IT IS NOT only clubs which have been affected by
Suez. The odd condition to which some MPs have been reduced was well illustrated by a letter to The Thneslast Saturday. 'It probably sounds bloodthirsty . . .,' wrote Mr. R. Graham Page, MP, 'but .1 was relieved to know that, in the circumstances, the Egyptian casualties were greater than at first reported and that General Stockwell had let his troops defend themselves.' It is rare enough for people to rejoice at enemy casualties even when they are military ones and even when they occur in the midst of a long, fierce and bloody war. For a man to be relieved that casualties were `greater' than first thought when they were inflicted during a few days' fight- ing in what officially was not a war at all and when they were overwhelmingly civilian, must, fortu- nately, be almost unique—though the Germans, it is true, were pretty excited by their Coventry air raid and coined a new word to describe and cele- brate it. Mr. Page must have found Sir Winston Churchill's recent very rough treatment of Crom- well for the Drogheda massacre a shocking dis- play of decadence. Lest, however, it should be thought that he is not a humane man, I should add that .he takes a keen interest in safety pre- cautions for pedestrians. '
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