DAPHNE
Sir, - I was delighted to read Vincent Browne's praise of my cousin George L. Steer's reporting of the bombing of Guernica (Opinion, January 9th). It was not the first time he had ruffled the feathers of Westminster, for he was the London Times correspondent in Abyssinia and reported the Italians' use of mustard gas. "They used the methods which Californian farmers, I believe, use to destroy the insect pests on their fruit trees" ("Caesar in Abyssinia", 1936).
The Italians called him "Public Enemy No 1". He believed the League of Nations should have taken action - "a small war now or a big war later". And so it was. George played an active part in restoring the Emperor, Haile Selassie, a man he much liked and admired, to his throne.
George did not survive the war. He died in a jeep accident, on the Far Eastern front. - Yours, etc.,
DAPHNE D.C. POCHIN MOULD, Aherla, Co Cork.