18 MARCH 1916, Page 13

JUSTICE AND SECURITY.

[To THE EDITOR 01 THE S11.0111'0E-1

SIE,—I have read with interest your article on " Justice and Security " as summarizing Mr. Asquith's declarations regarding the conditions of peace. When I was in Canada not long before the outbreak of war, I met a Professor whose former duties had taken him beyond the region of hotel accommodation in Canada, and thus he, many a time, had to pass the night in the humble shacks of German-Canadian settlers. He picked up their dialect without their being aware of this, and he noticed that when the talk was with him in English it was pretty well limited to the usual few words about the weather. Many a time, however, a number of these settlers would gather round a fireside at night, and the talk in their own dialect frequently turned to the subject of contrasting the powers which had ruled them in their own country and those of the country of their adoption. The Professor told me that the vote was on such occasions invariably unanimously in favour of British rule, and the arguments were three : (I) Equal justice for all; (2) security of property ; and (3) reverence for their women- folk. It is very much akin to the old rights secured to us by Magna Carta, but it seems a story worth telling that these humble folk from the land of the enemy were aware of the contrast between the grinding restrictions of Germany and the freedom of the Briton.—