SOFT WORDS AND HARD
SIR,—Complete harmony is so vital for the San Francisco conference and all the conferences to which it is the prelude that it is most desir- able that all reports and comments should scrupulously avoid the use of any word in the least degree provocative. Such a word I suggest is the "rebuff " which occurs in your front page paragraph under the head- ing " Jolts at San Francisco "—and even " set-back" a little earlier. Dis- cussion presupposes divergence of views, and the democratic way of deciding between these views is by vote ; and it would be most unfor- tunate if the advocates of the unsuccessful view should always be said or thought to have suffered a " rebuff." May I plead further in the interests of calm and friendly discussion, especially at a general election, for an agreed and absolute ban upon notoriously provocative words of vague connotation such as " bolshevik "—it would not be difficult to
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