WASTE PAPER
SIR,—Captain Quintin Hogg, in reviewing the book Your M.P., by " Tiberius Gracchus," complains generally of a lack of candour on the part of the author. His own conduct lays himself open to precisely the same charge. " The book," he says, " is an attempt to pillory a group of politicians by quoting their less considered statements." No one could have guessed from this blithe dismissal of the whole indictment of the appeasement policy that Captain Hogg was elected to Parliament on a full-blooded championship of the views which he now wishes to be forgotten as " less considered statements." He was in fact the appease- ment candidate par excellence. He was the first M.P. elected after Mr. Chamberlain's visits to Germany. He boasted that he was " whole- heartedly behind Mr. Chamberlain in his handling of the recent European crisis." No one has a better right than the membea. for Oxford to call himself the "Member for Munich."
Captain Hogg also complains of the author's preference for anonymity. It might have been thought that this tradition had been well enough established in English journalism not to offend Captain Hogg's susceptible temper. But since you have allowed an obviously prejudiced reviewer to employ this childish sneer I may be allowed to add that Gracchus, the author in question, has nothing to hide. At approximately the same time when Captain Hogg was defending Chamberlain's betrayal of Czecho- Slovakia Gracchus was fighting in Spain in an attempt to expiate Chamber- lain's betrayal of the Spanish Republic.
Incidentally, Captain Hogg seems to confuse the authorship of two books, Your M.P. and the Trial of Mussolini, for the second of which I was responsible. So far from preferring " the twilight of anonymity Captain Hogg is aware that I have asked him to debate some of these issues in public. He is, of course, perfectly entitled, for whatever reason, to decline a debate, but, having done so, his condemnation of those who reject " the decent sunshine of signed authorship " only confirms the general air of hypocrisy with which he invites your readers to forget the shameful policies he once so doggedly upheld.—Yours faithfully,
9 Tuf ton Court, Tufton Street, S.W. I. MICHAEL FOOT.
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