BOOKS FOR TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
Sia,—" Janus " agrees with Mr. Stanley Unwin that a neutral country should be denied free copies of books published in belligerent London ; but Trinity College in Dublin is a Royal foundation, and has many ties with this country, notably with Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. Cosgrave and Mr. de Valera resisted the natural temptation to " nationalise " Trinity College and to restore the two ancient cathedrals of Dublin to the Roman worship. Their forbearance deserves a generous, if silent, acknowledgment.
Englishmen in turn can exercise forbearance. They have yet to fashion a war ideology which a people committed to the establishment of a peasants' realm on the island fringe of Europe can wholeheartedly accept ; and it is one of the greater glories of the English-speaking world that its thinking is not regimented or uniform. Eire is neutral, but thousands of her sons have joined the British services. Let us remember their dual allegiance—to the British cause and to their own country—before we open the flood-gates of invective and recrimina- tion. Englishmen are the neighbours of the Irish, as of the French, to the may of their time on earth. If they respect their neutrality,
m they ay tind themselves at a military or naval disadvantage. But they will have a better chance of convincing their Irish neighbours that Cromwell died before Queen Anne. If the Irish are foolish, why withhold books from them? Some years ago I wrote a little book on Mr. Gandhi, who as a public figure of the English-speaking world is no less significant than Mr. de Valera. Only one publisher could be found in London to sponsor the heretical work. He was Mr. Unwin.—Yours faithfully, [" Janus " writes: The Universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and all others in the United King- dom except Oxford and Cambridge have to buy books for their libraries. So do the Universities of Toronto, Melbourne, Johannesburg and all others in the Dominions. Why should not Trinity College, Dublin, do the same?)
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