Pastoral
The Observer is not a newspaper which confines its attention to atrocities in distant places like Matabeleland. Last Sun- day it reported that Huntingdonshire has lost 88 per cent of its hedges since the war, and that only five acres of the once exten- sive Lancashire bogs remain. These reports
certainly do not strain the credulity of ur- ban readers: we have entered spring, nowadays a season of bank holidays, when many town dwellers take the chance to visit the country, a place where jaded townees are supposed to recreate themselves among the beauties of nature. The least observant of them must see that those beauties are fast diminishing: the rate of destruction recalls the demolition of country houses in earlier decades of the century. In both instances the reason is supposed to be economic great houses and traditional farming are uneconomic — and the answer, if there is one, is supposed to be bureaucratic control. So it may be. But bureaucrats, as the agents of governments, helped to create much of the problem in the first place, first subsidis- ing farmers to tear up and rearrange their farms, and then devising ludicrous edifices like the Wildlife and Countryside Act, under which farmers may be paid large amounts for doing nothing whatever to a piece of ground. Perhaps the first step towards wisdom would be to let these two minuses cancel each other out, and abolish both.
The most revolting minor figure in the events connected with the shooting in St James's Square is Mr Louis Eaks. Mr Eaks is the managing director of a public relations organisation called 'The Main Event' which supports Col Gaddafi. He has appeared on the television and wireless to explain and justify the shooting. But Mr Eaks's role of honour is long. In 1970, when chairman of the Young Liberals, he helped to lead the successful campaign to stop the South African cricket tour, and tried to make acts of vandalism on cricket pitches official Liberal policy. In the same year, and in 1971, he was convicted of acts of gross indecency in London parks. Always a propagandist for Palestinian ter- rorism, Mr Eaks at one time edited a magazine called the Free Palestinian and changed his name to Aziz Yafi 'for security reasons'. He popped up in 1972 to justify the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, saying that 'Munich had to happen'.
Tin one respect, and one only, Col I-Gaddafi is a benefactor of mankind. He is said to be one of the most faithful buyers of British books, with a huge, regular and regularly paid order at Foyles. Apparently he also informs Foyles of his personal taste in reading, and has revealed that his favourite writer is the Spectator's distinguished columnist, Auberon Waugh. If he wished to perform a further service to letters, Gaddafi ought to make some recompense to the London Library, which has suffered greatly in the past few days for sharing St James's Square with his People's Bureau. But it would probably not be a good idea for Gaddafi to help the Library's funds by enrolling large numbers of his 'students' as members.
Previous page
