Sta,—Mr. Harold NicolsOn's story of the Devonshire shopkeeper, whose kindly
good nature was the cause of his committing an offence against the law of the land, will wring a pang from ,the hardest heart. But for once your contributor seems to have missed the main point of his own argument. For what distresses us in the incident he describes is not that an agent-provocateur of the Board of Trade was responsible for the shopkeeper's undoing, but that he appealed to that shopkeeper's finer instincts by representing himself as being in distress.
The agent-provocateur is, admittedly, uncongenial to the British tem- perament, but in existing conditions he performs a useful and necessary function, and a little reflection will show that his abolition would remove the last restraining-influence against the many opportunities for nefarious and profitable practices which war presents. For instance, it is doubtful in the extreme if "black market" activities could be kept in check without his intervention. To obtain their requirements, would-be pur- chasers in that market offer, either openly or by implication, inducements of higher prices or greater turnover, thus making a direct appeal to one of the baser human instincts—avarice. This inducement can be resisted either by the possession of a proper sense of social duty or—by the fear of being found out. And to nourish the latter reason for resistance to evil there can surely be no stronger force than our friend the agent- provocateur, whom Mr. Nicolson holds up to general execration.
It is therefore sincerely to be hoped that the Board of Trade will not rush into the precipitate action of disbanding a body of men whose services to the community are evidently of such high value. It is, however, necessary that they be re-established in that contemptuous tolerance by their fellow countrymen which is the best they either hope for or expect, to which end it is merely necessary that revised instruc- tions be issued to them requiring that, in the exercise of their duties, they appeal exclusively to the lowest instincts of the human race.
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