A CLAUSE TO ABOLISH "PASSIVE RESISTANCE."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." J have read your article in the issue of July 14th headed "A Clause to Abolish 'Passive Resistance' "with much interest- I suggest a clause to the effect that where a Magistrate is of opinion that the person summoned is in a position to pay he shall make an order for immediate payment, and direct the advertisement of the same in the London Gazette and, say, one London daily and a local paper, and that the result of such advertisement shall be that until the Order shall have been discharged by payment of the amount, together with the costs of the advertisement, the person named in the Order shall lose all right of suing or being sued, and that his bankers (if any) shall be debarred from honouring his cheques, and any person paying money to him, or on his account, shall not be able to obtain a good discharge or receipt for any such payment, nor shall any person advancing him money or selling him goods on credit be able to recover the amount or price of the same. I venture to suggest that it would be somewhat difficult effectively to resist even passively the commercial pressure of this Order, which would be enforced, not by the officers of the Court, but by the resister's neighbours, friends, and sym- pathisers. An extension of the system to other defiant breaches of the law would effectually overcome the doctrine that an individual is entitled to disobey a law of which he
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