LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
"PASSIVE RESISTANCE."
[To TIM ED1TOO. or rs. "SEIZOLLToR..1
Sin,—It was with the greatest pleasure that I read your com- ments in last week's Spectator on the letter addressed to the Premier by Lord Hugh Cecil and others on the subject of "passive resistance." You say quits truly that the logic of that letter, as against the Premier and all other sympathisers with " passive resistance," is unanswerable. But the writers of the letter should have let that very fact give them pause. No weapon can really be a good one that admits of being turned with such fatal effect against those that use it. The Nonconformists have scored a victory by its use ; but it has been done at the cost of leaving themselves absolutely defence- less against similar tactics on the part of their opponents. If the Church now makes use of the same ill weapon, she will possibly, nay probably, score a victory, but it will be at a cost that few really thoughtful persons would care to pay. But I would have the Church moved by higher considerations than a fear of results such as these. If any large section of Church opinion endorses the use of "passive resistance" at this time, I do not see how that most anarchical form of protest can fail to become a recognised weapon in political warfare in the future, than which nothing could be more fatal to public order. If, on the other hand, the Church as a whole refuses, even under. the proVocation of a most unjust Bill, to adopt such a method of resistance, I think we may well hope that "passive resistance" will stand discredited in the eyes of all respectable persons. And certainly there is no greater service that the Church could .do to the country than to bring into proper contempt a mode of protest that must, if it becomes general, strike at the very foundations of public order. I think that Mr. McKenna's Bill would justify "passive resistance" if anything could. What, then, could be more impressive, what attitude more worthy of the national Church, than to say: " Let us rather suffer ourselves to be defrauded than strike at the very foundations of law and government " P—I am, Sir, [We are in the heartiest possible agreement with the views so wisely and temperately expressed by our correspondent. The Church has a great opportunity for showing bow truly national she is by refusing, no matter how great the excuse, to adopt an anarchic attitude.—ED. Spectator.]
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