The Establishment Game Lord Boothby Film Finance Roy and John
Bathing, Harold Lever The King and Who? Prince Chula of Thailand.
David Barnett
The Casement Diaries Frank O'Connor
Shavian Cribs Allan M. Laing Longwinded Addresses H. S. Janes
Taxis Kenneth Ames
THE ESTABLISHMENT GAME
SIR,--1 cannot think why Pharos is puzzled by my assertion, on television, that Lord Beaverbrook is the only man in this country who has ever success- fully challenged the Establishment. On any objec- tive reading of the facts it is clear that he, more than any other man, was responsible for the fall of Asquith's Government in 1916; and the fact that the new Establishment took swift revenge upon the instrument by means of which they had obtained Power is beside the point.
I might well have added that Lord Beaverbrook
also brought about the fall of the Lloyd George Establishment in 1922 (by then 'even more powerful than Asquith's) by persuading Bonar Law to return to public life and accept the premiership.
In some respects the steps he took to secure the
dismissal of the Governor of the Bank of England --always a pillar of the Establishment—in 1917 were of greater significance. This was the first decisive blow against the supremacy of the City of London In our public affairs; and with it the political inde- pendence of the mercantile society. Admittedly he failed, over a long period, to get,,. rid of Mr. Montagu Norman's financial empire, and e deflationary policies which were a primary cause clf the Second World War. But he undermined it. And the clear recognition by the Radcliffe Com- mittee of the transfer of effective economic power frog the Bank of England to the Treasury is largely Line to his efforts.
There is much to. be said against Lord Beaver-
brook But his worst enemy cannot accuse him of truckling to the Establishment, still less of being ajnember of it. In these days, when the influence of the Establishment is still pervasive, and we are doubtless in for another round of the ceaseless fight against it, we should do well to remember that he has proved, in the past, that it can be made to Zittireat when needs must. Events have done that. no other single man that I know of.—Yours faithfully, 17014e of Lords„SWI
BOOTHBY
bj„Thhis letter is referred to in 'A Spectator's Note 246.—Editor, Spectator.]
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