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Economic reality. The Government's decision in principle to review the fees charged to overseas students is understandable and has some merit. Mrs Barbara Castle during her term of office at the Ministry of Overseas Development had remarkable success in defending her allocation of money for overseas aid throughout the economic storms of 1964 and 1965. Sooner or later some ground had to be conceded—these are the realities of politics. Given a decision to reduce the level of spending on overseas aid, what more sensible than to reduce the subsidy through the DES for sons of American businessmen and sheiks of Araby? Unfortunately for Mr Crosland, the incompetent converted the inevitable into the iniquitous and he must now be wondering whether he can afford to postpone further an overdue reshuffle in his Department to strengthen the branches concerned with further and higher education. It is no mean achievement in these troubled times to unite the NUT, NUS, ATTI, AUT and the Vice‐Chancellors. Mr Crosland's urbane assertion of economic reality will be more than adequate to sustain him against the smoke and din of the educational cavalry, but this easy victory should not be allowed to obscure the cold hard fact that yet again a document of gross technical incompetence has been issued from Curzon Street to embitter relations and waste time and energy.