22 APRIL 1955, Page 8

MR. T. S. ELIOT has been busy on the platform

lately. Last week he gave the London Authors' Club his views on criticism; this week he has given the London Conservative Union some hints on conservatism. Politicians. Mr. Eliot has concluded, must steer between the protean danger of excessive suppleness, of being so obliging and adaptable that they become indifferent to principle, and the Jacobin danger of excessive rigidity, of being so obstinately doctrinaire that they are ready to ruin all rather than modify theory in the face of fact. There are few people in England who will be disposed to quarrel with this thoroughly English view of the desirable middle way in politi- cal practice. The Conservative Central Office can safely assume that the Confidential Clerk will vote Tory.