THE RESEARCH DEFENCE SOCIETY'S BOOK. [To nix ExProx. of TIER
"SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Is it not somewhat captious ou the part of you! paper this week to call attention to the discrepancy between the pro- and anti-betting attitude of the Cadbury papers when On pp. 798.9 you give a. sympathetic notice to a. Research Defence Society book, and on the top of p. 808, in the same number, publish a notice about the "Society for Abolition of Vivisection" I Surely the small amount received for that advertisement could well have been drawn from one of the doubtless many other advertisers waiting to get their notices into your paper, or• even dispensed with, for consistency's
(Member of Research Defence Society, M.A.B.C.) New University Club, St. James's Street, S.W.
[We publish the advertisement of " The Society for Aboli- tion of Vivisection," not because of its pecuniary value and not because wo are careless whether we speak with two voices, but because we are most anxious not to censor or boycott honest opinion which is contrary to our view—provided, of course, that the advertisement is not malum in se. We could not refuse to review a book because it was, in our opinion, demoralizing, yet allow its advertisement to appear in our columns. Those columns, however, will never be closed to honestly preferred and properly expressed challenges of the Spectator view. We should have thought that the policy of hearing the other side, which we consistently pursue in our correspondence columns, would have shown our corre- spondent that we should not dream of refusing the adver- tisements of honest opponents, however mistaken we might deem them, provided they were neither libellous nor scan- dalous in the expression. We wish we could make people understand that because we hold a view strongly we do not therefore think that all who hold the opposite are necessarily scoundrels, and ought to be refused a hearing—ED. Spectator.]
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