[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—It is a pity
your correspondent "An Englishman" does not know Dr. Thomas Hodgkin better than to consider him capable of an "unjustifiable endeavour to add the fuel of national resentment to the fire of sectarian strife" (Spectator, August 27th). It is interesting to be reminded that Scottish Peers are allowed to sit in the House of Lords, and that Scotland has her own representatives in the Lower House. But for all that there are differences between English and Scottish law which your correspondent little was of; and who shall say what the verdict might have been if Lord Shand had lived, and Lord Kinross had chosen, to sit on the appeal ? The strong point of the United Church is that they gained their case before both Courts in Scotland, where the matters in dispute were thoroughly understood; and the weakness of the English verdict is that it has created a reductio ad absurdum which can only be got over by legislation. The verdict hits both parties, the victors and the vanquished, about equally, for the former are saddled with responsibilities which by no flight of the imagination could they even begin to discharge. Dr. Hodgkin's suggestion of a Suspensory Act corresponds with one I made in the Standard when the case was decided ; but amidst the general confusion which characterised the close of the Session, the matter must have been overlooked. That only makes legislation the more diffi- cult when the time comes ; but legislation there must be, unless the religious life of Scotland is to be paralysed by an impasse which it might take years to remove.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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