Growth for what ?
Sir: Mr Leonard Cottrell (Letters, 4 August) is entitled to his fun, and I take no exception to his misinterpreting me while he is having it; for his letter is very entertaining, and it would not be very sporting of me if I failed to exhibit the same pleasure from it as your other readers. I am therefore glad to say that I am highly amused by Mr Cottrell's caricature of my views. Never- theless, he puts so many words into my mouth which I did not say, and attributes to me so many opinions which I do not hold, that there is not the faintest resemblance between the carica- ture and its subject I do not wish anyone to 'forget Stansted or to 'forget the eighty-foot pylons across the Cots- wolds' or 'the rape of the Lake District by the Manchester City Corporation and others.' I have not suggested that we 'don't need the National Trust, or the Ministry of Works, or the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.' (Actually, we don't need them, strictly speaking, in the sense of being unable to live without them, but t am very glad we have them and would welcome many more of such bodies.) The 'golden generation of the future' who will abandon literacy are a figment of his imagination, not mine.
He quotes my statement that science and mathe- matics have as good a claim to be branches of culture as all the plays of Shakespeare. The.mean- ing be assigns to it is that 'such scientists as Newton, Boyle and Locke were indifferent to their environment.' It does not mean that, Mr Cottrell. Please read it again.
Mr Cottrell asks for my interpretation of the phrase 'living tradition.' I am not aware that my interpretation differs from that of anyone else who might use it Examples are a language, accepted principles of morality, a government of free people la government of a people who are not free seldom. has any tradition), a legal system, and scientific and artistic traditions. What did he think I meant? He says that the gist of my letter could be expressed in a couple of sentences. While he prepares this short precis, limitation of space would compel him to ignore my general support of Dr Mishan and my statement that Mr Maude's complaints about the use and abuse of land are legitimate and proper.
Mr Cottrell writes very well, much better, it seems, than he reads.
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