"THE PRESS" AND THE PRIME MINISTER

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22195, 11 September 1937, Page 20

"THE PRESS" AND THE PRIME MINISTER

TO TBS KDITO& O* THS P&XSS.

Sir, —My authority for saying that Mr Comerford apparently resented the fact that you had dared to criticise the Prime Minister at all is his own first letter, which I am sure would be interpreted by all sensible people as I have interpreted it. I do not think Mr Comerford should for his own sake speak of the "manner" of your criticism, for his criticism of you was interlarded with such vituperative phrases as placed bis little essay with-

; I am charged with "dogmatic and abusive verbosity." As to the dogmatism, it is Mr Comerford's description of opinions honestly held by me—and neither his description nor my "dogmatism" is of any importance. I am content to let your readers judge. He regrets that I did not sign my name. Why? To give .Labour a chance of victimisation? A letter published over Mr Comerford's initials or mine is as valuable or otherwise as if it were signed with our full names. As to my verbosity, does not the taunt come badly from Mr Comerford, whose first letter ran to 80 lines. My criticism took 49 lines. I may remind my critic of the old injunction, "Physician, cure thyself." And as to my "abusive verbosity" and the terminological sins with which Mr Comerford charges us both, does not such an indictment come strangely from one who in his first letter accused you of "serious vilification," of your "fiendish pleasure" in taking passages of Mr Savage's speech from their context and misrepresenting them, your "deplorable and ill-mannered diatribe," your "blatant inconsistency." Using Mr Comerford's own style the suitable answer to such angry outbursts is, "Tut, tut." —Yours, etc., S.M. September 10, 1937.