23 NOVEMBER 1956, Page 20

SIR,—As one who has read with mounting enthusiasm Mr. Toynbee's

appeal, at some time when the weather is warmer, for • a youth- march on Hungary, may I make a plea (since • I infer that he will be piping us himself) for the inclusion of a 'symbolic' contingent of the middle-aged. We who carry on our shoulders the guilt of Ruhr and Rhineland. Addis Ababa and Barcelona, Munich and Yalta, are so bowed down as to find the erect position, even as far as Dover, totally unten- able. Sir, let us crawl: let the procession be led by a posse of middle-aged pilgrims on our hands and knees bearing sashes with 'Suez: Kick him,' 'Hungary: Hit him' according to which crime inspires our Mea Culpa—and it we tend to slow up the great crocodile of eager youth, then, Sir, let us have the gumption to fall out and assuage our conscience 'at some deeper level.' If crawl we cannot, then let us pub-crawl, and Mr. Toynbee must par- don the expression.

Meanwhile the procession will march on, not content, I hope, to rest at Buda, until the tramp of the guilty from all races encircles the great globe itself.—Yours faithfully,