19 JANUARY 1945, Page 14

TOTLE OR TOPHANES ?

SIR,—In his charming review of my book Friday Mornings, Sir Ernest Barker questions my statement that Aristotle held that no woman can make a good House of Commons man. It is obviously time that Sir Ernest Barker re-read Mr. Ernest Barker's classic work on The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. The passage I had in mind occurs in Politics I 13, and runs as follows: " the slave is totally devoid of all parliamentary faculty (` to bouleutikbn'): a woman has it, but it is unauthoritative: a boy has it, but it is immature."—Yours sincerely,