3 MAY 1946, Page 13

" . PROSPECTS IN GREECE " SIR,—Your editorial comment on Greece neatly

by-passes all the issues that matter. To say that " Greece is as much entitled to have a king, and a particular king, if it wants one as Britain is " is to beg the question. First, the British King did not violate all his constitutional pledges and set up a Fascist dictatorship in 1936. The Greek King did. And, as we are pledged to assist the Greeks and all liberated European peoples to " wipe out all vestiges of Nazism and Fascism," we are directly concerned in the question of the return of the Greek King. Secondly, does Greece want the king back ? It is clear from the election results that only a minority of the Greek electors do so. With a bit of cooking, however, the monarchists and Fascists who are now daily seizing more and more key positions throughout Greece might well be able to produce a favour- able result in a plebiscite.

The fact is that already, as a result of the policy initiated in December, 1944, notorious Fascists and collaborators with the enemy dominate the Greek State, and precisely for this reason a plebiscite that is a true test of the Greek people's views is already impossible. Our problem as British democrats is this: How we can act in this situation so as to fulfil our Yalta pledge to help the Greek people to " wipe out all vestiges of Nazism and Fascism "? It is striking how references to this pledge have been conspicuously absent from all British Government statements on Greece ever since December, 1944.—Yours, &c., PAT SLOAN. 24 Gloucester Drive, N.4.