In defence of students
Sir: I always enjoy Auberon Waugh's articles, so much so that I even took the opportunity to go and see him on the platform at a Biafra meeting recently (and very good he was, too). But I fear I detected a possibly ominous ten- dency in his column of 7 February.
He defends the `magnificent students of Essex' in their action in denying a hearing to Mr Jenkins on the grounds that he wanted to talk about petty money matters while they were concerned with the rather more important matter of the slaughter in Biafra. I yield to no one in my contempt for Mr Jenkins and his colleagues in the Cabinet (and, for good measure, for his back-benchers and opponents too). But the principle of free speech must be sacrosanct. If you feel you can breach it on • a matter where you feel strongly, then clearly you have started on a very slippery slope. 1, I dare say if Mr Waugh could show me that a denial of free speech would save lives in Biafra I would have to think again. But history has always shown that this is never the way things work out. Your correspondent must never find himself using `The end justifies the means' as a Waugh-cry. He should leave that to the communists. And we have seen what grisly ends their means have produced.
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