LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.]
"BE JUST AND FEAR NOT."
[To niz EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sia,—Should not Wolsey's counsel be a maxim for States as well ae for individuals f A State, according to the teaching of Holy Scripture, is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil. Too often this function is reversed by our present-day British Governments, and the acts of the State are such as to encourage the evildoers and to discourage " them that do well." You, Sir, have just spoken out in forcible terms about the laches or timidity of the Government in the face of defiant lawlessness in Ireland. The worst foes of Ireland are those who
will not deal out even-handed justice to her evildoers as to other such citizens of the United Kingdom. There is little hope of improvement in our relations with Ireland, and of real benefit to her, till we fearlessly speak the truth to her, and insist un- swervingly on the observance of the law, at the same time that we show an eager willingness to remedy any legitimate grievance that she may have.
What fine and friendly candour did Ruskin display in his address in Dublin in 1868 on "The Mystery of Life and its Arts "1— " I have seen," he said, "much of Irish character and hare watched it closely, for I have also mush loved it. And I think the form of failure to which it is most liable is this—that, being generous-hearted, and wholly intending always to do right, it does not attend to the external laws of right, but thinks it must necessarily do right because it means to do so, and therefore does wrong without finding it out.. . . Mind, I do not mean to say that, in past or present relations between Ireland and England, you have been wrong, and we right.... Nevertheless, in all dis- putes between States, though the stronger is nearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is often so in a minor degree; and I think we sometimes admit the possibility of our being in error, and you never do."
When our representative men of to-day show the same mingled courage and friendliness in treating with a "generous-hearted" people there will be some hope of our arriving at an under- standing with them. Anyhow, if we are determined to be fear- lessly just as well as sympathetically considerate towards them, things will come right in the long run.
The British State lags sadly behind some younger States in its performance of its reeponeibilities towards those of its citizens who are misguided or unpatriotic or lawless. For instance, the conscientious objector, sincere though he may be, as he refuses to give his assistance to the State in " executing wrath upon evildoers," forfeits his right to a share in directing the policy of the State. It is a matter of justice, therefore, that he should be disfranchised. The Canadian Government does disfranchise him. Why do not we ?
The American Government is beforehand with us in another matter of grave importance. It is notorious that numbers of quite young girls in all parts of the country are behaving in the most undisciplined and shameless way towards the soldiers. and the consequences to both are deplorable. The American Govern- ment has grasped this nettle at once by decreeing that no woman shall be admitted within five miles of the training-camps for American soldiers.—I am, Sir, &a,
W. L. Pexon Cox, Archdeacon of Chester.
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