CRISE DE CONSCIENCE
SIR,—It was not my intention to make a direct parallel between British policy in India and French policy in North Africa. The parallel for India is Indo-China, where French policy, the combination of nominal and vague concessions with petty evasion, helped to bring about catastrophe. Bao Dai was not a very good horse, but the French stable managers did not back him very skilfully or generously. If the implication of Mr. Huizinga's letter is that the French behaved 'commie des messieurs' in Morocco and Tunis, either his memory or mine is bad.
That we have people in Parliament just as foolish and out of touch with the necessities of the time as any member of the French National Assembly is something I am afraid of. We shall have our own testing time in Kenya and in Central Africa. But, alas, all wrote weeks ago in my review of M. Servan-Schreiber's book has been proved inade- quately pessimistic. This has been the fate of every commentator on French imperial affairs since 1945. I can assure Mr. Huizinga this sad reflection dis- tresses me as much as it can him.—Yours faithfully,
D. W. BROGAN
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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