A resident in West London sends me a package of
seven letters which arrived by the same post addresed to persons supposed to be occupiers of the house where he lives ; actually none of them has lived there for years. The senders are Vernon's Pools, Limited, and the contents are what might be expected. Waste of the postage matters to no one but Vernon's Pools, Limited, and no doubt they can well afford it. But waste of paper is another matter, and my correspondent asks with justice how long this sort of thing is to go on while his children cannot get the books they urgently need at school. On the same day I read in The Times a letter from an Eton master demonstrating how the whole work of schools is frus- trated by inability to get text-books. On the same day, too, I read in Hansard Sir Stafford Cripps' terse " No, Sir," to a question whether he would reduce the unnecessary consumption of paper by the Government and increase the allowance to the Press. Discrimination in the allocation of paper is, of course, difficult There is, I believe, some differentiation in favour of educational books, and it ought to be greater. It ought, moreover, to be made at the expense
of the publishers of rubbish. But rubbish is hard to define, though most people know it when they see it. I suppose, therefore, it would have to be at the general expense. Better that by a long way than the handicap which the present situation imposes on the schools. * * * *
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