3 JANUARY 1931, Page 22

BURNS AND THE BIOGRAPHER

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] .

SIR,—The correctness of my letter to the Spectator of November 22nd was established at the recent quarterly meeting of the Executive of the Burns Federation. There the editor of the Burns Chronicle stated that valuable Syme letters had some considerable time ago been discovered in a solicitor's office, the publication rights of which had been vested in him as an individual ; and that later he had transferred these rights to ths Burns Federation. The

matter had not been previously reported to the Executive, nor even now, whether the vesting rights are constituted by writing or by word of mouth and what they cover. It was explained that the editor had given a copy of them to a friend, who gave them to Mrs. Carswell on condition that

she was not to make any excerpts from them in her Life of Burns ; but, fearing that the proprietary rights might have been infringed, he, as editor of the Burns Chronicle, consulted a solicitor who ascertained that his fears were groundless, and that Mrs. Carswell had strictly fulfilled her undertaking. Until the recent quarterly meeting, the Executive had no knowledge whatever of these proceedings, and consequently had not given any instructions.

It seems unfortunate that the editor's reticence should have been a contributory cause to an unhappy misunder- standing ; and had he stated his position at the October quarterly meeting of the Executive, much unpleasantness to both Mrs. Carswell and the Burns Federation might have been avoided.

A new Quarterly Bulletin of the Burns Chronicle has just been instituted, and it is much to be hoped that it will be carried through in the broad spirit of tolerance representative of the Burns world and, not leaning however slightly toward the views of any passing coterie, be expressive always of the broad humanity which animated Robert Burns.—I am, Sir,