15 JANUARY 1954, Page 6

they may possess of thinking things out for themselves. His

proposed remedy (which would fall rather hard on periodicals like the Spectator) is impracticable and was not meant seriously; but there may be something in his diagnosis. When on the wireless (or for that matter in the village hall) some contro- versy is broached with the formula " What does the team think ? " we generally hear more sides of the question examined than it would have occurred to us to examine for ourselves; and we seldom have any difficulty in deciding which of the views put forward we share, and which we disagree with. But we did not form or express those views ourselves; we did not catch the salmon, we merely opened the tin. I suspect —with apologies for handing out another dose of prefabricated cerebration—that the reason why countrymen are on the whole surer and more independent in their judgements than townsmen is because they do rather more of their thinking for themselves.