18 FEBRUARY 1944, Page 13

YOUTH AND THE FUTURE

SIR,—It is unfortunate that an article on youth's outlook should appear to have been reduced to a dispute upon the respective membership of Oxford's political societies. Therefore, I do not intend to offer further evidence to surpass Mr. Leslie's claims for the cadets' support, but rather seek to correct his erroneous impression of the outlook of young people today. My experience is that youth is not preoccupied with apportioning the blame for past failure to any particular political party, but is acutely anxious that we shall achieve a lasting peace and internal prosperity after the war. .

I cannot believe that the majority of young people consider the Con- servative Parry has "ruined their future" and is to be held responsible for the war. They may remember appeasement and Munich, but they also remember the Peace Pledge, the Oxford Union's refusal "to fight for King ,and Country" and the Socialist outcry against rearmament. They apportion the blame for our vacillating policy to. the nation as a whole, and, not to any single political party. The assurance that "the majority of politically active young people do support the -Labour Party" may be true of -many of those "politically active" youths who are for ever airing their views in public. But I think they are merely a vociferous minority, and cannot agree that it is true of the majority, of the young people whom I_ have met. The majority are inarticulate, but their ideas are determined.. they want freedom from bureaucracy, as well as the other great freedoms of the world, and they realise that all these freedoms will be transient, unless they are .supported by a strong and united Empire, at the basis of all security.

Theseare the traditional tenets of the Conservative Party and, I would still submit, are the wishes of the majority of young people today.—Yours