Humanist and Writer Richard Clements

Vol. 63 No. 11 NOVEMBER 1958 Sixpence

Notes of the Month Custos

S.P.E.S. Presents ...

John Morley: Humanist and Writer Richard Clements

The Issue is Survival Archibald Robertson

The Social Roots of Art Otto Wolfgang

F. Matthias Alexander

Conway Discussions Correspondence

South Place News Activities of Kindred Societies

Society's Other Activities

• •

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY SUNDAY MORNING MEETINGS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK November 2—GEORGE VON HILSHEIMER, BA. (Former Director of Re- ligious Education, Ethiral Society of St. Louis). Religious Education in America Oboe Solo by JOHN COWDY Sonata .. Saint - Saens Hymn: No. 76 November 9—W. E. SWIN'I'ON, Ph.D., F.RS.E. Memory Hold the Door That Time of Year G. C. Dowinan The Lads in their hundreds Somerrell Hymn: No. 64 November 16—JOHN LEWIS, Ph.D. The Modem Threat to the Individual Piano Solos by JOYCE LANGLEY - Nocturne in F sharp .. Chopin Waltz in A flat .. Chopin 'Hymn : No. 163 November 23—F. IL A. MICKLEWRIGIIT, M.A. What the Bishops said at Lambeth 0 Mistress Mine .. Roger Quitter Eleanore .. Coleridge Taylor Tenor Solos by STANLEY GERRARD Hymn: No. 226 November 30—Mrs. DOROTHY PICKLES, MA. Black Africa, the Fifth Republic and Britain Soprano Solos by JUDITH Louis Feast of Lanterns Bantock The Fields are full Armstrong Gibbs Hymn: No. 25 SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS, 68th SEASON Concerts 6.30 p.m. (Doors open 6 p.m.) Admission 2s. November 2—LONDON STRING TRIO, EMANUEL HURWITZ, WATSON FORBES, VIVIAN JOSEPH. CHRISTOPHER BUNTING. Bach, The Art of Fugue. November 9—ALLEGRI STRING QUARTET. ELI GOREN, JAMES BARTON, PATRICK IRELAND, WILLIAM PI FETH Mozart in E flat, K428; Britten No. I: Dvorak in E flat, Op. 51. November 16—AMIC1 STRING QUARTET, Haydn in B flat, Op. 76, No. 4; Bartok No. 2; Beethoven in F, Op. 135. November 23—AEOLIAN STRING QUARTET. SYDNEY IIUMPHREVS, TREVOR WILLIAMS, WATSON FORBES, DEREK SIMPSON. Mozart in 0 mi., K421; Sibelius. PETER WALLFISCH. Brahms Piano Quintet. November 30—ILSE WOLF, MARTIN ISEPP. Schubert Lieder, with GERVASE DE PEYER, Schubert "Der Hirt Auf Dem Felsen". GERVASE DE PEYER, CECIL ARONOWITZ, LAMAR CROW- SON. Mozart and Uhl Trios for Clarinet. Viola and Piano. December 7—HARRY ISAACS PIANO TRIO. Mozart in C. K548; Beethoven in B flat, Op. 97; Brahms in C minor, Op. 101. The Monthly Record is posted free to members and Associates. The Annual charge to subscribers is 8s. Matter for publication in the December issue should reach the Editor, G. C. Dowman, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.I, by _November 5.. . . The Objects of the Society are the study and dissemination of ethical principles and 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 12s. 6d.), or Associate (minimum annual subscription 7s. 6d.). Life membership i13 2s. 6d. Associates arc not eligible to vote *or hold office. Enquiries should be made of the Registrar to whom subscriptions should be paid. The MONTHLY RECORD

Vol. 63 No. 11. NOVEMBER 1958 Sixpence

CONTENTS NOTES OF THE MONTH, Custos 3 S.P.E.S.PRESENTS . . . 5

JOHN MORLEY: HUMANIST AND WRITER, Richard Clernents 6

THE ISSUE IS SURVIVAL, Archibald Robertson .. 7 THE SOCIAL ROOTS OF ART, Otto Wolfgang .. 10 F. MATTHIAS ALEXANDER ("A POET UNSUNG") .. 13 CONWAY DISCUSSIONS 14

CORRESPONDENCE .. 17

SOUTH PLACE NEWS 19 ACTIVITIES OF KINDRED SOCIETIES SOCIETY'S OTHER ACTIVITIES .. 20

The views expressed in this journal amnot necessarily those of the Society

Notes of the Month A MOST SUCCESSFUL Annual Reunion of this Society and kindred bodies took place .at Conway Hall on September 28. Mr. Hutton made an efficient Chairman' and introduced those of the Society's lecturers who were present, after which Mr: Archibald Robertson replied, paying a sympathetic tribute to the late S. K. Ratcliffe who was for so long one of our best loved speakers. Dr. W. E. Swinton then introduced the guest of honour, Sir Julian Huxley, who was present with Lady Huxley. Dr. Swinton paid tribute to Sir Julian1s great scientific achievements and to his activities in the cause of ethics, also to his continuance of the great work done by his grandfather, T. H. Huxley. In his reply Sir Julian covered a good deal of ground in a short time. He made acknowledgment to the South Place Ethical Society for their endeavours in maintaining a rationalist platform during difficult times and was confident that their work would eventually bear abundant fruit. He laid particular stress on the International Humanist and Ethical Union Conference held at Conway Hall in 1957. This conference he felt to have 3 been of the utmost importance in that it• united several countries in the maintenance of sanity in a world of varying supernatural religions. Whilst unity was present among Humanists, other religions in their variety of outlook, showed disunity. in-many ways. Between the speeches, Mr. Frederic Jackson upheld the high standard of South Place music when he played some attractive piano pieces; Beethoven's ever popular Moonlight Sonata was enthusiastically received. The Bible in Plain English An English parson was told by a young Londoner that he couldn't understand the Epistle to the Colossians. "This epistle, guy; we can't understand what it's all about; it reads all funny like". Prebendary John Phillips was then inspired to write his own translation of the New Testament from the Greek texts. Reading one of his translations we fear he will not be without his critics. St. Paul's beautiful and poetic passage in the Corinthians beginning "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels- becomes "If I were to speak with the combined eloquence of men and angels I should stir men like a fanfare of trumpets or the crashing of cymbals". Your translation, guy, reads all funny like. But being published at 45s. and in danger of becoming a best seller, we think that perhaps it may be worth it. Published in the United States on September 15, more than 65,000 copies were bought by booksellers before publication. "Vision" of the Future We have read a good deal recently of the impact of television on the home. A news item coming from the north of England serves to underline the facts. A survey of 200 houses in a Yorkshire town showed that only three had baths, six had hot water and four with separate w.c.s. Yet 125 of these houses revealed the inevitable march of civilisation; they were equipped with TV sets. A public health inspector commented, ironically we can assume, "We have heard recently about rockets going up 100 miles and of the trip from Hong Kong to London taking less than twenty-four hours, yet although w.c.s were first invented in 1724, it seems we have to wait for over 200 years for one w.c. for one family." Further comment is unnecessary. Religion and Superstition Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Dr. W. R. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, made the astonishing admission that the two words "Religion" and "Superstition" were closely related. This Society has recognised such for nearly a century, but it reveals a change of heart for Dr. Matthews to say so. Remembering the late Dean Inge, of course it might be thought that these sentiments should be expected from the Dean of St. Paul's. "It is curiously difficult to define the meaning of superstition," says the Dean. We find it more difficult to define the meaning of religion, or to put it more definitely, the religion of the churches. We can understand better Tom Paine's dictum : "The world is my country. To do good is my religion." 1.11.E.11. Bulletin The October Information Bulletin of I.H.E.U. has reports of the Annual Conferences of both the R.P.A. and the Ethical Union, and of the Annual Reunion at Conway Hall. The Obituary of S. K. Ratcliffe receives sympathetic notice: "His un- 4 faltering eloquence and firm grasp of affairs, which made- him invaluable to the Society, make him irreplaceable." This is a very acute summing-up of our late beloved lecturer.

The Pope The Monthly Record offers every sympathy for the death of an individual, yet we find it difficult to explain the hysterical emotion engendered by the passing of the head of a concern which had been disavowed by Britain over 400 years ago; although the immediate reasons were somewhat discreditable, we do not forget that this body had a long and unsavoury history of torture, murder and suppression of freedom. Moreover, during the past war, this man of peace, as the Press has described him, wavered between the Allies and the Nazis, the latter having revealed an excess of cruelty comparable to that of the Inquisition, and had not shown finally whose side he favoured until he was confident who were to be the ultimate victors. This fact could label him as a man of peace, but there are less flattering descriptions that could fit him equally well. CUSTOS

S.P.E.S. Presents ... Sunday Morning Meetings—I l a.m. Large Hall. A YOUNG MAN in his middle twenties will address us on November 2—Mr. George Hilsheimer, who is in Germany at present with the American forces. When the call-up for National Service came he was Director of Religious Education in the Ethical Society of St. Louis, and assistant to the Leader, Mr. J. F. Hornback (Mr. Hutton Hynd's successor there). The speaker will describe a "religious education" situation so different from our own; and he will give us an outline of the definite programme of ethical and religious instructicin sponsored by Ethical Societies and Humanist.Groups in U.S.A.— under the title "Religious Education in America". On November 9, on the eve of Armistice Day, Dr.• W. E. Swinton is likely to bring us to the more meditative mood when he speaks on "Memory Hold the Door". Memory and meditation may be passive at the moment of quiet withdrawal, but they may inspire the return to creative achievement in personal' and social life. With minds and nerves preoccupied with the daily routine of survival we may fail to note the subtle movements of thought and procedure which threaten some of the values we take for granted. There is, for example,

"The Modem Threat to the lndiyidual" — the subject of the address to be given by Dr. John Lewis on November 16. Have we forgotten the recent conference of Bishops held at Lambeth? We should recall the utterances and pronouncements of the Bishops, in order to be reminded of the modes and manners of thought and feeling by which our official "religious leaders" propose to solve some of our frightening problems. On November 23, Mr. F. H. A. Micklewright will discuss "What the Bishops Said at Lambeth". Mrs. Dorothy Pickles, our speaker on November 30, is an authority on France; she is not a mere swivel-chair authority—she keeps in close personal touch with the people of France on the spot. In her address on "Black Africa, the Fifth Republic, and Britain", Mrs. Pickles will deal with one of the most embarrassing yet inescapable issues of our time—our attitude, official and personal, to the awakened millions of the great continent of Africa. 5 Conway Diseussions—Tuesdays-7.15 p.m.—Library Human is an ambiguous.term, it is true; but having in mind the ethical and religious Humanism which we profess and uphold, we wish to discuss "Humanism in Everyday Life", on November 4, as an attempt to extricate Humanism from a remote academic highbrowism and bring it to the more realistic and human levels of ordinary folk in workaday existence—for most of us are just ordinary folk. Mrs. Fanny Lines, a member of the Sutton Humanist Group and of the Ethical Union Council, will introduce the subject. November 11: Armistice Day: Remembrance. It is well to take a moment to remember— and to ask again and yet again why so many war victims had so to die and so to suffer, and whether it can happen all over again. Can we direct our memories and emotions to constructive ends? This question will engage us when we hear Mrs. Kathleen Tacchi - Monis, in the Large Hall, on "Women, the World, and War". Under this title, we spotted an article by. Mrs. Tacchi-Morris in The Freethinker of July 11; graciously she accepted our invitation to speak; readily The Freethinker gave us per- mission to use the title. Mrs. Tacchi-Morris will speak as a private citizen, and we hope that a large audience of men and women will represent and express every shade of opinion regarding war and peace. Our speaker is President of the Business and Professional Women's Club, Taunton, and has represented the Club at international conferences. Our waterways are in the news again: "London Gets Yacht Basin" at St. Pancras; a former coal basin has been "dredged out and dolled up a bit". "We want to see the waterways survive, and the best way to make sure of that is for the public to use them"—for pleasure and recreation; an important point this for the millions who live in the large cities. And so how timely the illustrated talk to be given on November 18, in the Large Hall, by the outstanding authority on our waterways, Mr. Robert Aickman, Founder and Vice-President of the Inland Waterways Association: "British Inland Waterways; Their Value to the People". This meeting should have a special appeal to "the young of all ages". On November 25, the Small Hall is likely to be well filled when "The 'Dialectical Materialism' of Karl Marx" is discussed, from opposing points of view, by Dr. John LeSvis and Mr. W. H. Carlton—and by the audience! The Syllabus of Conway Discussions, October-December, is available for display and distribution. Members and friends are urged. to make good use of it in advertising our meetings. John Morley : Humanist and Writer

B Y RICHARD CLEMENTS IN A LEITER written to Frederic Harrison, ten years after Morley had won a firm foothold in the literary world, he recalled to mind the hardships of his early struggles in Grub Street: "I was a scrawler", he wrote, "when I first came to town—and I have scribbled many a day before now with a hungry paunch, but 'twas all honest and honourable." Success was first achieved in 1865, when Morley began to write for the Saturday Review. It was then edited by John Douglas Cook, who was said to be !illiterate, though he certainly had editorial ability of a high order. He had, for example, a positive flair for finding.jand employing new literary talent. He gave proof of this when• he agreed to pay Morley and his friend, Leslie Stephen, retaining fees, and thus secured for his journal the- early 6 work of their versatile and vigorous minds.• The two young writers were not in sympathy with the politics of the Saturday Review and-so they did not write on public affairs; their business being to contribute -"middle" articles and book reviews. • About a year later, due mainly to the influence of Cotter Morrison, Morley was appointed editor of the Fortnightly Review, which had been established a few years before by Anthony Trollope and his friends. Its first editor was that "prince of journalists?, as Carlyle once described -him— George Henry Lewes. The intentions of the founders of the new review were to eschew party politics and seciarianism, and to let any man who had something to say, and knew how to say it, write freely according to his mind and conscience. But with one proviso: he would have to write with the responsibility arising.from the simple fact that whatever he wrote would appear under his own name. This was something of an innovation in those days, though it has since become a more common practice. The story of this review is a fascinating chapter in the history of British journalism; and Morley's appointment to its editorial chair, when he was still 'under thirty years of age, was indeed a stroke of good fOrtune. He rose equal to the occasion and for fifteen years conducted The Fortnightly with rare powers of judgment, pertinacity and skill. He contributed to its pages some of his own best work, amongst it the series of brilliant essays, later printed in 'his Miscellanies; the chapters of his first book on Burke; and his deservedly famous treatise On Compromise. He brought to the 'review not only his own splendid powers of literary craftsmanship, but was successful in persuading a galaxy of talented writers to assist him. Some of those contributions were outstanding in matter and style. Let me cite a few examples to drive home the point. In 1869 Professor T. 1-1. Huxley's famous discourse on The Physical Basis of Life appeared, and the review enjoyed all the advantages of a first class literary sensation. Arthur Balfour wrote on Evolution; Professor John Tyndall on Miracles; and Frederick Harrison in Defence of Trade Unions. George Meredith contributed Beauchamp's Career and certain of his poems. Swin- burne was represented by both prose criticism and poetry. There was also Arnold's superb tribute to the genius and work of George Sand. Political prestige accrued to the- review from the fact that public figures such as Joseph Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke wrote in its pages. Morley's valedictory article, a good example of his own dictum: "style comes of a brooding over ideas, not over words," appeared in the Fortnightly for October 1882, and brought to a close fifteen years' work that had deepened and broadened the stream of English thought on economic, political, social and religious subjects. Morley rendered a further service to English literature when, in 1877, he• undertook to edit for Messrs. Macmillan the famous English Men of Letters series. Every discriminating reader has his own favourites in that wide and catholic collection. The sound judgment, knowledge and taste of the editor were shown in the choice of authors to whom the subjects were assigned and the high standard of scholarship and writing they attained. The venture proved to be the most successful of its kind since Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets. Seven years later, in 1884, Morley edited another series dealing with the lives of twelve great English statesmen. There appeared in these collections his own books on Burke and Walpole, two excellent excursions into the art of biography. Both works .took rank almost at once as classics. The General Election of 1880 gave to the. Liberal Party and its veteran leader, Mr. Gladstone, who had just concluded his triumphant Midlothian campaign, a new lease of life and pciwer. Morley, in common with all who 7 shared his radical views, was jubilant, and it seemed appropriate that the change of government should have coincided with his appointment as editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. This London evening newspaper, which had had a somewhat chequered career, was now secured to the Liberal interest, and under the editorial direction of Morley and his assistant, the mercurially minded W. J. Stead, wielded a great influence over the public life of London and the leading personalities in the new government. Morley, who had made two unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament, was returned for Newcastle-upon-Tyne at a by-election in 1883. He was then forty-five years of age; and it was clear to the House and the country that, though he was not a great platform figure, his firm grasp of political philosophy, his transparent honesty of purpose, and the literary flavour of his public speeches, marked him out for early promotion to cabinet rank. He was known to be in sympathy with the aspirations of the Irish Nationalist Movement, and later on was credited with having strengthened Mr. Glad- stone's determination that the Home Rule Bill of 1886 should provide for the separation of the Irish from the British legislature. It caused no surprise, therefore, when in February 1886, after Gladstone's return to office as a Home Ruler, Morley entered the cabinet as Secretary for Ireland. Then followed the defeat of the Gladstonian forces at the polls and some years during which Morley divided his time between politics and literature; but, after the Liberal victory of 1892, he was re-appointed to the Irish secretaryship. Thereafter he played an important part in the tangled Anglo- Irish relations which continued to the close of Mr. Gladstone's life. In the complex and sorry disputes which for some years distracted the Liberal Party, he supported Sir William Harcourt in the oppositional policy he pursued against Lord Rosebery. The last phase of Morley's political life opened with his acceptance, at the end of 1905, of the office of Secretary of State for India in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet. In that office he disappointed both Liberal and Labour men in the House of Commons, and some of them were out- spoken in their criticisms. Nevertheless, he opened the door to the new . India by appointing two distinguished Indians to the Council; a move was made in the direction of the decentralisation of administration; and the whole system of government was remodelled by the introduction of repre- sentative elements into it In all this work he was advised and helped by the great Indian statesman Gokhale. The letters Morley wrote to his Viceroy, the Earl of M into, which can be read in the second volume of the Recollections, throw a curious light on the state of mind of the author during those years of power. The philosophical Radical is revealed as a man with a marked leaning towards strong government ("the first duty of a government is to govern"), and he is also shown wagging an admonitory finger at the Viceroy and the people in India who are described as "the excited corporal and the angry planter". This side of Morley's character brings out the peculiar psychological fact that the writer also aspired to be a man of action. He was certainly a man of "dual" personality and this goes some way in explaining his foibles in practical affairs, once described by one of his colleagues as "spinsterish"; his personal attachment to iron-willed characters like Gladstone and Chamberlain, in spite of intellectual differences; and his self-willed and autocratic conduct as a parliamentarian and cabinet minister. Only in his prose creations, the great biographies and literary portraits, was he able to bring into perfect unity the ,conflicting claims of his nature. (To be concluded) 8 The issue is Survival

B Y ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON ETHICALPRINCIPLES are the rules of behaviour which man—a member of the animal kingdom, the class of mammals and the order of primates, distinguished from other primates by an erect posture, the use of tools, mutual aid, language and, up to a point, reason—has evolved to further survival in the struggle for existence. It's as simple as that. Ethical principles didn't come down from heaven. They are earth-born. They are not a law for every rational being. We know nothing of any rational beings except ourselves. Whether there are rational beings in other parts of the universe, we don't know, and how they live we don't know. But ethical principles are part of our evolutionary outfit, because without them we shall not survive. I obviously cannot survive by fighting for my own hand and disregarding everybody else. Consequently I must consider other people as myself. That is what moralists call the golden rule. It is not a divine revelation, but the common sense of the situation. Only it is ambiguous. "Other people"—yes, but how many other people? That, we shall find, has been the trouble all through history and is the trouble now. We are not born philosophers. We do not think out ethical principles in an armchair and then apply them to life. We learn them from life by finding that some behaviour works and some doesn't work. Then the philosopher sits in an armchair and tries to make a system of it. Too often he only makes a mess. We are taught behaviour by the group to which we belong. That group is not mankind. It is quite a local group—in the first place our parents, then our school, then our trade or profession, then the writers of the books and newspapers we read. Naturally the teaching we get is in our own language. Hence our teachers are in the main people who speak our language. Those who speak foreign languages are able to teach us only if their influence has been great enough for their writings to be translated into our language. The Bible, for example, has the influence it has only because people at various times were so impressed by it as to translate the Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek original into their vernaculars. The same applies to other writers whose influence has been great—Calvin, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marx, Engels. Predominantly, therefore, we learn behaviour from people who speak our language, Not only so, but we learn it from people who live on the whole, in the kind of way we live. The sons and daughters of gentlefolk—i.e. people of a certain income level and therefore able to pay for their children's education in schools that give a gentleman's education—learn behaviour from other gentlefolk. The sons and daughters of miners, railwaymen, dockers and agricultural labourers learn behaviour from their own class or from teachers trained to give the sort of education deemed suitable for them. There are exceptions. Specially bright children may pass from elementary schools to grammar schools, public schools and universities. But on the whole the behaviour necessary to survival is learnt in national and class compartments. In the past, of course, the barriers were more impassable than they are today. This has an inevitable effect on the kinds of behaviour taught. We grow up learning not the kind of behaviour necessary to the survival of the human race, but the kind of behaviour deemed necessary to the survival of people who speak our language and live our way of life. I say "deemed"; for the 9 . world has changed and is changing now very rapidly, and behaviour necessary fifty years ago to the survival of our country and way of life may today be not only unnecessary, but positively dangerous. One assumption on which we were brought up was that Western, i.e. European and American, people were naturally superior to the rest a mankind, and (confidently in the last century, less so latterly) that within the Western group English-speakers were naturally superior to all others. There was no biological basis for either assumption. The sole basis was an accident of history, namely that since the sixteenth century Europeans by means of technical superiority were able to impose their rule on most of the rest of the world, and that in the final spurt for the domination of the world during the nineteenth century Britain, owing to naval superiority, got the lion's share. It would never have done to admit that this proved nothing except the superiority of Westerners, and Britishers in particular, in the know,how.of navigation and of the production and use of lethal weapons. A more high-sounding basis had to be invented. So Western hegemony was attributed to the Christian religion. This involved a contradiction; for the authoritative writings of the Christian religion enjoin meekness, peace, non-resistance, love of enemies and the renunciation of riches. Moreover, with the advance of scientific discovery in the natural and social fields, informed people began to reject the credentials of the Christian religion. An alternative basis for belief in Western superiority had to be found. Temporarily it was provided by Darwinism, which enabled Westerners to claim that they had proved themselves the fittest in the struggle for existence. But Darwinism proved a treacherous quicksand when Europeans devastated their own continent and shattered their own economy in two great wars in thirty years. Asians and Africans naturally asked whether such behaviour. proved the fitness of Europeans to rule others, and proceeded in India, Egypt and elsewhere to gisie practical demonstration that it did not. If the human race is to survive, the behaviour of its members must be based on beliefs that correspond with fact, not on beliefs that do not. It is not a fact that any variety of human beings is innately superior to other varieties or has any unassailable title to rule them. Different nations have taken the lead at different periods of history—the Egyptians and Babylonians, owing to the fertility diffused by their great rivers, in the ancient East; the Greeks, thanks to absorbing the science of Egypt and Babylonia without their priestcraft, in later antiquity; the Romans on the heels of the Greeks; the Arabs in the great days of Islamic expansion; the Europeans, pupils of all their predecessors, last of all. But other peoples have acquired the European know-how; and we have to live with them, unless we prefer to die with them. The West must work out its own salvation and stop imagining that it can work out that of the East too. And West and East alike must learn that they are part of one human race, destined by nature to battle for a living with their common parent, the earth, and likely to battle better if they do not spar with each other. This, it seems to me, is common sense. The 'fisms", "ocracies" and "anities" which purport to be superior to it seem to Me uncommon nonsense.

The 43cial Roots of Art • B Y

OTTO WOLFGANG

THE •XISTING DIVISION of labour in modern society with •its progressive specialisatiOn. in every field has tended to create the impression that art is an. abst-ract manifestation, inherent in a. few selected and specialised indi- 10 viduals. As a result our art expressions have tended to grow remote—sometimes even estranged—from life. In fact, they have social origins. . In his unceasing quest for food and shelter the savage could not afford to waste time and effort on any pursuit outside this scope. The admirable cave paintings by Gravettians and Magdalenians of the upper palaeolithic were painstakingly performed in the belief of their usefulness in magic rites to ensure the food supply. Magic results were likewise expected from the making of "bull-roarers" and certain female figurines as well as the performance of mimicking ritual dances. • The beginnings of song may go back to emotional reciting and inter- jectional cries of anger, fear or satisfaction; sneering or triumphant exclama- tions (as in celebration of great events) are still chanted by children. Pro- fessor Lascelles Abercrombie, in one of his lectures, quoted the following Australian Blackfellow song as an illustration: The kangaroo ran very fast, But I ran faster; The kangaroo was very fat: I ate him. Kangaroo! Kangaroo! The inherent excitement of the singers makes them jump and dance at the same time. At the next stage we have songs to co-ordinate the efforts in collective work (for instance when rowing, pulling, heaving etc.); in them rhythm is of primary importance. Through close contact with Negro music and dance, the synthesis of sound and measure in our Western music has been upset and beat again prevails upon melos, even in serious compositions. • At religious ceremonies, dancing occupies a prominent place, often accompanied by singing, rhythmic clapping of hands coupled with moVing of the head and limbs. This mass performance heightens the religious ecstasy necessary for the ritual act. Finally, at the attainment of civilisation, chanting with simultaneous dance movements becomes acting: religion begets the theatre. The utilitarian purpose of poetry was twofold: (a) to help the memory and (b) to inspire. PriOr to the invention of script, religious tradition and tribal law had to be passed on by word of mouth; poetical form .heightened their sacredness and made it easier to memorise the texts. In the other category we have war songs, the celebrations of—first c011ective, later individual—feats worth emulating, and the. like. In class society we have, quite naturally, two opposite experiences of art: the rulers enjoy their position and pay solely for art productions which provide glorification, "pure" entertainment and, finally, escapism. Up to Haydn, composers and musicians were kept by the nobility as paid servants, no better than clowns and monkeys; it was their job through their efforts to "further digestion after meals". Mozart, the unruly, was the first to rebel against this position: in defiance he chose freedom and a life of hardship and starvation as a "free" worker. The advent of capitalism had transformed everything—including arts—into commodities. In 1672 a London violinist, John Banister, for the first time gave a public Concert, admission one shilling: never before had music been sold in the market. Some years earlier•Venice, the mercantile centre, had built the first opera house (1629). Until the emancipation of the•free cities and their burghers the Church had been the only employer of artists and buyer of their products; consequently religious subjects prevailed. Whcn the aristocracy and -the rich merchants developed cultured tastes and wanted their palaces and mansions embellished, they demanded secular subjects in the classical forms Of pagan antiquity. This, however, was merely the form in which the artists of the Renaissance presented their contemporary contents. • I I The Second Fallacy Another erroneous idea .prevails, in that it is generally assumed that the epoch of greatest social or political attainment brings forth the greatest artists; generally the reverse is true. Hunger and suppression makes men rebellious, whilst the satisfied diner wants to rest. For the former art is the flower that adorns their shackles and makes them forget their plight; as soon as the first cracks show in the fortress of their oppression, their art becomes a sharp weapon in the age-old struggle for liberation. The era of Pericles in Greece as well as that of the Roi Soleil (Louis XIV) in France were periods of military disasters and political decline. Lyric poetry flourished under the Greek Tyranny and Absolutism in Europe. The Moorish empire in Spain, set up by the Omayads in the eighth century, lasted for nearly three hundred years, when Cordova was a centre of wealth, culture and learning. When the Cross at last prevailed, the blight of ignorance and intolerance fell over the whole of Europe: Moors and Jews were expelled to make room for the Inquisition. It took half a century until artists arose in Spain too and Velasquez pro- claimed his artistic integrity at the decaying court of Madrid. In Holland Rembrandt represented the Protestant spirit of revolt; and Rubens, the leader of the Flemish school, marks the national bourgeois rebellion against Spanish absolutism at the time when the Netherlands seceded from Spain. Religious subjects were relegated to a secondary place or incidents in a narrative, not as great spectacular facts; reality replaces epic and fantastic romance. Eighteenth century Germany was but a conglomeration of petty principali- ties, ruled by semi-illiterate but absolute drill-sergeants, jealous of each other; this disunity permitted Lessing, Schiller and Goethe to lay the foundation of a classicist literature. The centralistically governed Monarchy of the Habsburgs, however, created as a military bulwark against the Magyars and Turks in the east, exercised a unified despotism whose strict censorship prevented the rise of a progressive literature. To talk politics in civic circles was dangerous, public libraries were banned, publications blue-pencilled and the police beadle ruled supreme. Unable to live a full life on earth, the authors transposed their bourgeois ideals into a fairy world, ruled by an absolute yet benevolent and understanding Spirit King. Bolder spirits turned to satire (such as Nestroy, author of popular comedies and a comedian himself who for his biting extempores time and again was arrested and carried from the stage to prison). Many promising writers (Raimund, Mayrhofer, Lenau), in constant fear of informers and the secret police, went mad and/or committed suicide. In this political climate the Austrians turned to music and excelled in it, as it was the only possible means of self-expression without becoming suspect. Great satirists and witty writers arose among the Irish who have never been free: their secular rulers were replaced by the spiritual dictator of the R.C. hierarchy. When, about 1905, the tsarist despotism showed the first signs of crumbling, great Russian writers and composers (from the amazing Glinka to the no less amazing Moussorgski) came into their own. The art expressions of a moribund class can hardly ever be lasting, because it lacks aim, inspiration and content (this also goes for art under fascism); what it lacks in content, it has to make up in form, which now is considered more important than the essence. Because the artists have nothing to convey, they paint' geometrical patterns, play with wire or metal and imitate in sculpture crystal-like arrangements, in short, they reduce art to the level of a pit-human, because pre-social, reflex. "Art ... is an expression and a stimulus of the imaginative life, which is separated from actual life by the absence of responsive action" (Roger Fry, 1909).The sterile character of "modern art" began when after the First World War their leaders com- 12 pleted their escape from reality into the arid desert of pure form and the various brands of neo-mysticism. - Some exponents of a moribund yet still rabidly kicking class started out by shamming as fighters for social revolt; Richard Wagner and Gerhard Hauptmann in Germany, Tennyson in this country. In 1842, when the first independent political movement of the British workers culminated in the second great National Petition presented to Parliament, Tennyson, angry and scared, retired in "God-like isolation" whilst watching " . .. the darkening drove of swine That range on yonder plain" (The Palace of Art); concluding from within his Ivory Tower "And let the world have peace or wars, 't is one to me...." F. Matthias Alexander ("A POET UNSUNG") "F.M." AS HE was known to his friends and students was not an easy man to whom one can tie a label. In Louise Morgan's book, Inside Yourself, she writes that "he was neither a doctor nor a faith healer, nor a physical culture expert and he disliked hypnotism and remedial exercises". He had, she says, "rehabilitated approximately fifteen thousand sufferers from all kinds of disease and disability". He was a fine example of his own technique —for technique it is. At eighty-five, "his back was as straight as an acrobat's and he was putting in a good working day, standing on his feet and adding constantly to the number who bless his name". When Alexander commenced the labours which were to develop into his life's work, he was soon aware that "body and "mind" were not separate parts of the same organism and that it is impossible to separate "mental" and "physical" processes in any form of human activity. Not being a registered physician he had, of course, his critics but his results discounted all their criticism. For nearly sixty years, specialists and doctors sent their patients to Alexander as a last resort. Louise Morgan tells of a woman who failed to recover properly from a serious disease and gradually lapsed into invalidism. Finally she consulted Mr. Alexander. She arrived for her first lesson, hobbling on a stick. "Well, here I am," she announced in a breezy fashion. "And only just in time," said Alexander. "My dear young lady yoff are quite the worst case of harmful use of yourself that I have seen in fifty-six years of teaching." "My dear sir," she replied tartly, "that is not a very complimeniary thing to say to a lady." Smiling he went on to explain. "I mean that you are one mass of pressure from head to foot. Your head is pressing down on your neck and back, crushing the bones of the spine altogether and crushing down the muscles of your back. You have lost inches in height, I can see. Yoff no longer have any control of your use of yourself. You are pressing yourself down all the time. Pressing down, down, down." "Well, I never! Tell me more!" she demanded looking very interested. He showed her. He explored her head and neck muscles, turning her head slightly from side to side. After working in this way for nearly an hour he asked her, "Are you tired?" "Too interested to be tired," she replied. 13 A minute later he said quietly, with his hands at the base of her head, "I want you to stand up". "Stand up," she echoed in a stupefied voice. "I haven't stood up for years." "Never mind. It will be quite all right. When I say stand up, just stand up. That's all." Almost immediately he repeated "Stand up !- And she rose easily and' stood on her two feet, beaming with delight and nearly in tears with the shock of happy surprise. "It's a miracle!" she gasped. "Nature is full of miracles," he commented drily. ,It was not a miracle, he explained, but the natural result of his bringing about with his hands a more integrated use of herself. The head was meant to be carried forward and up to control the body muscles, but like so many other people, she pulled the head back and down. Inside Yourself, published by Hutchinson, explains the Alexander technique and its uses in everyday life. Among the pupils of "F.M." were such distinguished people as George Bernard Shaw, Sir Stafford Cripps, Sir Adrian Boult, Robert Donat, John Dewey and Dr. Maurice Burton. The late F. C. C. Watts was also an enthusiast for his work and published Alexander's books under the imprint of his own company—Chaterson Ltd. Aldous Huxley has written the foreword to Inside Yourself. Among the problems dealt with in the book are: wrong breathing or air starvation, as Louise Morgan calls it; carriage of the body; wasted energy; how to sit with ease and grace; sound sleep. All these are based on physiological and anatomical facts. One of the books that Mr. Alexander himself has written The Universal Constant in Living, has an appreciation by Professor G. E. Coghill who says: "The practice of F. Matthias Alexander in treating the body is founded, as I understand it, on three well-established biological principles: (1) that of the integration of the whole organism in the performance of particular functions; (2) that of proprioceptive sensitivity as a factor in determining posture; (3) that of the primary importance of posture in determining muscular action." Another of Mr. Alexander's books, The Use of Self, has a foreword by Professor John Dewey and contains some-very intriguing chapters on everyday problems such as, "the golfer who cannot keep his eye on the ball". F.M. remarks that the golfer's habit is to work directly for his ends on the "trial and error" plan without giving due consideration to the means whereby those ends should be gained. Painstaking and constructive analysis is brought to bear on the problem. Again, a chapter on "The Stutterer" must be of great interest and use to the sufferers from this distressing malady. In- formation is given on the correct use of the speaking mechanism: tongue, lips and vocal organs. F.M. had . much success in helping stammerers to help themselves. • During his lifetime Mr. Alexander trained many people as teachers of his technique and a number of these are continuing his good work in London and many other parts of the world. C. K. J. D. Conway Discussion AT THE TUESDAY discussion meeting on October 7, Mr. .1. Henry Lloyd, acting Hon. Secretary of the Humanist Council, gave a talk on "Humanism and the B.B.C.", embodying a brief history of the negotiations with the B.B.C. for a fairer shat'e of broadcasting for the Rationalist and Humanist points of view and some conclusions at which he had arrived about the basic problem in this matter. 14 These negotiations had been initiated by the Parliamentary Committee for Freedom of Religious Controversy under the leadership of Joseph Reeves, M.P., and with the valuable services of C. Bradlaugh Bonner as Secretary. This body was responsible for organising a deputation to the B.B.C. of leading representatives of the movement led by Bertrand Russell in 1946 which was mainly responsible for the very broad policy statement, "The Search for Truth", which was issued by the Governors in 1947. The apparent advance represented by this declaration was, however, seriously weakened by another statement of policy, given by the then Director General (Sir William Haley) at a conference of. the British Council of Churches the following year, making clear the partiality of the B.B.C. to the Christian churches. The ambiguity left by the two statements of policy was pointed out in the communication submitted by the R.P.A. to the (Beveridge) Com- mittee of Enquiry into Broadcasting, 1949, to which the Ethical Union also made a powerful plea for opportunities to present its constructive view of moral values, which was recognised in the report of the Committee as a valid claim. With the cessation of Mr. Bonner's services as Public Relations Officer of the R.P.A. and consequentially as Secretary of the Parliamentary Com- mittee the conduct of relations with the B.B.C. was in 1954 transferred to the Humanist Council. (Mr. Lloyd took the opportunity at this point of paying a warm tribute to the zeal and ability of Mr. Bonner, whose service had laid a firm foundation of respect for the case of the combined movement for broadcasting justice.) Mr. Lloyd made his debut as spokesman for the Humanist Council in a letter to the Director of the Spoken Word (Mr. Harman Grisewood) in •June, 1954, emphasising that the movement was not merely concerned with opportunities for religious controversy but even more for the constructive expression of its views. This elicited an invitation to furnish the Talks Department with suggestions, which were duly obtained from the constituent organisations, covering a wide range of forms of broadcasting, topics and possible speakers and were sent in in November: Unfortunately, beyond a vague promise of "consideration" nothing came of these suggestions and, apart from Mrs. Knight's unexpected talks on "Morals without Theological Religion" and the stir they created, little or no progress was made during 1955. In July the following year, the Council decided that a fresh "campaign" was necessary. This took the form of a letter to the Director General drawing attention to the negative reception of the suggestions which had been invited by Mr. Harman Grisewood, followed by a public meeting at the Caxton Hall in October with E. M. Forster and Margaret Knight as speakers and an impressive list •of "supporters" including Bertrand Russell and J. Bronowski and others. The resolution passed at this meeting is worth recording as emphasising the constructive purpose of our pressure: "This 'meeting regrets that the Governors of the B.B.C. have failed to provide adequately for the needs of a large body of secular opinion which would welcome the expression of fundamental humanist convictions. It calls the attention of the Governors to the recommendations of the Beveridge Committee in this respect and asks that they be implemented." An unexpected and welcome outcome of the letter to the Director General was an invitation from the Assistant Controller of Talks to discuss the Humanist Council's case with him at Broadcasting House which led to a useful informal interchange of views and was followed at a later date by a further and fuller discussion when Mr. Lloyd was joined by Messrs. Burall and Hawton and Mr. Thornton was accompanied by several colleagues. This opportunity for frank explanations on both sides, the recogni- tion of policy and technical difficulties in the framing of programmes, especially in the field and of the type with which we were concerned, was a 15 valuable education as to the practical obstacles in the way of achieving our desires. As a relative side issue there emerged at this second discussion the sug- gestion of some widening of the scope of School Broadcasting in the talks to upper forms on Religion and Philosophy. This took effect in the autumn of 1957 in a series of talks on "Belief and Unbelief", concerning which Mr. Lloyd felt bound to make some protest at the misrepresentation of Human- ism in one of the talks, apart from the unsatisfactory situation of the case for Humanism being presented by an opponent. It was, however, necessary to recognise that School Broadcasting was subject to even more specific restrictions than broadcasting in general, being governed by the Education Act 1944 which is based on the observance of the Christian point of view. The most significant and controversial part of Mr. Lloyd's address was its final passage where he summed up his conclusions about the basic obstacles to the free treatment of religion on the radio which we desire. This he found in the "unspOken assumptions" in the situation of the B.B.C. —that complex body of ideas summed up as "the Establishment"—the church, the upper social circles and the public schools which feed them. This vague conception is rarely formulated in words and appears nowhere in the Charter and is for the most part as unconscious in the minds of the B.B.C. Governors and staff as it-is in the leaders of the churches and society, but it is resistant to the challenge to tradition and established social practice. So far as it affects broadcasting, Mr. Lloyd's remedy was to bring these assumptions into the open for public discussion and decision on their merits, for which purpose he had drafted three clauses for a revised B.B.C. Charter, as follows: The Board of Governors is directed to pursue as their highest duty of British broadcasting the search for truth in its manifold forms, recognis- ing that while paying due respect to Christianity and other established views this must involve a fundamental impartiality to all views and the broadcasting of conflicting views, while ensuring that the affirmations of different beliefs are constructively made and their discussion conducted in such a manner as to avoid wounding reasonable people or transgressing the bounds of courtesy and good taste. (Mr. Lloyd had an open mind as to the future of the Religious Broad- casting Department, whether it should be merged in the Talks Department or transformed by widening its view of religion. To leave open both alterna- tives he suggested the following clauses.) In the discharge of the foregoing responsibility, the Governors may maintain such special departments for its discharge as they think fit, provided that they take steps to ensure that the personnel and administration of any such department are such as to ensure its operation in the spirit of the foregoing policy of impartiality. Further to assist the Corporation in its discharge of the foregoing duties and in pursuance of Clause 12 [the clause in the present charter dealing with Advisory Councils] the Governors shall recast the membership of the Religious Advisory Council to ensure that representatives of substantial minorities of non-theistic religious views and of other theistic religions than Christianity are included as well as the Christian churches. J. H. L.

16 Correspondence

To the Editor of the Monthly Record Shakespeare Dear Sir, "That's the humour of it." Yes: the humour is that Mr. Robertson, Mr. R. C. Churchill and Mr. Ivor Brown completely ignore all the arguments they cannot answer. I have debated seven times on this Shakespeare issue and none of the three writers mentioned touch my arguments. Here are three I would like them to deal with. How is it that in 1635, nineteen years after the death of their Shakespeare, some of the fellow-actors, petitioning the Earl of Pembroke, one of the "incomparable pair" who fathered the Sixth Folio, referred to him simply as "a deserving man". This was indeed damning with faint praise were he the dramatist. Fancy alluding to Bernard Shaw today as "a deserving man"! How is it that in the dedication of the sonnets the poet is said to be "ever living"? This is a phrase applicable to a dead man. The Earl of Oxford died in 1604; the sonnets were published in 1609. I heard Sybil Thorndike, at a meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, refer to Bernard Shaw as "ever living" a few months after his death. What is the meaning of the line: "Every word does almost spell my name- in one of the sonnets? Oxford used to sign his name "E. Vere". Mr. Robertson has the courage of his convictions on paper but ,not on a platform. He declined to debate with me several years ago. The same remark applies to Mr. Nor Brown. The offer is still open. Yours faithfully. WILLIAM KENT Mr. Robertson writes: "Mr. Kent complains that I ignore his arguments. I might as well say that he ignores Mr. Churchill's. Mr. Kent naively assumes that phrases used in the seventeenth century bore exactly the same shade of meaning as the same phrases bear in the twentieth. So much for the Shaw parallel. To show his slipshodness, he misquotes Sonnet 76. If only such people would read Shakespeare!"

Colour Bar and Social Credit Dear Sir, It is just as well that -"The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society", since this member finds himself in disagree- ment with some of the views. It is good that you allow conflicting views to be "heard" in your columns, because a free (for all!) platform can be stimulating. The remarks of Custos about the "Colour Bar" are not, I feel, those of one who has thought deeply about the subject, nor are they particularly ethical or humanist. He (he says, "we") confesses himself "unable to follow the mental processes—if any—of young people who chase coloured men...." My father told me, when I was a boy (when I reported that someone had called him an "agitator"—because he was a T.U. official etc.) that an agitator can get small results if there is nothing about which to agitate. The mental processes of these "young people" are reacting, subcon- sciously, to their rotten environment, their slum conditions, their bad schooling, and similar factors. "Colour" is the scapegoat, where it was 17 (sometimes still is) the Irish, the Roman Catholics; the Jews, even us Scots! Those who should be in gaol now are the persons responsible for allowing slum conditions to remain, here and in the home lands of the coloured immigrants. Were we living in a sane social-economic system, that ensured the benefits of modern abundance—available and/or easily made available throughout the world—there would be little, if any, colour conflict. Living, as I do, in one trouble area, and knowing what does happen when immigrants "pour" in, I am able to appreciate the• resentment of the native "victims", which, at first, is not itself organised. I have several non-white friends and, without exception, they do not want to be here. Bad conditions at home have forced them to escape, to try their luck elsewhere. They long for the sun they have left, to start with. We should give a lead on such problems, by getting down to basic causes. Custos gives a good example of shallow thinking, unworthy of us! Another good example of surface searching is the statement by G. I. Bennett, that "... a governed world has become the most vital desideratum (clever word, that!) of our time". He is apparently fully un-conscious of the truth, that the world is now over-governed, right down to the private life of every individual, by the world financial monopoly. It is less government of men over men that is the "desideratum" (excuse my borrowing your borrowed word, Mr. Bennett!). The solution of the international problem that Mr. Bennett has approached, in a purely orthodox way, is, in truth, a national one. Every nation, every individual within every nation, has to become free from the now anachronistic money system. Excuse my mentioning it—no intention to scare any of your readers—but the solution is known and is called: Social Credit. Sincerely, . J. W. LESLIE

Custos and the Colour Problem Dear Sir, Custos' Notes are always very interesting, vital and perspicacious, and I heartily endorse his paras. in the October Monthly Record: "Colour Bar" and "Christianity and Colour". However, I suggest it would be more mercifully humane to dissuade the coloured folk from leaving their kith and kin and their salubrious climate to come to our chilly wetness and smog, amongst a people with totally different ethnolOgieal traits, a strange confusing. type of civilisation vastly different, although not in every respect superior to theirs. We have had coloured medicos settled in private practice and on our hospital staffs for half a century and school-children of various races playing together uninhibited and unrestrained. Despite our kindly courteous welcome, it will be many centuries before the various races and religions are integrated into communal, fraternal friendship. /vloreover, if our population continues to increase at the ratio of the last half century, the consequences will be disastrous. We will be obliged to confine immigration to those that have a birthright passport, also vastly more birth control must be practised with the assistance of the Health Service. Our policy should be more aid for otir coloured Colonials ni enable them to livu happily at home. • A. C. ALLEN 18 South Place News

Thursday Evening Socials On October 9, a very successful opening to the new season of Thursday Evening Socials was initiated by Miss D. Walters when she read two short plays. A Creel of Trout by Neil Grant was a playlet with an atmosphere of somewhat eerie Scottish mistiness that ended with an unexpectedly humorous twist. Olivia and the Duke, an amusing theatrical sketch portrayed an actress of experience and ability bemoaning the lack of public support to a fellow actor, and announcing that she would definitely retire from the stage. With a lack of feminine modesty, she proposes marriage to the embarrassed actor who is overcome by the honour accorded him. A telephone call comes through before such a joyous outcome, or, if you will, tragedy, can occur. Their joint manager gives news of exceptional bookings and the actress hastily makes plans to continue to woo her public.

W. C. Keay The obituary notice of W. C. Keay printed in the September issue of The Monthly Record was, of necessity, a brief account of one of our best- loved members. We now pay a fuller tribute to the man whose death leaves such a regrettable gap in our Society. It would be wrong to say "we ne'er shall see his like again", for our hopes are that many such another will join us to supply the same friendliness and good humour that was Mr. Keay. With many a laugh would he cheer our social gatherings: the traditional jokes against Scotsmen would always evoke his mirth. Should anyone need encouragement, Mr. Keay would be at hand: he was never-failing in his praise for the good work done by members. To say that he will be missed is a distinct understatement.

Activities of Kindred Societies

Orpington Humanist Croup November 9, at 7 p.m. at Sherry's Restaurant, High Street, Orpington. Dr. Lloyd Franklin: "The National Peace Council."

Sutton Humanist Group Sunday, November 16, at 7.30 p.m. Red Cross House, Park Hill, Carshal- ton Beeches. Brains Trust, Joseph Reeves. M.P., and other speakers covering Art, Sciences, Education, Humanism.

Secular Religious Education Until recently the Ethical Movement was largely identified with a belief in secular education and had fostered the Secular Education League to advocate this end. However, recently the League has ceased to function. and the Ethical Union has seemed to be more interested in co-operating with Christians for greater honesty in facing the religious problem in the schools. Is then the case for Secular Education no longer valid? Also, if changed conditions call for a modification of the traditional policy of the movement, what kind of adjustment is needed, and what should be the policy of Humanists on the question of ethical and religious education? This question will be discussed by R. Benjamin. J. B. Coates and F. H. Amphlett Mickle- wright at a meeting at Conway Hall on Friday, November 7 at 7.30 p.m. 19 Society's Other Activities Conway Discussions. (Tuesdays at 7.15 p.m.) Nov. 4—"Humanism in Everyday Life." • Mrs. Fanny Lines, B.Sc. (Member. Sutton Humanist Group.) Humanism—high-brow's interest or housewife's choice? Why • not both? Nov. I I—Armistice Day. "Remembrance—Is It Enough?" "Women, the World and Wat." Mrs. Kathleen Tacchi-Morris (President, Business and Profes- sional Women's Club, Taunton). Chairman: J. Hutton Hynd. Meeting in Large Hall. Nov. 18—"British Inland Waterways—Their Value to. the People." Robert Aickman (Founder and Vice-President, Inland Water- ways Association). • Film-strip illustrations. Meeting in Large Hall. Nov. 25—The 'Dialectical Materialism of Karl Marx."

For It — John Lewis, Ph.D. Against It — M. H. Carlton. Meeting in Small Hall. Dec 2—"The Ethics of Food." Ronald Lightowler (Secretary, The Vegetarian Society) Sunday Social On November 16, in the Library at 3 p.m.: Miss Gladys Farnell: Lenin- grad and Moscow in colour slides. Summer visit, 1958. Thursday Evening Socials in the Library at 7 p.m. November 6—No meeting. 13—D. A. Sandapan: "The Nautch Girls of Mdia". 20—Whist Drive. 27—Victor C. Thurdin: Film Show. The Library, Conway Hall The Librarian will be in attendance on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings. Rambles Saturday, November 29, at 6 p.m. A visit to the Sunday Express, Fleet Street, E.C.4. Meet at 5.45 p.m. outside the Sunday Express, offices. Dances Held in Conway Hall on Saturdays, December 27, January 31 and February 28 from 7.30 to 11 p.m. Members, friends of the Society and kindred bodies are cordially invited. Please book these three dates. Obituary We greatly regret to announce the death of William Peat. He had served on the General Committee and it was a great loss to them when he had to return to Edinburgh. He was:occasionally of assistance at social functions, as, for example, when he shoWed a series of colour slides. Mr. Peat has bequeathed 1200 to the Society to be applied for general purposes. .• •• .

Services available to members and associates include: The .Naming Ceremony of Welcome to young children; the Solemnisation of Marriage; Marriage and Funeral Services: For full particulars of membership, meetings etc. apply to the Secretary. Conway Hall, W.C.1.

Farleigh Press Ltd. (T.U. all depts.), Beachwood Rise, Watford, Her:,