KEEPING UP WITH THE RICES
SIR,—May I suggest that the letter from your corre- spondent Mr. Shipman in your issue of November 15 is typical of the confused and highly coloured think- ing of these young men who so eagerly embrace the label that the popular press has given them. Mr. Shipman no doubt has his own preferences in critics, dramatic and otherwise, but surely it is unreasonable of him to cite these as justification for the soundness of their arguments on other matters.
The letters that Mr. Shipman mentions perhaps provoke the anger of some of ust as may those quoted by Mr. Fairlie, but in this context is anger enough? He complains that youth renders the anger of his generation impotent, but is not this impotence self- imagined, even self-induced? One thing that the war- time children of this country must at least have learnt about freedom is that it cannot be safeguarded merely by verbal protests, however articulate they may be. The Establishment, as Mr. Fairlie first named it, is not after all inviolable; it exists because the Govern- ment of this country permits and encourages. this form of status quo. It is the character and prestige of the politician that tolerates the casuistry and equi- vocation that makes Mr. Shipman angry. However, his angry young friends seem curiously reluctant to take advantage of a remedy that is at this moment envied by millions in Poland and Portugal : I refer to action through those dreary and despised old relics the political parties. It is they who allow Mr. Macmillan to enjoy his premiership and in turn appoint such smooth and rounded pegs as Lord Hailes and Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick to their respective holes. Admittedly this action may at first lack the glamour of self-advertisement, but there is no reason to sup- pose it ineffective. Jim Dixon may be the new hero,
but perhaps there is a certain significance in the fact that his creator wasn't declaring with the rest of them. Could it be that the younger generation will gain more of what they seem to want by reading not Tynan but Taper?—Yours faithfully,
Previous page
