1 JULY 1911, Page 25

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR." J Sin,—Some of your

correspondents on the above subject appear to hold that the condemnation of a censorship creates an obligation to promote the circulation of moral filth, and, further, that for an individual to abstain from dealing with or assisting another is to boycott that person. Surely in these propositions there is a thorough confusion of ideas. Milton expressly held that in opposing licensing he was not introducing licence. "I deny not," he gays, "but that it

the greatest conoernment in the Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men, and thereafter to confine, imprison and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors." Again, what we mean by boycotting is surely a combination of several persons to im- pede the legitimate and honourable practice of some third person, not the abstention of an individual from promoting