DRAWING LINES.
AREMARKABLE outcome of the present shortage of housing accommodation caught the eye of the present writer as he was glancing down the advertisement column of a newspaper. " To let," he read. " Vegetarians only ; 4 large unfurnished rooms, usual offices, newly decorated ; central heating ; electric light, telephone," &c. Never before did we hear of a landlord who laid down rules as to what his tenants should or should not eat. We know, alas ! that " the manage- ment " will often not allow children in blocks of flats and many others will not accept tenants who keep pets, but food restric- tions are surely entirely new. We never even heard of a house, flat, or apartment which was only rented to teetotalers, though in such a proviso there might conceivably be some sense, as a drunken tenant may always be a nuisance to his neighboUrs, and so bring down the worth of a property. But what harm can the meat- eater do more than the vegetarian to the walls of four " un- furnished rooms " or the kitchen and bathroom appertaining to them ? He cannot defile the cooking pots and pans with flesh and fish, for he must bring his own kitchen utensils and
take them away with him when he goes. The smell of cooking meat is disagreeable, but so is the smell of cooking cabbages and onions, and all cooking smells are soon blown away whether
they arise from meat or vegetables. Of course it is just possible that the whole building is inhabited by vegetarians, to each of
whom the smell of meat would be obnoxious and who would not like to run the risk of meeting the butcher on the stairs. This theory, however, is unlikely. We should judge the adver- tisement to refer to a sub-let. Probably the usual tenant of the four rooms has seized an opportunity to penalize his theo- retical opponents. Persons in a small minority are very apt to grasp at any chance of making their convictions felt.
Anyhow, we hope very much that this example will not be followed. With house-room at such a premium any one who has any accommodation to let can afford to indulge in any tyrannous fancy that comes into his head. He is sure to find some tenant who will submit, or make a pretence of submitting, to his ruling. The terror of house-hunting would be greatly increased if a fashion for such bigotry appeared among landlords. House advertisements may soon be headed " To Socialists only " or " To Anti-vaccinationists only." This, that and the other peculiar religious conviction may be insisted on, and Christian Scientists only bar the straight way which leads to lodgings.
So far it is only landlords belonging to the smaller cliques and groups who thus assert their right to be master in their own house. After they have let it no great harm is done : even the house-hunter will laugh when his first feeling of irrita- tion is over. But once let the orthodox majority copy them, and what an outcry there will be ! Suppose a landlord were to give out that he let to Conservatives only, would not every Socialist in the neighbourhood choke with rage ? Imagine a working man in the country being refused a cottage because he was a Par_ ticular Baptist or a Bible Christian or a member of any other small but honourable community—why, the Church of England would never hear the last of it !
Seriously, however, it is always fatally easy to ridicule the public assertion of unusual views. Would you be prepared, the
vegetarian might ask us, to let your house and home to no matter whom ? Would no consideration but that of the deteriora- tion of your property influence you in your choice of a tenant ?
Have you no belief in the power of " association " to create a gloomy atmosphere ? Is it not, when all is said, merely a ques- tion of where you " draw the line " ? It is very difficult to answer this argument. There is a great deal of difference between
the house one lives in and the house one merely owns when the matter of letting is concerned. A man certainly lays himself open to a charge of bigotry who boycotts for an opinion the buyer who would trade with him, but when his home is in question the matter is rather different. If a cannibal chief were sufficiently important to send a cannibal embassy to London there would be no competition among suitable householders to " put them up." It would be disagreeable to feel that they had lived in one's home. Persons responsible for great barbarity have some-
thing terribly repellent about them, and we suppose that our vegetarian considers that all meat-eaters incur this responsi-
bility. We should none of us like that our walls should harbour a great criminal even though none but ourselves knew of his crimes. lie would, we should feel in a very true sense, " darken our doors."
We have a vague recollection of having lately seen a sugges- tion that some disused prison or other should be " converted" into flats. Such flats would, we suppose, be filled because so many people at the present moment have literally nowhere to live. In times of disaster people will eat anything. In the same way any shelter will serve in a storm, but it seems to the present writer incredible that the inhabitants of the " converted " building should enjoy average happiness.
There is nothing in the world so difficult to argue about as where to " draw the line." To penalize opinion is to persecute, yet we are all prepared to penalize it to some extent. Very few people would have stood still to listen to an Englishman who, during the war, had seriously expressed an intense belief that the other side deserved to win. If such a man had been com- peting for a post his opinion would have been against him in the eyes of most men. They would have said that every man had a right to his convictions, but one " must draw the line somewhere." They would have meant that a moral question was involved. Again, every man has surely a right to do what he will with his own. Even here, however, one must say " within limits." Nobody nowadays acknowledges the right to withhold
corn from a starving world. The right to property does not carry with it a right to be cruel. There is, we suppose, somewhere a line to be drawn between intellectual and moral conviction, but it is difficult to know where. Each generation differs about its position, and sometimes one is tempted to believe that every conviction which men hold with any enthusiasm instantly becomes moral and therefore worth a sacrifice—often a vicarious one. Our vegetarian would say that it is wrong-doing, not liberty of thought, which he is so actively deprecating. In so arguing he would offend against the common sense of the majority. That, however, does not prove him mistaken, though it certainly makes him ridiculous. To this he would probably reply that the ridiculous depends upon the fashion of a day while right and wrong are eternal, and in so saying he would secure for himself the time-honoured consolation of the logic-monger—the last word.
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