Sra,—It seems to me that allegations of im- pertinent persecution
of Mrs. Melinda Maclean are now rather beside the point. It is surely clear that Mrs. Maclean was not incapable of deceit and if she had a grievance against cer- tain newspapers, some of these newspapers had possibly a greater grievance against her in that she accused them of unscrupulous lying and forgery of interviews when it now appears that the false witness was hers more than theirs. Nevertheless, Mrs. Maclean was believed, to the serious distress and damage of some ordi- nary working journalists.
Why was she believed? That, I think, is the truly interesting element in this tangled con- troversy. That is why, as an alien from Scot- land, I am deeply interested in Lady Violet Bonham Carter's plainly sincere indignation. She believes that the 'Establishment' is a mali- cious invention, like the 'Cliveden Set.' She believes it does not exist. The reason is simple. She does not believe in its existence because she is in the heart of it. The 'Establishment' is the air she breathes.
I hope I do not do Lady Bonham Carter an injustice when I say that I think I remember a wireless talk given by her on the curious blind spots shown in literary judgement by men she plainly thought were magisterial authorities. Not one of the people whose errors of taste she quoted had any claim whatever to literary understanding or sensibility. But they were all eminent, or at least prominent, in other ways. Therefore their literary judgements must be received with respectful attention. They belonged to the 'Establishment.'
The instance is trivial in itself, but I think it is indicative of a self-assurance too solid and too unconscious to be called merely smug. A small group which quite readily admits valu- able outsiders and maintains a fringe of hangers-on is all that really matters. They are England versus the Rest.
Ove of the hangers-on told me that there ought to be a Press Council to punish or cor- rect those who printed interviews which Mrs. Maclean had never given. When I asked him why he was sure she had never given the inter- views he answered simply : 'She said so.' Roma locuta est. (Moscow is the Third Rome.)
One celebrated diplomat behaved sexually in such a dangerous manner that he was patently a security risk of the first order. When a politician tried to question his behaviour with some decent discretion he was not only turned down by the official spokesman but was given to understand by his friends that his behaviour was most undesirable.
From my own very limited experience I could give many more examples, but perhaps the most striking in the present century con- cerns the Marconi case. When this scandal came to light the Tory Party were threatening to bring down the Liberal Government by any means that came to hand. The besmirching of two leading Liberals, Lloyd George and Rufus Isaacs, seemed to offer them a God-given opportunity. But the tw6 leading Tory law- yers, Carson and F. 13. Smith, accepted briefs for the accused Liberals and so disqualified themselves from taking any part in the Parlia- mentary debate. That was curious enough. But four months after the Select Committee re- ported, the Prime Minister of the day made Rufus Isaacs Lord Chief Justice of England. That is how the 'Establishment' works when it is really feeling its oats. The Prime Minister was Lady Violet's father.—Yours faithfully, [A leading article on page 478 deals with `Mrs. Maclean and the Press.']
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