BOMBS ON SHIPS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] Sta,—In your note on the subject of " Bombs on, Ships " in last week's issue, you would seem to imply that it is the function of the Government's critics to put forward proposals for the. Government to deal with as it may think fit. But I have always understood that the chief function of any opposition was that of criticism and that the responsibility for initiative rested rather on the shoulders of the Government in power. More- over, in the discussion in the House of Commons " the paucity of practical proposals " of the Government itself was no less evident than that of its critics.
Again, your objection to the suggestions of the Opposition appear to be based on the assumption that the Opposition themselves share the blind faith of the Government in the myth of non-intervention. But there are those, I venture to suggest, both in Parliament and in the country, who feel that, however desirable and deserving of a trial the policy of non- intervention may have been in the beginning, yet in view of its abject failure to prevent wholesale intervention on the side of the rebels this country should be prepared to . accord to the Spanish Government at any rate its just legal rights. And to such persons, I submit, the proposals of the Government's critics are at least as worthy of consideration as those of the
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