" WASTE PAPER"
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Stn,—Mr. F. W Bevan aptly illustrates the truth of my criticisms. He said he did not know that " the present Prime Minister had emoted against the proposal to remove Mr. Chamberlain in 1940."
Mr. Bevan has clearly been misled by the strange list of divisions at the end of Your M.P. where this vote is referred to as " Chamberlain or Churchill."
But Mr. Bevan is too modest. His state of ignorance is due to the fact that no such proposal was made and no such division took place. A debate was held and a division was taken on the Conduct of the Nor- wegian operations and Mr. Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty and one of the Ministers primarily responsible, answered on behalf of the Government. The account of the other divisions is equally mis- leading, but space forbids a closer analysis. No wonder Mr. Bevan was surprised. He should stick to Hansard. Although less accessible than Your M.P., he will find it a more reliable guide to the facts.
I do not propose to answer Mr. Foot in detail. He misses the point. No one desires to prevent discussion of Mr. Chamberlain's Foreign Policy or his own deliberate attitude on it. The charge against Your M.P. is that in place of such discussion the author has substituted a curious medley of factual inaccuracies, personalities, obiter dicta, and innuendoes.
Mr. Foot is wrong in saying that he has ever asked me to debate with him on this or any other issue. But he is right in assuming such a request would have been declined. Public debate involves the accept- ance by both parties of certain conventions, one of which is to concen- trate on the merits of a controversy and to eschew personalities and abuse.
There are, moreover, issues at present on which it is possible for all persons of goodwill to concentrate instead of trying to divert energy by bad tempered quarrelling with one another.
In view of Mr. Foot's personal charges against me of " hypocrisy," " prejudice " and " want of candour," I think I should observe that Your M.P. quotes me only once, and then with apparent appioval. The only prejudice of which I am conscious is a dislike for the methods of controversy employed in Your M.P., which I believe will be shared on reflexion by a majority of my fellow countrymen.—Yours, &c.,
QUINTIN HOGG.
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