THE FRIENDS' MANIFESTO ON THE WAR.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TUE "SPECTATOR."]
Si,—Will you allow me, as a reader of the Spectator for more than thirty years, to make a few remarks upon the subject on which " Clericus " addresses you in your last week's issue,—viz., "The Friends' Manifesto on the War " ? I am a "birthright member" of the Society of Friends, and I wish to state most emphatically that there is a very large, and perhaps not altogether unintelligent, section of the Society who deeply deplore the attitude which the mani- festoists and their followers have assumed from the very com- mencement of the war. It has seemed to many of us that this attitude has all through been as inconsistent with the principles of Friends as the Manifesto's "rhetoric and metaphor" are inconsistent with that plainness of speech to which all members of the Society of Friends are advised to
[We are greatly delighted to be able to publish the above letter, for we hold the Friends in special reverence and honour, and should indeed be pained to think that the Manifesto represented the unanimous, or anything approach- ing the unanimous, verdict of the Friends on the war.— ED. Spectator.]
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