WELSHMEN AND BUDGETS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR, I am really sorry to charge Dr. Rouse (Spectator, December 31st, 1910) with yet another shortcoming, but surely so lamentably to lack a sense of humour should be a serious drawback to one dealing so intimately with intelligent and high-spirited youths. Had the Chancellor in his speech referring to " hen-roosts " used another metaphor and said, " I must look round for other barrels to tap," he, I presume, would hesitate to accuse him of being a besotted wine-bibber ! I am genuinely sorry for Dr. Rouse, and not a. little perturbed on his account, for clearly, in company with many other estimable men, he is suffering from the modern and unpleasant ailment " Georgitis " in an advanced stage. Ugly symptoms of the pernicious malady manifested themselves even at the Head-Masters' Conference, whereat—either by way of justify- ing the Times allegation that the whole discussion at this Conference " showed a lack of breadth and foresight" (December 24th, 1910), or by way of antidote to a regrettable predisposition to take a gloomy views of things which the afore-mentioned article specifically charges him with, or it may be by way of infusing some gaiety into the deadly-dull proceedings—Dr. Rouse thought proper to gibe at the Chancellor in a feeble way. Whatever the aetiology of this complaint may be, it has assumed in his case a condition of ethical indigestion which, for Dr. Rouse's -sake and for the sake of the school over which he so efficiently presides, I hope will quickly disappear. I hope on reflection Dr. Rouse, as an ardent Unionist, will also see that it hardly helps the cause of Unionism to traduce the oldest and the parent race of those that go to make up a polyglot nation like ours ; in any event, I must ask him to forgive me if I strenuously assert that it ill becomes a section of our nation who, we find in the dawn of history, were nothing more than a band of pirates, to traduce and defame the older race from whom they have stolen every inch of land they now possess. Should Dr. Rouse prosecute his historical studies and make an incursion into another language, coeval with his beloved Greek, he will find that centuries before the birth of English literature the nation he tries to disparage had a language and literature of its own ; and that literature is highly appreciated to-day by every cultured nation, but is almost a sealed book to the more material Saxon ; he will there find literary gems in which more or less flattering references to his nation and their origin is mainly the theme !
Let me say in conclusion that I never intended my letter to be " an offensive defence of Mr. Lloyd George," but it certainly was intended to be a spirited defence of a gallant people, of which probably Dr. Rouse will allow Mr. Lloyd George to be not altogether an undis- tinguished member. But whatever I intended my letter to be, I am sorry, Sir, that you and Mr. Ernest Lesser should have thought it of an anti-Jew tone and temper. I am no hater of Jews as a race,—I am proud to count many amongst my warmest friends. Some of the most honoured and honourable and brilliant leaders in the world of politics and finance to-day belong to that ancient race ; still, we have excellent authority for saying that "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly." The Jew I object to is the person of that race who by the sheer dynamic of vulgar wealth corrupts in a thousand ways the society he forces himself upon, and who uses the power of the Press to create a public opinion for his own selfish ends.
Having made my protest, I now leave the "desert sands of controversy," and doing so, must thank you, Sir, for the courtesy of your valued space.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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