CRIME AND THE POLICE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Although the Spectator has appeared to me for some time past to be tending to the left, it was with surprise that Tread the final paragraph in your article of August 15th, entitled "Crime and the Police." In that paragraph you say, "Not until there is an efficient organization for seeing that every man has proper employment at a living wage, a house to live in in which self-respect is possible, and the education which helps him to acquire that self-respect, will it be possible to bring about a serious decrease in crime."
Whether the material things -which you Mention would really do much either to increase self-respect or diminish crime is surely questionable, but in any case are you so well pleased with the results of the comparatively mild dose of Socialist medicine which the country has already taken, in the shape, among other things, of State-aided relief works and assisted housing, as to wish for a further application of the same remedies ? And do you think that the com- munity could even hope to provide work for every man and a living wage—however that is assessed—in payment for that work, unless at the same time its officials had the right to order its members to perform such tasks and at such times and places as in their judgment the State required ?
Or do you imagine that such provision for all is possible unless the State can regulate the right to marriage and, there- fore, to some extent the number and quality of the children for whom it is answerable ?—I am, Sir, &c., [We agree that no material comforts can be compared with the things of the spirit in promoting true happiness or the advance of true living. But the State, the Police, and even a lay newspaper must often be chary of encroaching on the spiritual side. We pictured a :Utopia and until it is reached the material suffering due to unemployment, slums, &c., must be fought, for, so long as they exist, they stifle the spirit.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
