[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr. T. Hubert Stephens'
letter in your issue of the 15th inst. defeats its own object. Mr. Stephens deplores the recent meetings of the Society, evidently because of the bitterness and recalcitrant attitude assumed, but such attitude will not be lessened by the invective terms he uses, which have little or no foundation in fact, such as "official ineptitude," dis- credited Council," "vicious proposals," and so forth. Peace and agreement will not be found in this way ; on the contrary, irritation and bad feeling is fomented, another spirit is wanted if peace is to be reached.
A Poll does enable the provincial members to express their wishes. Indeed, such members claim to have a right to use their judgment on any important matter affecting the Society, and to express it by vote through the Poll. See the R.S.P.C.A. Constitution. Three-fourths of the nine thousand members are in the provinces ; by reason of distance and expense they cannot attend a members' meeting in London. Any issues on any question can be made perfectly clear by sending with the voting cards succinct statements of the pros and cons.
Provincial members are as capable to form an opinion on any matter as the London and Home County members, and this is specially true at this juncture when the whole of the British Isles have been flooded with the information derived from the Press accounts of the last five meetings. It is surely a slur upon the provincial members to speak of them as "the unwary and uninformed." The kind of debates in the last Jive meetings are not likely to help the country members,
many of whom have left the meetings in abhorrence, and numbers of whom have intimated that they have wasted their time and money in attending ; they now want the case put into cold print, when in the quietude of their homes they can digest both views, and vote after a reasoned opinion formed :—
Let two-faced Janus Close his massive gate And silent sit within In sullen state.
Then may the Dove of Peace bring The olive branch, and may the troubling spirits cease.
(late Supervisor, R.S.P.C.A., in the Midlands). 20 Ridge Hill, Golder's Green, N.W. 11.
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