13 MAY 1949, Page 5

Nationalisation projects are raising delicate questions of protocol. The Prudential

Assurance Company has been arranging a celebra- tion to which it attached considerable importance, and to which it invited various Cabinet Ministers, from the Prime Minister down- wards. None of them found it possible to accept. A distinguished Judge was also among the guests desired. He, with legal acumen, realised the delicacy of the situation, and with judicial discretion decided he had better not be there. Not perhaps precisely limitation on freedom of speech, but certainly limitation on freedom of con- viviality. Even that shrinkage is to be regretted.