31 OCTOBER 1952, Page 5

Mr. Eden took the right and chivalrous course in denouncing

publicly a foul attack made on Sir William Strang, the per- manent head of the Foreign Office, in a recent issue of a Sunday paper. In view of the fact that a civil servant cannot defend himself, however gross the calumnies uttered against him, such an article is a contemptible use of a journalist's pen. When the article appears shrouded with such cover of anonymity as the adoption of the pseudonym " Junius " may confer (parva cotnponere magnis indeed) it is doubly so. If the author's identity is what I believe it to be his pen is well practised in such methods.