Nobody's business
When he worked for the Liberals, Pratap Chitnis was an engaging fellow, helpful, not obviously a fool and not obviously a cam- paigning hothead either. Like others who had casually encountered him over the years, I found myself greatly surprised at the part he has played as secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust in giving £30,000 to the African guerrillas fighting the Portuguese forces in Mozambique. I cannot imagine him to be fool enough to believe what he is reported to have said, that the money will go to an outfit called the 'Mozambique Institute' which is apparently the welfare wing of Frelimo, the guerrilla movement itself. The money goes into a bank account in Tanzania, and what hap- pens to it thereafter is nobody's business.
Presumably it is not even the business of William Bowes Morrell, who is not only chairman of the Rowntree Trust, but is also managing director of Lord Cowdray's Westminster Press and of other Cowdray companies and chairman of the Press Association. Other Trust members like Jo Grimond and the sensible Richard Wainwright who used to be Liberal MP for Colne Valley presumably also think there is nothing amiss. Grimond indeed has said that he is 'satisfied' that the money would not be spent on arms. Is he, now? And how is he
thus satisfied? •
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