• A PRIVATE'S VIEWS.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.")
Stn,—I notice in the Spectator's columns that the Wesleyans are scheming to utilize the gifts of our wounded soldiers and sailors in the ministerial paths. Excellent, and why not Chapel Royal, cathedral choirs, &e., on the same lines? Your comments, too, on Beer are excellent; either the Government has overdone the shortage of grain problem or lacks courage. It can surely never be that the community is not willing to make a sacrifice, even of its national beverage, to the confounding of the enemy t "Lieut.- Colonel," again (and others), on social harmony might note that, recently, a chaplain tried to console a Tommy with a legitimate grievance by the suggestion that he did wrong to argue with his "superiors and betters"! So it is with all classes. Neither side must defend their rights, but trust to evolution. No Moses must
lead the people. Be it forbidden that I should advocate strife, but, much as I hope and believe good can coma out of the war, I do not trust the fussing over "Tommy and Jack" as a social barometer. It is the individual man and woman that must be changed to the leavening of the social whole. Men are pretty much the same once they get anything like back to contemplating civilian life again. It will, I fear, be " mr," rather than "not yours, not mine, but ours," unless our leaders can visualize an ideal of commonweal quite out of keeping with my chaplain friend's ideas of good order and social discipline, which practically spell sterile servility towards all and sundry who have " office" rather than the gift of leadership or judicial capacity. Pardon this scrawl, Sir. And, by the way, do you know that Tummy's facetiousness has even dubbed the Spectator with the trench name or dug-out sobriquet the Speckled-Taterl—Trusting that the Food Controller will not come down on readers for holding such
treasure minus licence, I am, Sir, de., Munn: (B.E.F.). [We vastly prefer Speckled-Tater to Speculator, a corruption of which we have also heard rumours. We trust there is no Speckled- Tater shortage in the trenches.—En. Spectator.]
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