10 MARCH 1917, Page 3

It is no answer to say that the letter, which

could only have been obtained by some disgraceful act of treachery er through the secret service agents of the German Government, had been published is the German papers. Men of honour and good citizens do not assist the work of enemy thieves and slanderers by giving publicity to stolen letters. There is a freemasonry amongst decent people, when private letters are nefariously published, not to play the game of the thieves by taking notice of purloined booty. In times such as these, when anything may happen to a letter, it would be wise for public men to be guarded even in their most intimate letters ; but no one with any sense of justice could possibly condemn Lord Hardinge for writing to an intimate friend in the way he did, for he of course had not the elight:st idea that the letter would ever become public property. Is Mr. Dillon's correspondence with his intimate friends so immaculate that he would not mind it being published from the hod etops ?