The Gallup enquiries are often very instructive in their results,
but they can on occasion be rather deplorably mis- conceived. Is there really any sense, for example, in asking the average man whether he is satisfied or dissatisfied with the help being sent to Russia, and, if the latter, what more he wants done? There is no sense in it, because the average man, firstly, does not know what help has been sent, and, secondly, does not know what help can be sent. He did not know, for example, when this poll was taken, that some hundreds of fighter aeroplanes had already arrived at a Russian port ; he does not know what else is on the way ; he does not know what the shipping-facilities are, what the very limited port-facilities are, what the demands of other theatres of war are. Many of these things most of us, by the nature of things, cannot kn for if we did the enemy would know too, and it is of the importance that he should not. A number of those q tioned advocated an attack on Germany in the West. t plainly is a matter on which the average man's opinion valueless, for everything depends on knowledge of the for at our disposal, of the state of all the Channel ports w the R.A.F. have been trying to smash up for the last mei months, and of the volume of force with which the enemy, wi out withdrawing men or machines from his eastern front, c oppose a landing. If it be asked whether it is democracy dispose of the average man thus summarily, it can only answered that in matters of pure strategy like this we ave men must trust the experts whose business such things n On large political issues, on the other hand, like a peace-of our voices must be heard, and must be decisive. As to Ru everyone here obviously wants all the help possible-sent, if in our own interests, to say nothing of Russia's. There little point in going beyond that.
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