THE GREEK DICTATORSHIP
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
SIR,—The remarkable deficiency of information in this country about Greek political affairs possibly explains the absence of any further correspondence in your columns following on Mr. Dateson's comments (in your issue of August 26th) on your Special Correspondent's article on August 5th on the Greek Dictatorship. Though I can make no profession to be more than a tourist, I came into touch during two brief visits to Athens in February and March with a source of information which I believe to be a very reliable one. On my earlier visit I was told that leading statesmen of parties having little in common except their opposition to the Dictator were almost at that moment being seized and sent to prison—some to comparatively remote islands—that the Press censorship was stricter than that of Italy, and that Athens was full of spies.
On my second visit, which coincided with the annual commemoration of the Independence of Greece, there was a most interesting display of the new youth organisations, but I was told that these organisations are run on Fascist lines and that such undesirable activities as spying in the schools is encouraged. I certainly did not get the impression that as much as 98 per cent. of the people were hostile to the Dictator ; but on the other hand my information was emphatically not that the vast majority of the people were solidly behind the Government. What I was told was that the populace still favoured Great Britain and France as the champions of freedom, but that the middle classes were being influenced by a large influx of German governesses. As the repressive methods typical of a dictatorship prevailed, a free
expression of opinion was (and doubtlesS is) ..impossible, so that the Administration would be enabled in the characteristic Fascist fashion to put its own complexion on its objects and methods and to represent itself as the champion of reform: All that I heard during my two visits to Athens Makes Me distrust these professions.—Yours Fossedene, Mount Pleasant, Cambridge. H. HAROLD PORTER.
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