3 APRIL 1920, Page 15

"EDUCATE OUR MASTERS."

(To Ins Barrett or esra " Seemsroa.")

Ste,—Your columns, whether editorial or of correspondence, contain more than one finds elsewhere of common-sense such as is needed more than ever in an advanced democratic country. One wishes that the Spectator reached every reader of the Daily Herald. But I fear that those unfortunate people do not ever get into their heads even the existence of the views expressed in your articles and letters like some recent ones ef Mr. P. E. Roberts dealing with what one may without offence call the platitudes of economics. These truisms are what the electorate most needed to learn even before its recent extensions. It may interest your readers to see how the same kind of thing is done in France. M. Andre Beaunier, writing in the Echo de Paris after the recent railway strike, denounced "the incredible stupidity of expecting any value from the unproductive' expenditure of the State, as though the State were not ourselves but some vague kind of capitalist, never seen in the flash, who may be worn out without ally effect upon ourselves, whereas it is we ourselves who have to pay for every mistaken expense borne by the State." He goes on to expose the absurdity of sacrificing the interests of the whole nation to the interests of a single class, "as though one class oould benefit from the general lose; as though there were no solidarity among all classes and parties of the nation, which m.ust share together misery or prosperity; as thengh this were not the clearest of all the lessons of the war." Ile blame, with the strike leaders Los philosophes a la ntanque, Las badauds et les snobs who exist with us, though I hesitate to try to translate the descriptive words. A Frenchman n.abanatly does not limit himself to an appeal to common- Senate The most logical writers in Europe, Frenchmen must put something less cold before their countrymen. and M. Beaunier eloquently calls for the survival of Is sentiment national as the remedy. The national spirit which made France invincible both in the battlefield and behind the lines, the endurance and self-denial which triumphed in the war, are still necessary, but are not to be found among strikers, idlers rich or poor, anarchists, or %routine It is all very obvious, but admirably put. The question is, how is it to be put before the mate of voters who rule France or Great Britainf—I am, Sir, Ac., V.