21 AUGUST 1942, Page 14

PLANNING THE FUTURE

SIR,—Two Government spokesmen have recently reaffirmed the official view that thinking and planning for the future means distraction from present effort to win the war. A different view has been expressed by an authoritative American statesman, who has stressed the point that if public opinion is not directed into the right channels it will scour out for itself an independent and perhaps hazardous course of its own.

A " Wait till after the war and see" policy gives an opening to the nosttrums of political groups whose programmes, however impracticable, appeal to that section of the community which is groping after some- thing new but does not know quite what it wants.

No one expects definite decisions at this stage, but if the Government will take the nation rather more into its confidence about its plans for national reconstruction it will be in a better position both to gauge and to influence the trend of public opinion. Public opinion, if bottled up too long, may go sour or ferment to the point of explosion.—Yours Larchfield, Churl.