5 MARCH 1943, Page 14

LORD BEAVERBROOK AND STRATEGY

SIR,—" Janus " is pleased to characterise Lord Beaverbrook's recent stir- ring appeal to the Government to stop its interminable talking and get on with the war as " one of the most mischievous and irresponsible speeches delivered since the war began." There will be many who will profoundly disagree with him.

Do not the plain and even blunt hints of M. Stalin and the Soviet Ambassador (always our good and trusted friend) count for anything with your contributor? Is this appalling war to go on for ever? Are the occupied countries to rot and starve in their furthcr millions whilst we wait, wait and then wait still longer? Is Russia to continue to hold the baby indefinitely? Suppose she gets tired—and who could blame her?— of this very one-sided arrangement? What then?

Viewed realistically, the Tunisian African campaign so far has been a fiasco ; Lord Beaverbrook was right in saying as much. If the same men and materials had been concentrated on the second European who knows what might have been achieved?

r6 Breakwater Road, Bude, Cornwall.

[" Janus" writes: I did not criticise Lord Beaverbrook for appealing to the Government to get on with the war, but for trying to prescribe-to the General Staff when, where and how to get on with it.]