I.U. AND SULGRAVE
SIR,—In reply to the Editorial Note at the foot of my letter in your last issue: I was the person who handed the cup to the late Dr. Sibley and who made the presentation speech which you cite. The idea origi- nated with certain of Dr. Sibley's old friends who pressed for a presenta- tion " from the chair." I carried out their wishes. They assured me that his services had been both long and devoted and that he had done good work in the early and middle periods of the I.U., before he developed a curious and not very acceptable ecclesiastical complex, upon which matter I would prefer to offer no comment. Although I did not see eye to eye with the originators of the idea, I am feeling no regret for having expressed their sentiments and presented their cup to a dying man of 8o years of age, to whom some of them felt they owed a great deal. Evidently you do not like one of the statements of fact in my last letter, namely: the statement made by the solicitors to the University of Sulgrave: "The University of Sulgrave is not whether directly or indirectly a continuation of the Intercollegiate University or any other body "—but this is an inescapable fact, as intrinsic in law as it is in actuality, despite your distortions and special pleading. You speak of " Dr. Crossley-Holland's anxiety to dissociate his new ventures with his old." I have no anxiety whatever—they have never been associated. What made you think of anxiety on my part? Con- sistent reiteration of a fact? Is it not yourself and your contributors who should feel a little anxiety that in your attempts, as unsuccessful as determined, to frustrate a purely altruistic and very practical endeavour (already in accelerating action) to further Anglo-American understanding, you may have erred a little? This is certainly the consensus of opinion contained in the many communications reaching me daily. My associates and myself are far too busily engaged to pay further attention to critics whose intentions are so very obvious, but I invite 'them not to overlook the outstanding fact set out in the second paragraph.—Yours faithfully, [On one point we must protest. Despite quotation-marks " dissociate with " is Sulgrave, not Spectator, English.—ED., The Spectator.]
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