nearly a century. In 1918our territory was wider, our prestige as high, and our position apparentlyunchallengeable—but in fact we had already passed our meridian. TheDominions had taken giant strides towards full stature. Nationalism in Indiahad assumed the form of a continental movement, and we had alreadyembarked upon the self-destructive process of apologising for our presencein Asia. Russia and Japan, in different ways, had already embarked uponlong-term plans for replacing our power and influence by theirs. Both werekept at bay until 1939, but we were slowly forced over to the defensive,and were compelled steadily to retreat. The crumbling of our empire hasalso involved in it the destruction of those of France and Holland. The fulleffects of this are not yet apparent, though it is obvious that it will involvethe eclipse of Western Europe as a dominating factor in world affairs, andindeed already that position has been conceded to the U.S.A. and the SovietUnion.

The effects of what has occurred have been largely concealed from theBritish public on account of two factors. Firstly, no considerable resistancehas been offered by this country to the process of disintegration. Mostempires in the past have resisted destruction. We fought in 1774-83, in 1900(Boers) and 1917-21 (Ireland). The U.S.A. fought the secession movementin 1860-65. This time we have participated in our own partition. Secondly,the full significance of our imperial position, as a stabilising factor in worldaffairs, was always concealed from the British public by its stubborn in-difference to "colonial" affairs. It is often said that we have found a betterroad—agreement—than the old imperial policy of rule by force. This is astatement that rarely gets dispassionate examination. It may be ccncededthat the grant of independence to India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon wasa tremendous example of the-pcaceful transfer of power, but it has been amajor disaster for Burma, which now scarcely exists as a recognisablepolitical entity. The fact that India and Pakistan are both members of the •Commonwealth has not preVented them maintaining a state of war, with a-10

long truce, over Kashmir, since they came into existence. In the case ofthe older Dominions, which now shape their internal and external policiesfree from any suggestion of control, co-operation is continuous •and close;but so it is between ourselves, the U.S.A. and France, and between theDominions and the U.S.A. Again, the cultural links between Spain andLatin-America are still close, even though they parted more than 100 yearsago. But it is idle to deny that as the years pass either political co-operation .will diminish, or all of us will be merged, with Western Europe and theU.S.A., in some greater unit.

Since 1918 we have had a choice between maintaining our imperialpost ion by the exercise of power, and (since 1945) by sacrifices, or abandon-ing it. We have voluntarily abdicated, possibly for high ethical reasons,possibly because we were no longer prepared for the sacrifices. The bill hasyet to be paid, and the price will be high.

Before the war we had a higher standard of living than anyone else inthe world, except the U.S.A., and possibly Canada and Australia. That isnow rapidly slipping away, for three reasons. (1) The "invisible" items inour balance of trade are gone, i.e. the overseas investments which paid forthe things now missing from our meal table; (2) we are gradually butsteadily losing our position in world markets, in so far as our manufacturedgoods are concerned, owing to the rise of new industrial States; and (3) weare progressively losing our access to important raw materials (food, rubber,oil). As exchanges move against us, we shall find it progressively moredifficult to get adequate supplies.

This brings us to the final problem. Great Britain achieved its maximumprosperity in the second half of the nineteenth century, before the generalretreat from free trade, when it was the centre of a vast empire, and of aworld system of trade. It could then support its population in comfort.Every day which now passes finds the position of that population moreprecarious—and the population is an ageing one. We are adjusting ourselveswith difficulty to these changed conditions; but shall we be able to do itfast enough? The plight of peoples which fail to do so is not to be envied.

r) (Summary of cur addravs delivered on July 6)

Can we have Peace?BY

S . K. RATCLIFFE

As WE SEEK for an answer to this question, which of necessity underliesall our thinking and planning, we cannot fail to take note of the speedwith which the world picture has changed since the summer of 1950. Theopening of the Korean war was the dividing line. Before that event .we hadreasons enough for anxiety, but the fear of imminent war was not, as it istoday, a common possession. We were increasingly concerned, or annoyed,by the failure of successive conferences, the inability to arrive at anycommon ground between Soviet Russia and the Western powers. The habitin England, as in the United States, has been to take for granted that thewhole blame for these failures is to be laid upon Moscow alone, but thatis too much to assume. In the vexed relations between great governmentsit will not do to think that all the right can be upon one side. There could,however, be no dispute as to the difficulties created by the Soviet delegatesat the United Nations and elsewhere. The reiterated "No" from Malikand Gromyko and the method of obstruction by speeches of excessivelength have provided evidence of what the West takes to be a steady refusal

11

of co-operation. Nevertheless there had been of late indications of analtered attitude. The first call for a cease-fire in Korea came from Mr.Malik, and not from London or Washington; and when President Trumanconveyed a message of.friendship for the Russian people it evoked a responsefrom Moscow. Difficult though it may be to accept such apparent overturesas meaningful, the too-usual practice of labelling them "fakes- cannot bethe right approach.

The efforts towards an armistice in Korea had aroused high hopes, andthe break-off of the talks was a disappointment all the more severe becausecoming at the same time as the oil crisis in Persia. The fighting in Korea,which was not suspended, has been renewed and at the moment there areno .igns of cessation. The Korean campaign has provoked controversymainly on two issues: first, the military action of the United Nationson the initiative of the United States; and, secondly, the authority assumedby ,the AmericanS Commander-in-Chief and his removal by PresidentTruman in April.

The first question was fundamental as regards the great principle ofCollective Security. The charge was made that U.N. acted precipitately insupport of the U.S.A. when Washington demanded that the invasion ofSouth Korea should be treated as an act of aggression in breach of thecovenant, and it was argued that the U.N. decision could not be validin the absence of the Soviet representatives from the Security Council. Tothose points •the answer was that the Russian delegates had deliberatelywithdrawn, that in resistance to invasion military action must be immediate,and that the response of the member-States implied unanimity in con-demnation of North Korea. The larger quilation of U.N. principle was, ofcourse, involved. Here was the first .severe test of the covenant. If U.N.was not to act in defence of a country invaded, then collective securitywould be finally exhibited as no more than an idea devoid of all means ofenforcement. •

The case of General MacArthur, the U.N. commander, was withoutprecedent. Although, as the attacks upon him were becoming world-wideit was officially stated in Washington that he had not disobeyed instructions,the General had made plain that he was opposed to the policy laid down •by the President and his military advisers. He was for all-out war withChina: the bombing of 'Manchuria. an invasion of the mainland \fromFormosa, and the employment of Chiang Kai-shek's troops. On his returnto America the General was accorded an unparalleled popular welcome andhe enjoyed a spectacular day in Congress. But the evidence of the Chiefsof Staff before the Senate Committee completely overbore his ownteatimony. General Marshall and his colleagues had been committed toa policy of limited war—that is, to the defence of North Korea and theliberation of the invaded territory. Clearly, it had yet to be proved whethera plan of that kind was practicable; meanwhile the peoples of the UnitedNations were increasingly aware of two pressing questions in the Far East:what would be the military objective against China's massing of full strengthbehind North Korea; and in the event of victory by the U.N. armies, whatwas to be the destiny of devastated Korea? No American Governmentcould expect support for a policy of indefinite occupation.

War was continuing in the Far East: what of the outlook in Europe?It is generally agreed that the one zone of acute danger was Yugoslavia,and yet who could believe that the Soviet Government had any intentionof making war on account of Marshal Tito and his dissentient Com-munism? Nothing in the world of today could be plainer than that peacein Europe is vital for the Soviets. Russian losses in the war, stated in humanterms and in devastation, were immeasurable. The plans of reconstructionand expansion, as we know, have aroused the hopes of the people, whoof course give fervid support to demonstrations on behalf of peace. On12

the other hand, one lamentable •fact of the present season is indisputable.The south rally in Berlin was followed by a thoroughly organised "peacedrive", which unhappily included a renewal of the denunciation pouredout upon the Governments of Britain and the U.S.A. as imperialist war-mongers. The American President, of course, is no warmonger, and theterm is ludicrous when applied to the British Government.

The world of today lies in the darkness of a double fear. In Russia thereis a seemingly ineradicable conviction that America and its allies are deter-mined that the great Russian experiment shall be overthrown. In the Westthe suspicion that Soviet Communism is inseparable from the purpose ofworld conquest governs the popular feeling throughout what is called thefree world, though not so far the policy of governments. Meanwhile, how-ever, those governments have' entered decisively upon a vast scheme ofrearmament: that is, of military preparedness on a scale going far beyondanything ever known. The accepted theory is that, amid the existing con-ditions of peril, governments can plan and negotiate only from positions ofstrength. It would appear to be not improbable that the great-Power thatis deemed to be the one and only potential enemy has been impressed, andeven restrained, by the terrific spectacle of Western rearmament. Whetherthat be so or not, there are undoubtedly evidences in support of those whohold that for East and West alike 1952 will be the crucial year. It may wellbe impossible for any among us to offer an ankwer to the question : "Canwe have peace?" while the existing darkness remains unbroken. But maywe not, in the midst of our doubts and anxieties, hold to one conviction,namely, that, there can be no hope of peace if our reliance is placed upongreat armaments alone? All the experience of the past goes to support thatconviction. While we no less than the Americans are fully committed to 'the policy of preparedness. it is the part especially of Britain to insistthat military power cannot be a protection against world catastrophe with-out a supporting policy of settlement and co-operation. And in the urgingof that truth Britain must speak in no uncertain tones.

(Sonunary of an address delivered on September 9)

The Victorians and OurselvesB Y

ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON, M.A.

THE JOURNALIST-PHILOSOPHERS of today have given the Victorians a badreputation. According to them the Victorians were a race of •artless optimists,who believed in the automatic progress of the world from good to betterand from better to. best, and in the explicability of all mysteries by physicalscience. So different from the journalist-philosophers of today, who havemade the portentous discovery that science knows nothing, that what itparades as knowledge had better have remained unknown, and that progiessis an illusion born of a now bankrupt iddustrialism and a discreditedmaterialism!

As a matter of fact, the Victorians were not such fools and not such wish-ful thinkers as it is the fashion to make them out. If we go back to the eightieswe shall get a fair cross-section of the later Victorian age, and we shall seethat that age, like ours, had its reactionaries and its revolutionaries, its opti-mists and pessimists, though naturally the isues on which they fought werenot quite the same as those in which we fight today.

The high-water mark of Victorian commercial prosperity had been reached

13

in the seventies. From that time on foreign competition made itself felt.The maladjustments between production and consumption led to demandsby manufacturers for protective tariffs, to labour struggles, to reductions inwages and to unemployment which, for the first time in the history of indus-try, was not immediately succeeded by a new boom. At the same time theimportation of corn from the United States and Canada extended the dis-tress to agriculture; so that by the eighties not only urban but rural England,and not only Britain but Ireland, were in a state of crisis which, though amole-hill compared with the world crisis of our day, seemed mountainousto the Victorian participants.

It is interesting to study the reactions of people of that day to these prob-lems in the sober pages of the Annual Register, the letters of Queen Victoriaor standard works like Herbert Paul's History of Modern England. TheIrish question bulked lareest in the public mind at that time. The Irishpeasant was fighting for his hearth and home against an alien landlordismand was able by long habit to make himself very nasty to his enemies,in the seventies. From that time on foreign competition made itself felt.whereas the unemployed Britisher, though his plight was probably no lessmiserable was imperfectly organised and much more helpless. Hence theIrish struggle filled the headlines. It is strange to read of the complacencywith which the British ruling class of that day supported the Irish landlordsin exacting what the Annual Register calls "impossible rents" from theirtenants and in evicting those who could not pay them. In a speech to hisconstituents at Paddington Lord Randolph Churchill declared that the IrishProtestants were the only Irish nation "known to the English people-, thatthe Irish Protestants had four times "conquered Ireland at the request ofEngland"; that they held Ireland "mainly for, the benefit of England";that they were, like the English "a dominant and an imperial caste"; and hefollowed this up with his famous threat that if Home Rule passed. "Ulsterwould fight and Ulster would be right". Lord Salisbury, the leader of theTory Party, indentified himself with the cause of the landlords and askedwhether anyone imagined that merchants, bankers and manufacturerswould stay in Ireland after the country gentlemen had gone. And soGladstone's very moderate Home .Rule Bill was thrown out; the Irishpeasants' "Plan of Campaign" to withhold rent was treated as a criminalconspiracy; and in 1888 the then Secretary for Ireland, Arthur James Balfour,drafted "two hundred men of the Scots Fusiliers, as well as two hundredcontabulary", to Portumna in County Galway "to help to thrust twenty-seven tenants and their families out of scarcely habitable hovels".

The point of all this is that the reactionaries fought a losing fight. Salisbury,Churchill and Balfour had not even the miserable justification of success.In the end the Irish landlords had to be bought out, and the Irish, afterEaster Week of 1916 and the disgraceful and futile campaign of the Black andTans, achieved an independence which Gladstone would never have dreamt ofgranting.

Turning from Ireland to Britain, it 'is instructive to study the attitude ofpublic personages of that day to the working-class movement. The eighties. asI have said, were a time of general trade depression. "In every shipbuildingport", write the Webbs, "there were to be seen thousands of idle men vainlyseeking for an honest day's work." in one part of London 40 per centof workers were unemploye.d. We have known a worse "economic blizzard-in the ninteen-thirties. But in the eighties there were no social services suchas we had later, and the whole force of the blizzard was borne by the particu-lar workers involved. Hence the Socialist revival of the eighties—in itsessence a reawakening of the Chartist movement of forty years before, whichmid-Victorian prosperity had temporarily lulled to sleep. Early in 1886there-occurred the famous West End riots, due to a collision between unem-14

ployed makhers, on their way from Trafffigar Square to Hyde Park, andunsympathetic denizens of clubland. There is something comic, if it were notalso bitterly tragic, in Victoria's hysterical outburst to Gladstone about "themonstrous riot" which she calls "a momentary triumph of Socialism", andwhich she hints is not unconnected with the return of "a Liberal-RadicalGovernment" to office. "A panic", says the Annual Register, "seized uponthe West End of London. . . . A public subscription was opened •by theLord Mayor to assist the more pressing cases of distress in London, and asum of upwards of £78,000' was speedily got together.". Much virtue inwindow-breaking!

The political parties of that day were in equal measure wedded to theclassical capitalist policy of non-interference in industry. Both parties hadtheir adventurOus "Left", which was ready to go a little further than its leadersto catch the working-class votes. But the leaders deplored such adventurous-ness, especially when associated with the opposite party.

It is false to suppose that most Vicorians believed in the perfectibility ofsociety or the omnipotence of science.., People talk as if Mill and Cliffordwere representative Victorians. They were not: they represented in theirdifferent ways elements of Victorian society which were in intellectualrevolt against it. The average Victorian accepted a society in which themajority of men and women were fated to be miserable. The paradox wasthat he did so without forfeiting his ethical or intellectual integrity. Hedid so usually by subscribing to a religion which explicitly denied happinessin this world to be important or even realisable and held happiness inthe next world to be the prize of an elect minority in a sort of divine lottery.That being so, he could acquiesce in the squaloi and misery of most of hisfellow-countrymen; he could enforce landlord rule in Ireland by police andmilitary action; he could support the annexation a:if rich territories overseas(as Lord Ripon put it to Victoria) by a Ch`artered Company with maximguns from natives who had "no cannon" and were "chiefly armed withassegais", without thinking for a moment. that he was doing other thanfulfilling the will of the God whom society had made in its own image.

We have not solved the Victorian problems, but we have lost the faithwhich made our fathers complacently accept their insolubility. So far as theworld has changed for the better, it has done so through struggle. In everydepartment the reactionaries of that day fought a losing battle. In domesticpolitics they had to yield, step by step, to the pressure from below whichbrought about what we today call the Welfare State. Every step was foughtand denounced as red ruin in its day. Death duties were "robbery"; work-men's compensation was "iniquitous" school meals were "pauperisation";national insurance was "regimentation" and the "servile state". Today thesonS and grandsons of those reactionaries, wearing the same party label andavowing the(same principles, profess to be the custodians (one would almostthink they were the originators!) of the social services which their fathersresisted and denounced. In just the same way the Churches (except theRoman Catholic) today "reverently accept the results of modern scholar-ship" (short of atheistic humanism) and pooh-pooh the hell-fire orthodoxywhich a lifetime ago was "the faith once delivered to the saints".

Of course there is another side. The fact that the workers were able togain what they did without actual violence was due, not to the "English geniusfor compromise" or any such metaphysical abstraction, but to the late Vic-torian and post-Victorian ruling class being in a position, thanks to imperialexpansion and oversca investments, to make concessions at home withoutruining themselves. As every great industrial power had the same problemsand tried to solve them in the same way, the result was international rivalry,an armaments race, a world war which we called "a war to end war", a peacewhich has been called "a peace to end peace", another armaments race, an-

15

other world war and so on. The spiritual upshot has been a widespreaddisillusionment and cynicism, a boosting of defeatist philosophers who denythe existence of progress, and an affected "couldn't-care-less" attitude to thedanger of a new world war which might end civilisation and perhaps humanlife itself.

But because progress is not automatic, it does not follow that it does notexist. Because science exploited by lunatics might destroy the world, it doesnot follow that science is evil. What follows is that progress depends on usand not on some mythical power outside us. What follows is that we shouldstruggle, as our fathers struggled to save our world alive and to turn sciencefrom the promotion of lunacy to its original function, the service of mankind.

(Summary of an address delivered on September 16)

Correspondence.To the Editor of The Monthly Record.Religion in the Future

What is to be the religion of the Future? For it is certain that Man musthave a religion—a belief to lead him upwards and give him courage. Isthis religion to be Humanism and if so, can Humanism produce the emo-tional stimulus needed to fire man's imagination and lead him forwardand away from selfish ends.

If man would realise his power and believe in his destiny, if he wouldgrasp the idea of the'sort of world he could build, if he would stop destroy-ing and begin creating, then and then only will the world go forward. The ser-vile attitude expressed in the Prayer Book Litany "that it may please thee"(to do all the things that we should be doing for ourselves) is or shouldbe a thing of the past. As there are so many Gods and each nation asksfor something diffierent, something totally opposed by the other, we shRuldknow that there can be no response. •

It is probable that in another 500 years or so, merf will look upon ourlovely old churches as we moderns look upon Stonehenge. I paid a visitrecently to Tintern Abbey and gazed with awe at the up-springing archesand the glorious tracery. Hundreds of years ago, iti this wooded and remotevalley, men shut themselves away from a wicked world and put their•idealsand their faith into stones, stones that became alive with beauty, stonesthat still inspire the minds of those who gaze on them. The monks of olddid not build these great churches to house a congregation but for the loveand glory of God.

For what are we building today? Is the atom bomb and mutual destruc-tion to be the last word or will man shake off his chains of superstition anddependence and spring forward to achieve and create a finer life, a loftierideal, a greater man? In other words will he become a Humanisf in theloftiest and hitherto untried meaning of the word?

. Love must be the keynote of the Humanist: Love that s'erves, Love thatinspires, Love that creates.

• M. F. UNWIN

To the Editor of The Monthly Record.DEAR SIR—While I am in agreement with the views expressed in the Record,'I feel that far too much emphasis is placed on the attacking of religion:most of us realise that organised religion has made a sorry mess of things.We should differentiate between organised religion and the truth andmorality which are inherent in all religions.16

If organised religion is doomed then equally is materialism doomed, forneither is based on truth or can satisfy the desire of man for an enlargedand .enlightened life. Science has no answer to the problem of how tomake a better man; not even the science of psychology. Professor Jungin his book Modern Man in Seach of a Soul writes: "Among all my patientsin the second half of life, there has not been one whose problem, in the lastresort, was not that of finding a religious outlook on life."

This is meant to convey that man is not alone in the Universe but has hispart in it. To my mind he is to become a willing helper in the all-embrac-ing purpose of Evolution. His part is to cease living for self. He willthen begin to live, for he aligns his life with the great creative force ofnature and so achieves harmony.

R. HIGGINS '

To the Editor of The Monthly Record •DEAR Sia—On page ten of your September issue, Mr. Archibald Robertsonstates that "it is safe to say that everyone now living in this country is over-whelmingly likely to be descended from everyone living in it in the reignof William the Conqueror . . . etc." (Italics are mine). In my humble sub-mission, writing.,as a layman in historical matters, this is not true, for thefollowing reason. Mr. Robertson has omitted to take into account all theforeigners who have immigrated to "this country" (whatever that phraseincludes), and also all the descendants, now resident in this country, of allwho have immigrated to it from the time of William the Conqueror downto the present day, excluding for the present purpose all those of Normanorigin. It is, I think, very unlikely that anyone in this category is descendedfrom everyone living in this country in the reign of William the Conqueror.If one were to take all the facts into consideration I think the final resultwould differ considerably from Mr. Robertson's estimate, even allowing forthe modification he makes immediately after the passage quoted above.

I think this is a good example of how, by omitting to take all the factsinto consideration, facts become misrepresented; though it is only fair toadd, Can one ever know all the facts? Is not this, indeed, often the reasonfor difference of opinion and for travesty of the truth?

Incidentally, it should not be overlooked that those who are not descen-ded from everyone living in this country in the reign of William the Con-queror are none the less each, presumably, descended from millions ofpersons living in the reign of William the Conqueror in other countries ofthe world.

Faithfully yours,0. B. DEAKIN

Mr. Robertson writes:"Immigrants have been absorbed by intermarriage with the native popula-

tion; so their descendants are sprune from the same ancestors as the restof us—through their great-grandmothers!"

South Place NewsShakespeare Dchate

Readers of the Monthly Record who were disappointed by the cancella-tion of the debate on Shakespeare between Mr. William' Kent andMr. Archibald Robertson, will be pleased to know that the former isdebating with Mr. John Brophy at the City Literary Institute, StukeleyStreet, Drury Lane, on Saturday, October 13, at 3 pm. The subject is:"Was 'Shakespeare' a 'Gentleman of Stratford'?" The chair will be'takenby Mr. A. C. T. White, .principal of the CLI. A vote will be taken.

17

JUNIOR DEBATING GROUPJuly 20. "The philosophical basis of Ethics" was introduced by Dr. B.

Stark, who said that every phenomenon is a material thing or the resultof a material thing. In olden times philosophers worked in speculative waysbecause experimental methods were discouraged. The progress of sciencetends to restrict the scope of things with which science cannot deal. Specula-tion was permissible in such things as the recent theory of the continuouscreation of matter in space, or on the rules of human behaviour. Con-clusions which have no scientific foundation cannot be accepted as entirelysatisfactory. The basis of morals depends on the rules to which all livingthings are compelled to comply, i.e. sex, life and power. All these are theresults of materialistic activity.

In the debate it was denied that unexplained phenomena can be claimedas being materialistic in origin. That is, of course, when it was certain ,thatthe phenomena in question were facts and not imagination. It was assertedthat spiritual things, being what one feels, cannot be materialistic.

August 24. Mr. McLoughlin, discussing "Where life began", explored theboundary between organic and inorganic matter. He said that an accuratedefinition of life could not be given because no characteristic of life was itsexclusive appendage. There had been no evidence of new forms of lifeoriginating in modern times. In the geological past some conditions werepresent which were capable of producing life; these conditions were notnow present. It was possible that the vital spark came from outside theworld's sphere.

During the debate it was said that if original life came from outside,the quest was extended but not solved. With the resources of science, itwas thought that what had happened oncq could be made to happen again;the difficulty might be to recognise life should it be produced. The worldnow teeming with life may be the condition which prevented the adventof another form of life. Matter was assimilated by and became part ofliving organisms;_ this metamorphosis caused a release of energy and formeda new product.

The group finished with the negative proposition that we did not possesssufficient knowledge .of viruses to decide whether or no they were a formof life.

Society's' ActivitiesConway Discussion Circle

Weekly discussions in the Library on Tuesdays at 7 p.m.Oct. 9—W. A. Purfurst: "Why I am a Buddhist."

I6—H. J. Blackham, B.A.: "Can -We Still Be Rationalists?"23-13. G. MacRae (London School of Economics): "Science as a

Social Institution."30—M. Beddow Bayly, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P.: "The Problem of

Vivisection.-Admission free. Collection.

South Place String Orchestra. Conductor: Eric Sawyer

Practices take place on Fridays in the Library at 7 p.m. There arevacancies for competent amateurs. Particulars may be obtained from theHon. Secretary, Mr. E. J. Fairhall, Conway Hall, W.C.I.18

Junior Debating GroupMeets on Fridays at 7 p.m. Visitors are welcomed and invited to take

part in the debates.

The Library, Conway HallThe Librarian will be in attendance on Sunday mornings and Tuesday

and Thursday evenings.

RamblesSunday, October 14. Chaldon and White Hill, Surrey. Train, 1.48 p.m.,

Victoria to Coulsdon South. Leader: Frederick Sowan.

DancesThere will be a dance held on Saturday, October 6, at 7.30 p.m., in

Conway Hall. As this is the first dance of the season, we give a specialwelcome to members and to all old and new friends. Tickets 3s. (includingrefreshments) may be obtained at Conway Hall. Phone reservations,CHAncery 8032.

The dance following will be held on November 3. Owing to the increasein the cost of refreshments, we are regretfully obliged to charge 4s. for thisand subsequent dances.

Sunday SocialOctober 21, in the L brary, at 3 p.m. William Kent, F.S.A.: "South Bank

in Olden Times."

Thursday Evenings in the Library at 7 p.m.October 4—South Place Entertainers.

11—Whist Drive.18—Ladies entertain.25—Gentlemen entertain.

Members and friends are cordially invited to attend.

Committees 1951-52

General CommitteeC. E. Barralet, H. J. Blackham, C. Bradlaugh Bonner, K. W. Bourne, D.Brazill, D. A. Broughton, J. Cummins, Mrs. K. E. Dowman, E. H. Elkan,

Mrs. H. Gamble, Miss W. L. George. Miss R. Halls, G. Hutchinson, F. James,W. C. Keay, L. Roth, Mrs. D. Salmon, Miss P. Snelling, F. H. W. Washbrook,

0. Warwick, F. C. C. Watts:

Ex-officio: G. C. Dowman, (Editor), E. F. Fairhall (Hon. Treas.), Mrs. T.Lindsay (Hon. Registrar).

Minutes SecretaryMrs. L. L. Booker.

Executive CommitteeMrs. T. C. Lindsay, G. C. Dowman, E. J. Fairhall, F. James.

BookstallL. C. Camerrnan (Hon. Sec.), Miss George, Miss Palmer.

. Clements MemorialMrs. F. M. Hawkins (Hon. Sec.), G. Hutchinson (Temporary Hon. Treas.),

Miss R. Halls, E. J. Fairhall, L. Roth, Miss F. Simons.19

Concerts Committee• G. Hutchinson (Hon. Sec and Temporary Hon Treas.), Mrs. Hawkins,

Mrs. Hutchinson (Asst. Hon. Secs.), L. Camerman, Miss B. Channing,Miss J. Crutchlow, Mrs. S. Eakins, Miss R. Halls, F. Hawkins, Miss E.Ivimey, Mr. 'and Mrs. Lined, Mrs. H. Minchin, Mr. and Mrs. L. Roth,Mrs. K. Seeley, Miss P. Snelling, Miss F. Simons.

Conway Discussion CircleJ. Blackham. G. C. Dowman, J. A. Eales, S. E. Ellis, E. J. Fairhall,

Miss R. Halls, Mrs. L. A. Hubbard, H. Hawton, Mrs. T. C. Lindsay, R. T.Smith, B. 0. Warwick.

Conway MemorialMiss E. Palmer (Hon. Sec.), Mr and Mrs. E. J. Fairhall, R. T. Smith,C. C. Watts, G. C. Dowman, H. J. Blackham.

DancesG. C. Dowman (Hon. Sec. and Treas.), Miss B. Channing, Mrs. Dowman,

Hutchinson, Miss W. L. George.

Library' Migs D. Walters (Librarian), ID. A. Brazill, Miss R. Cane, Mrs. Dowman,Miss, R. Halls, Mrs. T. C. Lindsay, Miss Maclean, Miss Moore, Miss P.Snelling.

Hawkins Chamber Music LibraryMiss B. Channing, Mrs. Hawkins F. Hawkins, G. Hutchinson, Mrs. '

Lince, Mrs. Seeley.

OrchestraE. J. Fairhall (Hon. Sec.), G. Hutchinson, Miss B. Channing, Mr. Lined,

(Hon. Treas.), Mrs. Line&

Music on SundaysG. C. Dowman, C . Hutchinson, Miss E. Ivimey..

RamblesMiss W. L. George (Hon. Sec.), Miss E. Palmer, D. A. Broughton, D. R.

Errington, F. James, B. 0. Warwick.

House CommitteeMrs. T. C. Lindsay, (Hon. Sec.), C. E. Barralet, Mrs. Dowman, Mrs.

Gamble, Miss R. Halls, Mrs. F. James, C. N. Salmon, Mrs. Salmon, MissSnelling, F. W. H. Washbrook.

Junior Debating GroupB. 0. Warwick, L. Bentley, K. W. Bourne.

Socials CommitteeJ. Cummins, Mr. and Mrs. G. C. Dowman, Miss W. L. George, Mrs. H.

Gamble, Mr. and Mrs. F. James, Mrs. T. C. Lindsay, Mrs. D. Salmon, MissD. Walters, Miss R. Halls (Hon. Sec.), Miss P. Snelling (Hon. Treas.).

The Monthly Record is posted free to Members and Associates. The Annual chargeto subscribers is 45. Matter for publication in the November issue should reach theEditor, G. C. DONVMAN, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, WEL, by October 10.

OfficersHon. Treasurer: E. J. FA1RHALL 1Hon. RegHtrar:. Mrs. T. C. LINDSA1 Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1Secretary: HECTOR HANVTON

PARLEIGH PRESS LTD. (TT,- ). SLECHW000 RISE. LTETFORL