11 MARCH 1955, Page 9

A WRITER in the New Statesman recently argued that since

the private affairs of the Royal Family are paid for by the public, they are fair game for public curiosity. This seems to me an odd doctrine. To take some obvious examples, the Speaker, Lord Goddard and Sir Edward Bridges are all paid for by the public. And it was announced the other day that 6,170,000 people— more than a quarter of the working population—were paid for by the State or public money of some kind. I cannot see any particular reason why the private affairs of any of these people should be any fairer game for the public curiosity than the private affairs of anybody else. At all events, the behaviour of the Mirror Group to Princess Margaret during the past few days has been more than usually nauseous.