Rebel on the Right

As a graduate of Eton and Oxford, a good London clubman (Bucks and Beefsteak), a wartime Grenadier Guardsman, an unsuccessful Tory candidate for the House of Commons, the son of a former colonial governor of Kenya and a peer of the realm, young (32) John Edward Poynder Grigg, 2nd Baron Altrincham of Tormarton, might well be expected to defend with heart and hand the well-rooted principle of British conservatism. Instead, as the peppery and literate editor of the National and English Review (which he inherited along with his title from his father), Tory Lord Altrincham has aimed the barbs of his pointed prose at all the institutions dearest to the old ties.

Are Peers Necessary? Amid the pomp and panoply of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, the heir to the newly created (1945) Altrincham barony openly questioned the usefulness of an upper house filled with legislators "not necessarily fitted to serve in Parliament." Soon afterward, demanding the admission of women to the clergy, he turned his barbs against England's men of the cloth, declaring that "it can no longer be presumed that a parson will even be respected as a man, let alone revered as a priest." More recently, Altrincham's ire was directed against Tory Anthony Eden's policy on Suez.

Some weeks ago Lord Altrincham discovered that one of his own cherished institutions was not all that it seemed to be. The Victoria League, whose finances he helps to manage, was founded in 1901 for the purpose of promoting friendly relations between the varicolored peoples under the British Crown. Throughout the

Commonwealth, the league runs clubs and recreation centers where young people of all colors and races mix freely. But at the league's London youth hostel, when a Negro student shows up to ask for a room, the answer is. invariably, "Sorry, we're full up." Last week, shocked to discover this discrimination policy, Lord Altrincham resigned. "One of the reasons that you have given me for maintaining this iniquitous state of affairs," he said in a bitter letter to League Chairman Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt, "is that you do not want to alienate the South Africans. Instead of setting an example, we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by a nation whose theory and practice of race relations is condemned by liberal opinion throughout the world." "The club," huffed Admiral Harcourt in response, "is not suitable to accommodate mixed races."

Is the Lord Offside? Lord Altrincham's indignation was the greater because, he wrote, "The Queen and the Queen Mother are patrons of the league, and Princess Alice is its president." To drag in royalty this way, commented the admiral, is "a pretty rotten thing. Definitely offside."

At week's end, however, an irate group of league hostel residents, including five South Africans, rallied to Lord Altrincham's side. "This," said young Lord Altrincham, "demonstrates the fine free new spirit of the Commonwealth."

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