13 JUNE 1958, Page 6

I HAVE BEEN looking at some statements by Hun- garian

official commentators which must surely take the prize for political hypocrisy in what has already been a bumper year. They .express them- selves as horrified at the intervention of the army in the recent French crisis. Whatever one may think of Generals Salan and Massu, the army in question is at least the French Army; the present rulers in Budapest owe their positions entirely to foreign troops, ruthlessly and bloodily employed. If it comes to that, M. Duclos has said that if France were in the same circumstances as Hun- gary he would welcome Soviet military inter- vention. And yet there are people here who have been arguing that a coalition in France depending on the Communists would be more respectable and closer to 'republican legality'!