“BLUNT PETER.”

Evening Star, Issue 25701, 26 January 1946, Page 9

“BLUNT PETER.”

TO THE GDITOU. , Sir.—The rather ponderous sarcasm devoted to Mr Fraser’s speech on mandates by “ Barrage,” falls rather flat in face of the evident success of the Prime Minister’s speech, in its primary object. It has, as M'r Fraser no doubt hoped, elicited prompt and unequivocal declarations : from both South Africa and France. But L agree wholeheartedly with, " Barrage ” that no less than in the international field, plain speaking is desirable on the political affairs of this country. I oannot, however, congratulate him on the peculiarly disingenuous bluntness he himself dispjays, though the specimen of domestic problem he has adduced—the Huntly strike of 1942—is an admirable subject for the exercise of plain speaking. He missed an excellent opportunity of recalling the cynical political opportunism oi' the Nationalist members of the War Cabinet, who, at the bidding of their leader, obediently abandoned 1 their Cabinet posts. He could have shown that even political jugglery in the ’thirties of Baldwin. in England, pales before the adriotness of this transparent party manoeuvre ■in the middle of a great war. “ Barrage ” could have exercised his predilection for blunt speaking in this way at some length. But instead, he gives us the unconvincing and familiar old fairy-tale stuff about wicked miners and immaculate mineowners—“ the unoffending owners,” is his naive phrase. It is the same stale line that Nationalists and their backers have been trying to sell us for years. “ Barrage ” should exercise his talent for blunt words on the spate of Nationalist and quasi-Nationalist propaganda with which this country is surfeited, a source of Bubject-matter that would merit the bluntest words in his vocabulary.—l am, etc., January 24. Telemachus.