THE LOST LEADER
Sta,—May I refer to the unsigned article in your issue of April 6 called 'The Lost Leader'? I am, of course, familiar with the convention that leading political articles are frequently un- signed, and it is for this reason that I have never written one. If you are going to make an acrimonious personal attack upon a public man who has to accept responsibility at moments of crisis, it has always appeared to IIIC to he cowardly not to sign your article.
I have never seen a Test Match in Australia, but I have been told of the strident non-players in the crowd pelting the deep field with empty beer bottles. The anonymous political column- ist bears a strange resemblance to these bar- rackets. In Kipling's lapidary phrase, after- wards used with deadly effect by his cousin Stanley Baldwin, he is after 'power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.'
Sir Anthony Eden has recently been under heavy, and often ambushed, fire, and I believe that it is now high time that some voice, how- ever humble, should be raised except in revile- ment.
The Prime Minister inherited a difficult legacy which was not of his own making. Let us then give this able and experienced man a fair chance to pass through these troubles and not encumber him further by unsigned dia- tribes.—Yours faithfully,
BIRKENHEAD
10 Wilton Street. SW I [Lord Birkenhead ought to know that in this country leading articles are never signed. They express the policy of the newspaper concerned. —Editor, Spectator.]
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