THE IDEA THAT all would have been well if the
Anglo-French forces had reached the end of the Canal is escapist nonsense, but it is less incredible than another idea of Mr. Head's. 'Sir Anthony Eden,' he told the Commons, 'was a than who saw that the gradual infiltration and erasion into back- ward countries by Communism and elsewhere was a menace. He saw that if . . . this country did not make a stand we should go down the slippery slope of infiltration.' To be told by an ex-Minister of the Crown that the way to deal with Communism in 'backward countries' is for Britain and France to carry out an armed attack upon one of them induces the same sort of in- • credulous embarrassment as would an assertion • by, a gynaecologist that babies are brought by storks. The reason, of course, why the Govern- ment refuses an inquiry into Suez is because the case for one is overwhelming. Two years ago many disreputable things were done and many untruthful things were said. An inquiry, unless it was very carefully rigged, would reveal them, and several ministerial careers would be ruined. So we don't have an inquiry.
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