15 AUGUST 1970, Page 23

Gas attack

Sir: George Hutchinson misses the point in his 'Snectator's notebook' of I August when he asks, naively, 'Is it right to go on using cs gas in Northern Ireland?'

Soldiers—I used to be one—use cs gas only as a last resort, and after a wealth of warning, in preference to using firearms, upon rioters who will have shown a flagrant disregard for law, order, and other people's lives and property. If the gas was as effective as Mr Hutchinson implies, the rioters would not return for 'more' night after night after night.

In the circumstances, one wonders what Peter Paterson had to eat or drink in the four hours which elapsed before he was sick.