BUT EVEN ALLOWING for its treatment of the sale of
work and for its invention of a royal barbecue, I do not think the press's silly season has been any sillier than Mr. Aneurin Bevan's. A fortnight ago Mr. Bevan was much exercised that instead of merely thanking China for releasing some of her American prisoners, the Americans had had the effrontery to complain that one of them had been tortured. 'Atrocity propa- ganda is always suspect,' he said. The other airmen slid not say that they had been tortured, but issued a statement saying that their minds were 'full of the things you do not want to talk about,' an attitude which Mr. Bevan stigmatised as 'damag- ingly tendentious' ! Last week he really got into his stride. The fact that it is Russia, not the West, which is helping to indus- trialise China is 'in itself a condemnation of the Christian Nations.' The oppressive methods of the Chinese Communists . . . are only the modern Communist equivalents to what we ourselves did in much the same circumstances'—and he went on to suggest that we should help the Russians to industrialise China by outright grants in aid. For some reason, probably lack of space, he did not suggest that we should give the Chinese atomic bombs as well. Perhaps he will do that this week.
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