SOCIALISM AND MARRIAGE.
[To THE Eiirrou or THE " ilezersroa."l
Bra,—Mr. Thomas Anderson, editor of the Bed Dawn, gives in your issue of .Faly 24th what purporbi to be a very frank, uncom- promising exposition of the Socialist programme. Both in the Spectator, however, and in the Scotsman, where he sometimes figures to the same effect, he contrives to be obscurant and non-committal on one primary matter. He has not told us what he means to do with the institution of Christian marriage. Vaguely to announce a wholesale renunciation of Christian ethics is not to satisfy one's craving for definite information on this crucial question, and it certainly disagrees with that precision and knock-down finality which Mr. Anderson's other pronouncements affect. Should this meet his eye I therefore suggest that, with that brevity and perspicuity of style of which he is master, he will settle this question for us. The ideal of Christian marriage which, with whatever deviations in practice, has solidly established itself over so large a part of the habitable world is one of the key difficulties of Socialism. If it is allowed to stand, private property, patriotism, and several other aversions of the Red Dawn will always tend to re-emerge. If Mr. Anderson's pro- posals on this head are of the same ripe revolutionary charac- ter with his other determinations, he should not lack courage to advertise them. If he is wobbly on the question, and thinks the discussion of it may be indefinitely adjourned, he shows a considerable leek of insight into the philosophy of the move- ment whicli he is exploiting.
In your editorial note to his letter you characterize his Socialist teaching as "pagan, selfish, and incoherent." The exponents of the cult may explain away the epithets " pagan " and "selfish," but I think they are to have some difficulty with " incoherent."—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN MCNEILACIE. Free Church Manse, Bower, Caithness.
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