10 JANUARY 1958, Page 7

IN THE LAST WAR a Common barrack-room rumour among recruits

was that their NAAFI tea was doped to secure a placid switchover from civilian life. I am interested to see from the Ger- man Communist paper Leipziger Volkszeitung that this idea has been adapted by our capitalists. As an example of how capitalists will use 'any means to get the utmost out of their workers' the writer describes a Coventry factory-owner 'who gives strong black tea, to whip up the nerves of the workers with the highly concentrated theme.' Theine is new to me—and presumably to the readers of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, as the writer appended the sinister explanation that it is a 'vegetable alkaloid.' It turns out to be another name for caffeine.