WRITERS IGNORED IN HONOURS LIST

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 148, 18 March 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

WRITERS IGNORED IN HONOURS LIST

Sir Thomas Beecham has been declaring that, alone of all the States of the civilized world, the Governments of Great Britain have not shown the least interest in the arts. He was referring specially to music, but literature might equally complain of being left out in the cold, writes Herbert W. Horwill in his London letter to the “New York Times.” The list of New Year honours provides a striking illustration. Hundreds of decorations, of varying degrees of distinction, were awarded to persons whose services to the community are thought to deserve recognition. In all the long catalogue you may seek in vain for a single name conspicuous in the literary world with the sole exception of Sir James Jeans, who was admitted to the Order of Merit. And his eminence, of course, is primarily as a scientist rather than as a man of letters. Perhaps, to be quite fair, one should mention also that a C.B.E. was awarded to a successful teacher of penmanship, “for services to Calligraphy.” It may be that the Government’s omission to confer a distinction upon any English author was not due to a belief that the literature of a country is of no value as a national asset but to a difficulty in finding writers whom it would wish to honour by its official cachet. For the administration now in power and the members of the writing profession are, by and large, hostile to one another. During the last few months many well-known British authors have expressed, in one way or another, their intense disapproval of the policies of His Majesty’s Ministers. Indeed, I cannot recall a time when it would have been so easy to obtain the signatures of a large number of distinguished men and women of letters to a manifesto denouncing the Government of the day. This attitude is largely due to indignation at the support given by the Government to the totalitarian regimes.