iTo the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—You say : "We
are not content to live on a category of negatives," forgetting—if you will allow me to say so—
that the Decalogue is little else, since only one of the ten commandments, the fifth, is "with promise."
At the risk of being called "reactionary," I assert that it is impossible for the Conservative Party to compete success-
fully in the policy of State Help all round to which the Socialists are committed. If we promise old age pensions at sixty, they will promise them at fifty ; if we pledge ourselves to provide good' houses at seven shillings a week, they' will guarantee comfortable homes at half a crown. Since they draw the funds for their Bribery-and-Corruption campaign chiefly from our pockets, it is obvious that they can outbid us every time.
If it be charged against us that Conservatism is, and always must be, the party of Property, our answer is that it is still more the party of Liberty, and that Liberty and Property are the twin pillars of society and civilization.
Liberty is the right to do wrong, but not to do a wrong —the right to do things dreadful and hateful in our neigh- bours' eyes so long as these things do not directly and mater- ially affect his equal liberty of action and welfare. This means that the Conservative Party—which represents Individualism as opposed to Socialism—must drop any ten- dency to flirt with Prohibition or like forms of social tyranny. The exorbitant prices of beer and spirits, due chiefly to extortionate taxation, have been one great cause of social unrest and Mr. Baldwin was very short-sighted not to do more than he did to remedy this injustice in last year's Budget. Doubtless the Christian Churches would oppose any relief, but, obviously, they can only claim to control Church members, and this should be done by the influence of priests and ministers and not by calling on the police.
You advocate "a new land system based on owner- occupiers." Well, the number of owner-occupiers has increased enormously in this country during the last dozen years, but it is impossible that we should ever rival France in this respect, because the French peasant has enjoyed the fullest protection at the hands of the State, while his system of birth control has added very largely to his material prosperity *—the only kind of prosperity for which he cares.
The total area under crops and grass in England and Wales is rather less than twenty-six million acres, and if we ado, "rough grazings " we get something under thirty-one minim', acres, and if this area were wholly divided among small proprietors the total number of such would be about 615,000. Seeing that Protection has been turned down and that birth control is not general in this country, and that our present system of State small holdings is very costly to the taxpayer, I venture to think that we are not ripe for the change, especially as 615,000 small holders and their wives could not have a preponderating influence in English politics.-
[Mr. Ryder's calculation allows each man fifty acres, but that is surely excessive.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
