SIR,—Never. I hazard, in the story of journalistic endeavour have
two such dangers appeared in a single issue as my leader Mr. Grimond and my model Strix have dropped in last week's SPECTATOR (January 7, 1966). When Mr. Grimond advocates a 'nation-wide gendarmerie' (is this now Liberal policy?) he should at least spare the Territorial Army the stigma of styling it a 'disciplined force available for aid to the civil power.' since that is precisely what, by its nature and its constitution, it has never been. Lord Haldane, in his time too a Liberal leader, was so perceptive of the danger of using citizen soldiers against their countrymen over some issue where their sympathies would inevitably be divided, that he secured in the constitution of the force a proviso that they must never be used 'in aid of the civil power.' a proviso which, thank heaven, has been observed most scrupulously.
When Strix assails Mr. Wilson's mistake in stig- matising the Rhodesia whites he should not make the mistake of attributing to the late Emperor William II of Germany a phrase. 'contemptible little army,' that was coined in Britain for domestic propaganda. This was fully exposed by the late Lord Ponsonby in his published collection of (First World) 'War Lies' forty years ago.
It has often intrigued me to work out how one could put this in German without saying 'contemp- tibly little army.' It goes clumsily in German. any- how. The inventors should have taken more care to work out something plausible, except, apparently, to Strix.
For the record, sir, the Kaiser may have been an ass, but, unlike some other national leaders then and since, he was at least a gentleman.
Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex
GEORGE EDINGER
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