Correspondence
THE YOUNGER POINT OF VIEW [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—I do not intend to take up Mr. Hamilton's idea of Public School reform, in the issue of the Spectator for June 30th, as he hoped someone would do, but I do want to lodge a protest against the order in which he puts Education and Housing.
" If you educate the people will not other reforms follow naturally ? " he says. And that sounds well enough. Certainly they will follow. But education means education of the young, and before we can reap the fruits of educational reform we shall be overwhelmed by the present evils which he puts lightly on one side. If we cannot ensure international peace another war may reduce our civilization to savagery ; and if we cannot get our people out of their insanitary houses our national stock will degenerate and fall even lower than the C3 class in which we find it to-day. We simply cannot afford any longer to nurse disease And vice and degradation. In so far as their breeding-places can be reduced by slum clearance and housing schemes they are a shame and a reproach to our patriotism.
No doubt our schools and Universities could be improved, but they are still functioning, and one might even say they are doing their work remarkably well. On the other hand the supply of suitable homes for the people of this island has literally broken down. In this city to-day (Glasgow) thousands of people arc preparing to spend the night in houses unfit for human habitation. And all over Scotland farm workers are living in cottages which are most unhealthy and often not even weatherproof. I feel sure that Mr. Hamilton, if he really knew the conditions under which so many of his fellow-countrymen are forced to live, would be among the first to cry out against them as the greatest danger and most shameful reproach of our time.
" Our task," said Mr. Baldwin recently, " is to make the country safe for democracy." (I quote Mr. Hamilton.) And no country can be safe for democracy until it is possible for every one of its citizens to make a decent home for his wife and children. Good homes are even more urgently required by the nation than good schools and they should be seen to first. The success of slum clearance schemes has shown that if good houses are there good homes will be made in them by people who have given up trying in the old conditions. It is not education but houses that are lacking.
Mr. Hamilton is treating his politics in too academic a fashion. I am afraid that sleepy old Oxford has cast her spell over him. It is difficult for us who are comfortable and " educated " to understand the feelings of the less privileged, but we must try, if we are to continue to lead this democratic nation. I can assure Mr. Hamilton that in this land of his fathers, if not in England, " the country " does not look to the products of " public " schools for help, and I doubt if it ever did. It will take help where it can best be found, but the help it wants first is in dealing with practical problems that prets upon its everyday life.
To many of the beat of those who are " up against it " there is only one promise of better things—Socialism. It is not by academic reasoning that we can show them that that is a " will-o'-the-wisp." We can gain their support and their confidence only by tackling these most pressing problems and doing something to lighten their burden. But first we must understand. Mr. Baldwin does. I do not know where he got his understanding. I cannot suggest any other way than personal, man-to-man acquaintance. That is always difficult, but it never was needed more than to-day. And I can assure anyone who has no personal acquaintance with members of the " depressed" classes that he has much more to learn from them than they from him.
To every Unionist who cannot understand the Socialist appeal to the masses I recommend, not Karl Marx, but Joe Corrie, a Fife miner. A collection of his verses has just been published in Glasgow (The Image o' God, and Other Poems.
The Forward Publishing Co. is.). To such a man life is a grim hell and Socialism the only hope of change. No one can wonder at his unreasonableness. One can only
marvel at the restraint and philosophy of his outlook on life.
" Crawlin' aboot like a snail in the mud, Covered wi' clammy biae, Me, made after the image o' God- Jings ! but it's laughable tae."
And yet we find people advocating the reform of the " public "
schools as the most urgent question before the country ! Can we wonder when people tell us that the Tories have
n2ither hearts nor imagination am, Sir, Az.,
Glasgow. ANDREW HADDON.
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