SLR,—As a regular reader of The Spectator and a number
of other jour- nals of like quality, I was particularly impressed by Mr. D. Welstead Williams's cogent article in your issue of August 7th: What sort of a people? It seemed to harmonise so exactly with sentiments one hears often enough privately, but far too rarely in public. The channels of communication become increasingly the monopoly of a handful of people who claim to speak for millions with whom they have not the slightest acquaintance either in association or outlook. The " brains trusts " of ate B.B.C. and elsewhere symbolise a system. References to or reminiscences of " Nannies," 'Varsity days and foreign travel slip from the tongues and pens of these upper classes as if such things were a heritage common to us all. Either that, or they are introduced in a manner of studied superiority to impress the common man. Unfortu- nately, even the few common men who gain caste with these people— if gain it really is—do little to level out the system. Labour leaders who attain eminence, for example, are notorious for rising to conceit rather than to purpose. Their " success " leaves the millions not only as dumb as ever before but positively dumbfounded on occasions, for what these " leaders " come to tell us is more or less what the class they have joined have always told us. Their contributions degenerate into deductions from life so far as any mass-adjustment is concerned. The means of assimilation, like the means of communication, remain the right of a favoured few, whose claim springs almost exclusively from privilege acquired by birth, wealth or patronage. Without at least one of these things, the world is indeed a wilderness so far as
voicing an opinion is concerned.—Yours, &c., R. E. BEECH. 96 Granville Road, Hillingdon, Middlesex.
Previous page
