THE GOVERNMENT AND THE OPPOSITION
SIR,—There are four points in your July 28th issue which, brought together, seem to me of great importance in inter- preting the present mood of the country.
The first and most important is Mr. J. A. Spender's insis- tence that the present policy of the Left is not in the least " a return to collective security," as its apologists try to represent it, but an endorsement of the policy of rival military alliances. The second is Mr. Harold Nicolson's admission that probably 65 per cent. of the nation is behind Mr. Chamber- lain. The third is Sir Richard Acland's complaint that the Opposition candidate in the North Cornwall by-election was represented as a " war-monger ": and the fourth, your Parlia- mentary Correspondent's comment (a piece of just reporting I have seen nowhere else) that " the general opinion of the House, which at first was hostile to Mr. Hudson, later was in his favour" since "it is realised that the only alternative to war is some form of economic agreement."
These facts suggest that, in fact, the Government does stand, broadly, for peace and the Opposition for war, and that the country, in spite of a plethora of red herrings, is immovably aware of it.
Mr. Greenwood, for instance, who speaks officially for Labour, announced publicly on the day of the Hudson plan that he was profoundly disturbed by these efforts (which included the withdrawal of Germany from Czecho-Slovakia) to make friends with Germany. Official Labour I-as, in fact, taken over completely the Communist policy, which was admitted a fortnight ago by Otto Strasser to be an endeavour " to precipitate war as soon as possible" for the purpose of overthrowing Germany.
One would have thought that Mr. Spender's recent effort to dissociate his party from this iniquitous policy would have earned the gratitude of every true Liberal.
And, as a member of the Labour rank-and-file, I should like to emphasise the disastrous effect that this " war-monger- ing " of our leaders (I can find no other word for it) is having on us. The individual membership of the Labour Party fell last year by over 18,000 and is still dropping catastrophically. The Party itself is on the verge of disruption. For the ordinary Labour man and woman does want peace above all things and is faced with the dilemma that, however much he may hate the Premier's Toryism in home affairs, he distrusts his leader's war-mongering in foreign affairs even more. And it is this, not " apathy," which explains low polls and confused issues at
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