11 JUNE 1948, Page 5

Mr. Harold Laski is credited—or perhaps discredited--with writing in the

New York Post that "the British Government has done more damage to the honour and prestige of Britain in the past week than our enemies have been able to inflict on us since the evil days of Munich "—this because of a Palestine policy of which Mr. Laski disapproves. The question is what " our " means. Are these the words of a Jew or of an Englishman? If the latter, what is to be said of an Englishman who, not content with criticising the British Government at home, which, of course, he has a perfect right to do, chooses to attack it in an American paper at the moment when the whole future welfare, almost the future existence, of Great Britain depends on the maintenance of good relations with the United States ? It is clear how the problem of divided loyalties is solved in this case. Mr. Laski is a Jew first and an Englishman second. That, again, he has a perfect right to be. But if that is his choice his right place would seem to be Palestine, not England, with what protection the law of Israel may give him, instead of the protection English -law gives him. It may be no bad thing that public attention should be called to the problems this divided loyalty raises. They demand attention.