1 JANUARY 1972, Page 38

Final Irish solution

Sir: You wrote: "The State of Ireland is still the great anxiety of the Government, and is, we fear, an increasing rather than a diminishing anxiety. The area of disturbance spreads and the intensity of it grows. We believe that the Government have not yet decided on their immediate course, and we trust it may not be too late . . . to use the existing law — including of course, the use of the army whenever and wherever it is necessary — for the enforcement of authority and the suppression of violence."

You went on: " . . the most English of speeches was the Prime Minister's, grave, digni fled, and hopeful, and without a single flash of party feeling, but certainly not sanguine . . . he .. lamented that some legitimate and other more questionable political objects were now being pursued there 'by means that cannot for a moment pretend to be legitimate, and are incompatible with the first conditions of a well-constituted society'."

You wrote those words on your leader page for the week ending Saturday, November 13, 1880.

Jonathan Dimbleby 3, Thurleigh Avenue, Clapham, London SW12