15 MARCH 1957, Page 18

Letters to the Editor

A Christian Gentleman Christopher Hollis Cyprus M. A. Pamir Out of the East and the Way Back George Edinger The Queen's Courts Peter Archer Christianity and Race P. C. Jackson Taper and the Welsh Raymond Gower, MP,

Alfred Arnold

American Literature H. O. White Doubling the Standard of Living Hugh Hodgkinson The Visitors • Doris Davy Sacred Cows Robert Conquest

A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN

Si.—Tho issue, in so far as there is an issue, both of Dr. Dalton and of Mr. Horrabin is rather with Mr. Cooke than with me. On page 356 Mr. Cooke writes: `It must be said that Mr. Dalton at the Treasury was following a policy that did not assist a campaign for self-restraint in consamption... By the spring of 1947 it was becoming very clear that the divergence of policy between the Treasury and the Board of Trade would not do,' and a great part of Mr. Cooke's chapter 'The Battle of the Dollar Gap' is devoted to the development of this argument. If Mr. Dalton says that he never received any per sonal criticism of his policies from Sir Stafford, naturally I accept that.

Mr. Horrabin introduces a romantic conception of 'Hidden [rich] Hands' which had played no part in my argument. My argument was the very simple one that Ernest Bevin and other trade union leaders, faced with the difficult task of defending the standards of trade unionists here and now, were opposed to Socialists, who did not live by trade union wages advocating a policy which made the defence of trade union standards more difficult. Whoever may have been right or wrong, I do not think that anyone will dispute that Bevin did take that line.—Yours