Mr Heath, EEC and a Senior Conservative

Sir: In his article published on June 26, "A Senior Conservative" accuses the Government of lacking an economic master-plan. He supports his case by tlaiming an insight into secrets of the working of the Government and of the Party that are denied to all of us who are free to comment upon his argument. But on matters of public knowledge he seems short on facts. He suggests, for example, that Mr John Davies, the Secretary of State, sees his Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry "in conference only once a month." Yet Sir Antony Part, the Permanent Secretary of that Department, in his article in the Financial Times of June 25 stresses the degree of co-ordination and communication that there is between the Secretary of State and his fellow Ministers, which include meetings once a week in addition to the monthly meeting of the "Policy Group" and numerous informal contacts.

"A Senior Conservative" may have made only a small factual error but, in evaluating the weight to be attached to accounts of what has gone on behind locked doors, it is relevant to look at the accuracy of those statements which can be tested.

Tom Boardman, House of Commons, London, SWI.

Sir: As a Conservative party activist • what worries me most ibout Mr Heath at the moment is that he has compromised the credibility of every party member. The limited commitment in the election Manifesto regarding the Common Market — "to negotiate: no more and no Jess" — is now brushed aside. Far from referring the matter again to the electorate, as the manifesto assurance was generally understood in the party to promise and thus interpreted to others, there is now not even to be, a free vote in The Commons. This is the final outrage upon party workers who set any value upon their own reputation for integrity. It is a little surprising to me that this flagrant breach of faith by Mr Heath inflicted upon his own erstwhile supporters has had no mention by "Senior Conservative." Kenneth R. Middleton 3 Dean Park Crescent,

Edinburgh 4.

Sir: Mr R. A. Piggott ( May 12) asks if "a substantial group of people within the Six want to leave." The answer to the question is undoubtedly yes. However, the countries to which the people belong are in no position to leave even if they wished to do so. The Treaty of Rome is for an "unlimited period" (Article 240). There is no means whereby any member of his own free will has any legitimate right to withdraw. What a prospect for future Britons if we were to join.

P. B. Bush 16 Ashurst Drive, Ilford. Essex.

Sir: I am not a fanatic and offer as supporting evidence the fact that I have been a subscriber to The Spectator since early 1946. However I am in favour of this country joining the EEC on reasonable terms and therefore qualify, according to your article "The Alternative Question," as one of the "European-Europe fanatics."

Equally I suppose I belong to the "small number of politicians, financiers, academics and others" who according to you are promarketeers, the implication being that the " others " consist of pimps, half-wits and the like.

Does it not occur to you that there is a contradiction between the language of your article and the appeal by "a Conservative " in the next following article that promarketeers should accept that their opponents are "neither flatearthers nor communists?"

My own pro-market sentiments are based on the belief that for us to join Europe would be a natural evolutionary step, that it would provide a new environment in which it would be possible that the people of the UK would find a new purpose, that Europe is the only large political and economic unit to which it is now possible for us to belong, that it is necessary for us so to belong in order to survive prosperously in a world in which

we can see for example the natural economic ties between Canada and the USA, the fact that Australia trades more with Japan than she does with us, the industrialisation of Japan and other Far Eastern countries, the closed economies of Eastern Europe.

These sentiments may be vague and possibly mistaken but I believe they deserve a better answer than the sneering tone of the antimarket polemics so far published in The Spectator.

Stephen Cook 101 Cotes Road, Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire.

SIR: Mr Grotrain, writing from Japan (Letters, June 24) tells us that we must not oppose the unconditional surrender of this country to the EEC, because it is "inevitable."

This argument has been used before notably by Hitler, and we recall the marching song of the SA, which ended Reaction and the Red Front have betrayed us, but nevertheless the Third Reich will come." These words recall also that Sir Tufton Beamish and others are fond of telling us that only extreme left and right oppose entry, a calculation which conveniently ignores the vast majority of the British people among the opposers, and Sir Oswald Mosley, the Union Movement, and the Communists of France and Italy among the supporters of entry.

As Mr Moore reminds us, the 'EEC has a pedigree stretching from the Hitler-Funk New Order of 1940 to Edward Heath's statement that it would achieve, by other means, "what Napoleon and Hitler failed to achieve," but, like Mr Moore, I remain confident that the British People will in the end, as before, win the battle for their freedom, while the EEC will join its Napoleonic and Hitlerian ancestors. David Lazarus Conservatives Against the Common Market. 124 Gladstone Park Gardens, London, NW2.