THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND ON REVOLUTION. [To THE Elmo& or
THE "SPEOTATOR."1 Sia,—The Duke of Northumberland has done yeoman service in making it clear, so that he that runs may read, that the object of the Miners' Federation and of the trade unions which support it is revolution pure and simple. In other words, an attempt to subvert the system of government handed down to us as the outcome of a thousand constitutional struggles. Their agents in this enterprise are the persons, whether paid or unpaid, who, abusing the tolerance tradition. ally extended to the free expression of opinion in this country, are spreading broadcast the doctrines of Karl Marx and advo- cating the adoption of the measures with which Lenin and his followers are seeking to give effect to them. It may not always be easy to draw the precise line at which the immunity granted in a free community to private opinion, however mischievous and extravagant, ends, and the right of that community to protect itself against organized attack begins, but it is clear that there is such a line and that it has, not now for the first time, been seriously and, indeed, flagrantly overstepped with us. The agents of sedition are well known; they, indeed, scarcely trouble to conceal their activities or their identity. Some are foreigners, or of foreign extraction, who have, it is regrettable to find, secured support from extreme sections of our own Press. Others are drawn from the ranks of our own Socialists, but both are actively engaged in what is, in fact, treason to the State, the attempt to subvert the constitution of the country as by law established, and to force legislation against the will of the people as declared by their representatives in Parlia- ment. Is society powerless against such an attack? Is treason of this kind beyond the arm of the Law? Is not the remedy to make the trade dangerous, and that such active measures should be taken as will both lay the offenders by the heels and give a much-needed encouragement to the loyal masses of the nation who suffer from.their vagaries?—I am, Sir, &c., C. COMYNS 'rums.
Beed Hill, Morchard Bishop, North Devon.
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