THE MOSCOW TRIAL
[To the Editor of TILE Senc-raTon..]
Sui,—The protracted correspondence of Mr. W. F. Pelton, from whom a further letter appeared last week, reveals a man whose vision is not only limited by the width of his eyes and length of his nose ; but is further impaired by those defects which occasioned the parable of the mote and the beam. Apparently, he has also fallen into the error of interpreting the words of our old song, " Britannia Rules the Waves " as Divine revelation instead of poetic fancy.
As it is difficult to credit anyone of your correspondent's apparent standing with such flagrant puerility as is sug- gested by his letters, it is to be concluded that his prejudice against Soviet Russia betrays him into unwarranted and untenable statements.
If he is to be assumed sincere, then the poverty of his knowledge of the British brand of humanity is only exceeded by his vague understanding of the tenets of Socialism.
To improve' his acquaintance with the former, nothing better can be recommended than an intensive study of the works of Charles Dickens. There is no need to look further for proof of his ignorance of the latter than his tacit assump- tion that Socialism is the land of promise for the idle and shiftless. That supposition is the very antithesis of one
of the first- principles of Socialism, to wit : He that does not work, shall not eat."
Socialism has no more use for the idle and shiftless than some of the latter, of a necessity, have any use for Socialism. Doles and unearned increment are the offspring of capitalism.
The subject naturally leads to Mr. Pelton's somewhat premature. indictment of Socialism in Russia. Taking every fnet into consideration your correspondent'S ready condemnation will he' found to have very little value.
Because, after centuries of corrupt administration, handi- capped by a vast illiterate population, hampered by internal and external discord, the Soviets have failed, in a space of fourteen years, to transform a seventh of the earth's surface into Utopia, Mr. Pelton tells us that Socialism is a dismal failure. Does he think the Russians, ever a backward nation, are wizards ?
Or, possibly, Mr. Pelton recognizes in the financial chaos and attendant trade deadlock with which the capitalist nations are struggling, the hallmarks of success. If this is NO. I wonder whether his views are shared by those, who at late years, have been busily burning their produce (not because there has been no desperate need of it) or by those shareholders in the innumerable firms who have been equally busy in reducing their capital. Reduced to wondering, my thoughts roam a vast range
of speculation. Was the patriotic heart of Mr. Pelton wrung by the tale of elementary injustice narrated by " Workless " in your eorres;aerienee columns of May 12th ? My wanderings in the realm of fancy take me to the Bar of Justice- (I trust that is as near as I shall ever get to it) where in answer to the indictment I raise the plea : " As an Englishman I am incapable of misdemeanour."
I can faintly imagine the atmosphere of incredulity such a plea would evoke : and the almost perceptible sting of the prosecuting counsel's biting sarcasm brings me back to
reality.—I am, Sir, &c., W. WEST.
1 St.* Mal-#.3 Villas, Hornsey, S.
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