Pleasing everyone
Sir: In your Notes (Pleasing the Greeks', 31 March) you refer to the departmental view of the Foreign Office in 1941 that a decision should be made to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece after the war, but that this should not be based on any recognition of the principle that antiquities should be returned to their place of origin. That view should occasion no surprise nor involve any inconsistency. The case for the return of the Parthenon Marbles has always been a unique one, differentiated from all others by a) the status of the Parthenon as a national symbol, and b) the integral importance of the sculptures to the building from which they were torn.
You also suggest that people will be convinced on learning of the 1941 Foreign Office position that the Marbles 'quite
indisputably belong here'. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a growing body of informed opinion in favour of return. Opponents to the return know that they are fighting a rearguard action. I would infer that you are aware of this from you deliberate omission of the last seven words of Sir Philip Nichols's recommendation, albeit made forty years ago: ". .. such a gesture would be warmly welcomed by the Greeks and by public opinion throughout the world.'
Graham Binns
The British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, Walton House, Walton Street, London SW3
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