Franco's Spain
SIR.—Mr. B. Peter Blake does not seem to have read my letter very carefully, or he would have noticed that I was comparing the price of food in Spain with the average wages, the only real criterion of com- parison. The fact that, to an American visitor, many articles in this country seem relatively inexpensive, as a result of devaluation, does not make those same articles any cheaper or any more attainable for the - average British family, as any housewife could tell him.
As regards travel, whether or not there is a black market for tickets for foreign tourists in the agencies I d° not know, but there certainly is for Spaniards, and travelling with them I experienced it myself, and related what I saw as many others have done—not all of us the "professional observers so-called" whom Mr. Blake dislikes. And, as it happens, we have our justification from a more renowned authority than Mr. Blake—Mr. Gerald Brenan, whose latest book, The Face of Spain, is reviewedin the Spectator of January 5th and who can hardly be said not to investigate his facts and comparisons carefully.
It is not the comments of conscientious observers such as he that harm good relations with Spain or any other country, but the cynical indifference to/human suffering of those who prefer to shut their eyes to unpleasant facts like starvation, disease and corruption. And it is not unknown for such observers as these to be " professional" too.—Yours
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