29 AUGUST 1941, Page 14

Mr. Rolfe Gardiner writes: " Mr. Bates in his letter

on the subject of Mr. Massingham's symposium, England and the Farmer, says that I advocate Land Service Camps on page 97 and ' then discusses them enthusiastically for several (sic) pages.' Actually I describe them in 33 lines and then proceed to discuss land-settlement and rural-apprenticeship courses. Mr. Bates goes on to support his argument by a choice of a passage out of a pamphlet which I wrote on education, in the course of which I traced the roots of land- service and similar ventures. I describe how they originated in experiments conducted in pre-Nazi Germany and in Switzerland, but go on to record that the idea was given in the first place by the Irish writer A. E. and that its adoption was first not in Germany but in Bulgaria. The pre-Nazi camps were very strongly moulded by British influences and leadership. Mr. Bates does not add these important qualifying points and his letter may therefore quite easily convey the idea to the reader that I am advocating the adoption of Nazi methods. To worsen matters your printer has unfortunately set the type pro-Nazi ' instead of pre-Nazi.' In these days when feeling is running high small mistakes of this kind may cause mischief."