1 MAY 1959, Page 7

THE HOWL OF ANGUISH from the popular papers about Sir

David Eccles's remarks in Hanover shows as little sense of proportion as Sir David has of tact. It was foolish of him to hang out our dirty linen in public, abroad; but he made it clear

that he was speaking in jest. I suspect that he was also speaking in error,- if he imagined that the recent campaign against the British press was directed against the popular papers. My impres- sion is that Bonn was complaining not about the Beaverbrook press (which Dr. Adenauer is no more likely to take seriously than we are), but about the attitude of The Times, and to a lesser extent of the Manchester Guardian, neither of which is a paper that the punter looks to for information about the 2.30 (in the Guardian, in fact, he would look in vain for any mention of racing at all, except reports on the classics).