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for Common Market affairs This would be a realistic recognition of the fact that effective power in the Common Market resides in the Council of Ministers and the national govern- men ey represent, not in the Commis- sion he idea that the Commission and its an ≈ operate as some sort of.supranational au dority ruling Europe 'without any consulta- tion with anyone' is a myth propagated by those who oppose European unity.
GEOFFREY De Freitas Chairman, Labour Committee for Europe House of Commons
London SWI
Sir, Mr Russell Lewis is entitled to believe that membership of the Common Market 'would. strengthen the institutional defences against socialism' (Peter Brimelow NS 13 Aug.).
I am sure that Sir Geoffrey de Freitas would consider this to be a somewhat quaint view since the facts, as any continental socialist or trade unionist will tell Peter Brimelow, point the other way. Indeed, since the EEC was, formed the public-enterprise sector has been expanded by member governments, supported in some areas by the EEC Commission, and in several countries public enterprise, underpinned by an interventionist philosophy, has played a more important role in national planning than it has in Britain under a Labour government.
Why, it should be asked, must the anti- Marketeers of the Left use reference material supplied by Labour's opposition? This is a dangerous game, particularly when Mr Enoch Powell is sitting so conveniently in the wings.
NORMAN J. Hart
Reform Club
London SWI
Americans and Chinese Communists, 1927-1945
A Persuading Encounter KENNETH E. SHEWMAKER
Focusing on the writings and experiences of Amencans who travelled in China from 1937 to 1945, this book describes and analyzes, the almost unanimously favourable reactions of the first Americans to encounter Chinese Communists. Mr. Shewmaker explores the direct, personal reactions to the Communists of such travellers as Edgar and Helen Snow, Agnes Smedley, Evans F. Carlson, Anna Louise Strong, and Theodore H. White, and compares their impressions to reality.
389pp illustrated/Cloth £4.75
Viet-Nam Crisis A Documentary History Volume I: 1940-1956 Edited by
ALLAN W. CAMERON
The most exhaustive work of its kind, this collection of 190 documents will become a basic source for understanding the realities of present-day Viet-Nam and the factors that shaped them. The selections, many not pre- viously available in English, reveal the inter- national aspects of the Viet-Nam crisis and the development of American policy from 1940 to 1956.
452pp Cloth £7.15
Cornell University Press 2-4 Brook Street, London W1Y 1AA
Sir Keith's Document
Sir, The article by Dr Donald Gould on the Health Service Consultative Document (NS, 13 August) stated that consultants will be employed by the proposed regional authorities. This statement is unjustified as the Depart- ment of Health has stated that the matter is still under consideration. It is unfortunate that the Consultative Document should be pub- lished before the Administration could make firm considered proposals on this and other important issues. Ithus follows that the Ad- ministration are still considering that con- sultants could be employed by the authorities. This would be most unfortunate
as:
area
(1) Local pressures would have too strong a voice in the appointments and might even result in the appointment of doctors with local/contacts and influence rather than can- didates with the greatest ability.
(2) Consultants, once they are appointed, might have less freedom in expressing their views concerning the quantity and quality of medical services available in the area in which they are working.
If the services are grossly deficient a con- sultant might fear that local pressures would affect his personal position apart from the fact that his views might well have little in- fluence on policy. It was for these very rea- sons that Aneurin Bevan in 1946 made sure that consultants were appointed by Regional Boards, as opposed to Hospital Management Committees.
JAMES ANDREWS Consultant Geriatric Physician West Middlesex Hospital
Isleworth, Middx
East is Red?
Sir, You may be interested to know that at the outset of a recent tour of East Berlin my copy of the NEW STATESMAN was confiscated at Checkpoint Charlie by a`\\guard\who en- quired what sort of magazine`it was.\\To my emphatic 'Socialist' came the instantaneous reply: 'Ist verboten hier.'
London SE19
A. F. BATTSON`
Hong Kong Citizens Sir, The Hong Kong government has just intro- duced a Bill aimed at defining who are 'local' people, and at the same time giving itself power to deport those who are not, should this scem desirable. 'Local' people will be Hong Kong born or naturalised Chinese, and British sub- jects with at least three years' residence.
Why should this Bill be considered necessary? In 1970 some Americans and Europeans were forced to leave the Colony when their visas were not renewed, but British subjects critical of the colonial regime have up to now been protected by the privileges generally accorded to expatriates from the UK. However, the Hong Kong' government is extremely sensitive to criticism, and has obviously been irked by an ever-growing group of anti-colonial Britons, particularly since they are mostly teachers or post-graduate students in contact with the young people of Hong Kong, and might be able to awaken them to the evils of colonialism, and to make them realise that tacit acceptance is not necessarily the best course of action. Over the past two years or so, the young people have been increasingly driven to express their discontent by holding public demonstra- tions. The new Bill, when it becomes law, will strongly discourage” participation in such demonstrations, since between two thirds and three quarters of the Hong Kong people, being neither born in the Colony, nor naturalised, will be liable to deporta-
1
27 AUGUST 1971
NEW STATESMAN
tion. But why should people want to com- plain? While it is true that the period since the riots of 1966 and 1967 has been continued expansion and development in Hong Kong's industry and wealth, it is also true that Hong Kong's working people do not have a fair share in the wealth they help to produce. There is still no minimum wage, and there are no old- age pensions, no unemployment benefit, and no social security of any kind, save a paltry H$50 per month (86p per week) in public assistance money for the destitute. Compound- ing these difficulties is the fact that even though 98 per cent of the population is Chinese, and well over half the population cannot speak English, the only official language is English, which means that the Chinese people cannot get full value from the inadequate educa- tional facilities available to them.
The campaign to make Chinese an official language on a par with English has been fiercely resisted by the colonial government, in spite of growing demands on the part of the population that Chinese should be made offi- cial. Many demonstrations each larger than the previous one, have taken place, and now it seems that the Hong Kong government has had enough, and hopes to intimidate the people into desisting from expressing their true de- mands by the only means available to them. This then is the real reason why, with an arro- gance that must be unique to colonial govern- ments, a small group of British foreigners has introduced a bill which, at one blow, will make the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong's population into non-Hong Kong people.
PAUL WILLIAMS
London SW1
Getting it Right
Sir, Professor Bernard Crick accuses Hazlitt of sloppy reporting (NS 13 August). He says that Hazlitt, in his essay 'The Prize Fight', wonder fully evokes 'the coach trip from London to Bristol', but forgot to record who won, for perhaps he didn't care'.
The essay is called 'The Fight", not The Prize Fight'; the coach trip was to Newbury, not Bristal; Hazlitt did not forget to record who won Bill Neate was pleased that he had won the fight'); and Hazlitt did care about the result: he thought it 'as fine a piece of poetical justice as I had ever witnessed' because Neate's opponent, the Gas-man, had 'vapoured and swaggered too much' before the fight.
MICHAEL Davie London EC4
Manx Justice
Sir, One of the Manx magistrates this month told someone appearing in/court before him, who had stolen money and valuables while working in a Douglas hotel: 'We don't want people like you coming to the Isle of Man and we don't intend to have them here."
The criminal he was addressing was a child of 15 who had raised the money for her fare to the island by picking up men in the streets of Dublin. She was put on a boat returning to Ireland and, presumably as far as the magis trates were concerned, that was that. But she hid on board and came back again. According to the Gardai/in Dublin there was no one at the home of the grandmother, who had reared her and to whom she was supposed to be returning/As punishment for another theft since discovered she is now to spend five weeks in the Manx detention centre, a euphe mism for/rooms at the top of Douglas Rolice Station.
Years ago I spent a lot of time in juvenilo courts/in London in the course of my job. Never once did I hear a magistrate address child in this way.
MILLICENT FARAGHER