THE GOVERNMENT'S CRITICS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Snt,—In the course of your comments on the North Cornwall by-election you gave some advice on the duty of politicians to realise their responsibilities to the nation as a whole in the conduct of their election campaigns. Your advice was directed, however, exclusively to politicians now in Opposition. Are we to suppose that Government candidates are incapable of saying anything contrary to the national interests? I can only state the facts and ask you to judge.
From one end of North Cornwall to the other I found that the standard Conservative canvasser's slogan was " Horabin is a Warmonger," a point which they tried to drive home with hideous stories of the horrors of war. I am told that the Conservatives pursued the same tactics at Hythe, and I shall be surprised to learn that they are not doing the same thing at all the other pending contests. Now, Horabin stood, as every Opposition candidate in recent years has stood, for the policy of steady and collective resistance to all acts of aggression. You tell us that we of the Opposition must not now challenge the sincerity of the Govern- ment's recent re-conversion to this policy of ours. But the Government cannot have it both ways. If they have really adopted this policy, they must not allow their canvassers to cry " Warmonger " to those who never departed from it.
And there is something more important. This policy depends for its success not only on the words of statesmen, but on the will and temper of the whole people, and responsi- ble leaders of opinion will surely serve the nation best by working always to impress on our people the fact that this policy offers us today the only hope of peace. To try to win votes by advising the people that the consistent advocates of this policy are warmongers does not build up, but on the contrary breaks down, the national will to resist aggression, and thereby assists Herr Hitler in his battle of nerves. However successful these tactics may be in the winning of votes, I am sure you will agree that they are quite as irresponsible as anything that has been done by the Opposi-
tion, and while they continue to be used against us, you will not, surely, deny us our right to express the doubts we most sincerely feel about the Government's real determination to carry through the policy they claim to have adopted.—Yours
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