[To TER EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sre, -- It is gratifying to
see you raise your voice on behalf of a class who will be severely hit if this fifty-first clause of the National Insurance Scheme become law. I heartily endorse every word " Solicitor " has said in your issue of June 17th. It is scarcely credible that any advice could have been given or received by the Chancellor of so unjust a character, and it is also singular, as your correspondent remarks, that so little notice has been taken of it in opposition. It surely behoves the proprietors of weekly property to rise in their thousands and denounce this iniquitous proposal. Many who have in- vested savings in a small way in weekly rents are presumably no better off than their tenants, striving to make both ends meet, as it were. This, together with the increasing burden of rates and upkeep of such strictness as is now imposed, will be crushing to the smaller party, and, as you say, Sir, will tend to the raising of rents and to engender a chariness in accept- ing prospective tenants who would be likely to come under these conditions, and thus, in the end, militate against the tenant as well as his landlord, proving a curse to both rather than a blessing. To quote a passage of an able writer : "The State has no right to practise vicarious philanthropy at the expense of property owners." This clause would be opening the door to malingering with a vengeance, a thing Mr. Lloyd George seemed always anxious to avoid causing. I hear people who were loud in their admiration of him previously now rounding on him for a seeming want of a clear perception of what is fair between man and man.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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