THE SINAI CODEX
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sra,—Your correspondent, Mr. Bakhurst, who criticizes your editorial comment and questions the wisdom of the Government's conditional contribution of £50,000 towards the purchase price of the Codex Sinaiticus falls into line with that weird and wonderful assortment of letter writers who, in the columns of the stunt Press are fulminating against this expenditure.
Like them he suggests that the sum in question should be used to relieve unemployment or to lighten taxation. This misguided philanthropy—it is not practicable to call it a line of thought—is a vivid reminder of a parallel delusion exploded by Uncle Dick's philosophy in that delightful Phillpotts play Yellow Sands.
Joe Varwell, your readers may recall, was a Socialist of extreme views who unexpectedly inherited 14,000. Conscious of a million unemployed, he thought he would confer a great boon upon them by distributing his legacy among the million. His hard-headed Uncle Dick then attempts to reason the matter out with him. By a laborious process of arithmetic he shows that " you command a regiment of nine hundred and sixty thousand pennies—so there you are Joe ! Hand over your legacy to the out-of-works, and there'll be just about enough to give the poor heroes a box of matches all round. Matches, but no tobacco Joe. And what are matches without 'baccy ? " Joe is amazed.
Today there are, in round figures, 2,250,000 unemployed ; £50,000 distributed among this number would purchase more than one box of matches each, but not one of the packets of the more widely advertised brands of cigarettes and certainly not a week's supply of those popular newspapers which are as short-sighted as Joe Varwell. The £50,000 spread by way of relief over the three and three-quarter million income tax payers would confer an even smaller boon On the other hand, for a Government contribution of 150,000, supplemented by a like amount from private subscribers, we can secure one of the very greatest treasures in the whole world of scholarship, and above all, in Christen- dom.—I am, Sir, &c., HAROLD BELLIIAT.q. Tree Tops, Finchley, Middlesex.
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