WRITERS MILITANT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 671, 16 May 1952, Page 5

WRITERS MILITANT

Sir,-In his long letter, A. R. D. Fairburn does not get to grips with the question posed in your editorial: how is the declaration to be interpreted that condemns "writing liable. to sharpen existing dangers and hatred"? Leaving out all questions of motives and "mugs," and assuming that there can be honest objection to signing the writers’ peace manifesto, interpretation is the core of the matter. "Liable," "sharpen," "dangers," "hatred"-the widest meaning can be given to these words, singly and in combination, "Dangers and hatred"’among whom? Everybody familiar with manifestations of national feeling knows that the slightest thing, such even as a mispronounced word (I have an example beside me) can produce fury and therefore hatred. Most of the writers listed by Mr. Fairburn are novelists, poets or critics; I observe hardly one commentator on world affairs. The novelist’s position under the declaration is easier than the publicist’s but he has to walk warily. In a recent novel Ernest Hemingway makes an American character critical of Britain. This has been noted there, and may have caused resentment and hatred. I can imagine Hemingway’s comments if he were asked to refrain from such char-acter-drawing. For Whom the Bell Tolls must have aroused hatred in Spain, if it was read there. It might be difficult or even impossible for an English novelist to write of American life in such a ° way as to wound no American susceptibilities. When long ago the Congo atrocities shocked the conscience of civilisation H. de vere Stacpoole wrote a novel about them, The Pools of Silence, which must have sharpened hatred in Belgium. Dickens might be held to have violated the clause when he wrote the American chapters of Martin Chuzzlewit. The honest publicist (and we are not concerned with the other kind) feels he must call attention to what he believes to be threats or evils. Twice in my time honest men have been labelled scaremongers because they warned their countrymen of threats which subsequently materialised. Are such men now to refrain from asking questions about Russian policy, or the kidnapping of 28,000 children by the Greek Communists? Is an American investigator to be silent about what he confiders evils in the British colonial empire or blunders in Persia and Egypt? I regard -sympathetic study of American history and _life by British peoples as a prime cultural need, and I take every opportunity of saying so. But in pointing out the vir-

tues of the Americans, must I ignore such things as recent revelations of corruption? Conversely, an American coulc not possibly make a broad survey of conditions in Britain without annoying someone, Strict interpretation of the declaration would reduce comment on foreign affairs to Pollyanna mush. I am sure Mr. Fairburn, who has strong convictions and an exceptionally lively style, would not wish this to happen. Is he quite sure that he himself has not violated the declaration?

ALAN

MULGAN

(Wellington).