Letters to the Editor
Enosis Harold Sore! and T. W. Cain Film Censorship Michael Croft Mr. Gilbert Harding Lionel Hale The Grave-Diggers Philip Williams Welfare Children Peter Green Unwillingly to School Arnold F. Dauncey Lambing Time B. Harvey Johns Horse Sense C. F. K. Mellor
ENOSIS
Sta,—Having followed in the steps of Mrs. Jeger during her canvassing activities in Cyprus, I was not surprised at the doctrinaire deductions made in her article. Had she visited the island incognito, and not been shepherded about by political clerics and Communist agitators, her observations might have been otherwise. In fact, the visit of the British Socialist MPs who were the guests of the Archbishop and consorted with the local Com- munist leaders, was a gratuitous encourage- ment to the enosis agitation. Cypriots were bewildered at this campaign by British Parlia- mentarians deliberately fostering the , aliena- tion of the colony they were visiting.
It is hardly' surprising that Mrs. Jeger was not confronted by Greek-speaking Cypriots who opposed enosis. The price of public oppo- sition in Greece is gaol and in Cyprus excom- munication by the Church and something worse than 'being sent to Coventry' by the Red-dominated trades unions.
One evening near Paphos, which Mrs. Jeger had visited and where she addressed a public meeting, I joined the villagers at a coffee- house in an exclusively Greek-speaking village. The inscription of the Cyprus question on the UN agenda was being announced from Radio Athens. The peasants received this intelligence with profound apathy. Contrary to Mrs. Jeger's impressions there was widespread indifference throughout the island outside the enosis campaign headquarters, even if the church bells pealed according to instructions.
Nobody with knowledge of Cypriots living in this country would accept her statement that they wish to become aliens and lose their British citizenship. There are already 25,000 in Britain and their number is increasing. Why do these Cypriots not rather emigrate to Greece, where the fare is cheaper? Contrary to Mrs. Jeger's implications, few London Cypriots are interested in politics. Their pub- lication is Communist and the Cypriot Brotherhood is a small body with a declining membership.
That Mrs. Jeger can identify only one Lon- don Cypriot who 'enjoyed being British' is a reflection upon the lady's associations rather than upon their loyalty. Earlier this week more than 300 London Cypriots passed a unanimous resolution denouncing enosis and expressed their desire for the continuation of British rule.
Mrs. Jeger chooses to belittle the significance of the Communist Party, which is becoming the spearhead of the enosis agitation. Their volte- face is nothing new. It is conditioned by the obvious advantages of causing strife between NATO countries, embarrassing Britain in the Middle East and preparing for civil ,war in Greece once again. The Red-dominated trades unions have a membership of 20,000 whereas the free unions, despite the patronage of the Archbishop and the support of the Nationalist Party, have less than 4,000 adherents. Four leading Cypriot Communists were killed in an air crash in Siberia this week en route from Peking to Nicosia, engaged in a mission Mrs. Jeger might care to define.
Those wishing to sever the bonds of Empire are less often to be found in the colony to be 'liberated' than amongst Socialists in Britain. Their doctrine does not differ even when it means the deliverance of a well- administered, prosperous, free people to an unstable, distant, poor country to which they never belonged: It is, however, strange to recall that those who now agitate for Cyprus to form part of Greece largely form the identical element which attacked Sir Winston Churchill for saving Greece from becoming a Russian satellite less than a decade ago. Until the enosis agitation, they described the Greek Government as 'Fascist' because it outlawed Communists. Apparently its opposition to British interests redeems the Papagos Govern- ment in their eyes and unto the erstwhile 'Fascists' the British colony should be delivered.—Yours faithfully,
HAROLD SOREF
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