1 JUNE 1944, Page 12

Sm,—Mr. Quintin Hogg's review of Your M.P. in a recent

issue was, of course, devastating, but The Spectator is not widely read by the sort of ill-informed people who are deceived by the silly sophistries of Guilty Men and Your M.P. Perhaps Mr. Hogg can answer a question which many people are asking. Why are Conservatives so inert? Why is Conservative propaganda so ineffective? Why does the Right allow the Left to steal all the thunder? Why does not the Right produce a car- toonist to satirise all those who by deriding the traditional loyalties of the Englishman gave Hitler his splendid chance? Why should not the un- military vices of those who oppose rearmament be satirised no less than the military virtues of poor Colonel Blimp? Why does no Conservative produce a version of Your M.P. containing full extracts of the speeches and writings of the pacifists who rendered appeasement inevitable?

Here are some extracts from the sayings of Blimp as recorded by David Low. "To ensure peace we must have plenty of airplanes " (November, 1933). "We must have conscription if Liberty is to survive" (1935). "By Gad, Sir, Winston is right; we must have more arma- ments" (19.34). It was because the Conservatives tried to appease a pacifist opposition that Chamberlain had to appease Hitler. It is because Conservatives are busily engaged in appeasing the Left that they allow the Left a monopoly of popular propaganda. Courage is the basic virtue, and there is a sad lack of courage in modern Conservatism.—Yours faith-