21 AUGUST 1964, Page 17

• our view the.' most workable solution is partition' (last

week's, editorial). -Before your other readers make up their minds,. I. hope you will let thern:consider the disadvantage of partition:

. , 1. There are, I understand, no national dividing lines, like large rivers,, convenient mountain ranges, ? to font, the new frontier.

• 2. Despite 'the geographical separation' that • according to you, sir,- 'has now, largely come about,' there.will, still have to be a .painful exchange of large

• .nuthbers..of families,: both ways, across the new border, in order to establish the separate develop- ment of the two peoples.

3. There is the probability of continual border incidents, and of continued bad feeling between the two countries (which are NATO partners) as a re- sult of this; and since the Turkish enclave would be fairly small (roughly commensurate with their 18 per cent of the total population of Cyprus), there is the possibility of its annexation by the stronger forces of the Greek Cypriot or (in the case of enosis) Greek Government.

Against all this, Turkish withdrawal from Cyprus, and a decent quid pro quo—cession of a part of Thrace, or the island of Rhodes—while not a perfect solution, is surely a far better one than that pro- posed in your columns last week.