IDENTITY CARDS
Stii,—It is odd that Janus should have so limited a conception of our liberties. The possibility of getting into difficulties is one of the penalties and privileges of being an adult human being. But Janus favours the continuation of the system of identity cards after the war in order to simplify life for people who call for letters at a poste restante, or who want to cash a cheque at a strange bank, or who, having left their season-tickets at home, wish to satisfy the ticket-collector, or who find themselves in one of " a dozen other emergencies " That Janus should describe such mishaps as " emergencies." goes to show how circumscription of liberty evokes a demand for a continuation of such circumscription. Before the war, when we had no identity cards, each one of us could handle such little troubles as cheques, season- tickets and postes restantes ; and, if the retention of these cards is being advocated simply for the convenience of inept persons who cannot look after their own simple needs, the case is indeed a poor one.
Liberty must be both positive and negative: there must be things we can and should do for ourselves, such as making our own arrangements for ordinary foreseeable eventualities ; and there must be things that, by choice, we can refrain from, such as carrying identity cards. We have the right to reject the claims of an elected parliament to take the place of our doubtless well-meaning, but stupidly fussy, grandmothers.
The possibility of identity cards being the means by which a govern- mien( could attack our democratic mode of life needs to be realised, as does the expense of employing many clerks and higher officials to keep the National Register up to date and to pursue those people who fail to
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