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Constant readers of these newspapers, which are among the most sprightly and technically expert in Britain, have long noted their oblique criticism of Duke of Edinburgh. Usually this deals with the Duke's "interference" in the field of industrial relations. It is believed to spring from Lord Beaverbrook's long-standing animus for the Duke's uncle, Earl Mountbatten. The criticism of the proposed expenditures for the Britannias, the dining-car, and the waiting-room gave the newspapers a chance to hint that the young man was getting a bit above himself.

The Sunday Express gave the widest possible publicity to its serialization of the autobiography of the Duchess of Windsor, an opus that, although interesting, cannot be considered an enthusiastic recommendation for the institution of monarchy.

The inevitable conclusion is that William Maxwell Aitken, first Baron Beaverbrook, New Brunswick, and Cherkley, nurses crypto-republican sentiments at heart. He has confessed to being a propagandist in his newspapers, and he is so unpredictable that he might sometime direct all his energies against the institution. I mentioned this to a cabinet minister, who replied that the monarchy would welcome it. "Nothing helps a politician more than the enmity of the Beaver," he commented.