13 DECEMBER 1957, Page 7

ON SATURDAY MORNING, -for example, the local press reported that

the UN debate on Cyprus might begin that day. At once the bells were rung, and the schoolchildren flocked to their churches. They were met by Turkish auxiliaries; and as the Governor was not there, the auxiliaries felt free to vent their feelings with a barbarity which, to judge by reports I have seen, was. disgraceful. Naturally, this roused great ill-feeling--a reaction which was mistakenly interpreted as being a symptom of revived EOKA terrorism. It was not : EOKA, for obvious reasons, had no desire to break the three-week truce which had been arranged unofficially to give time for Sir Hugh to show whether he was in fact coming with a prospect of peace, or with a sword. But when demonstrations of this nature are broken up by troops—by Turkish auxiliaries, at that—the odds against Sir Hugh's winning the trust of the Greek Cypriots have enormously lengthened.