29 SEPTEMBER 1944, Page 13

GERMAN METHODS

sui,—Air. Graham Watson's letter seems to imply that honest hatred • is the best way of avoiding World War III. Hatred is an emotion which blinds as easily as love, with, as a rule, far more disastrous results.

Let us by all means hate cruelty and punish the perpetrators where it is proved, but the fresh air which Mr. Graham Watson so ferociously breathes is not the air most conducive to the making of a just and lasting peace. We should do well to remember the advice of Bernard Shaw's Inquisitor, "Anger is a bad counsellor: cast out anger. Pity is sometimes a worse: cast out pity. But do not cast out mercy. Remember only that justice comes first."—Yours, &c., 3 Bryanston Village, Blandford, Dorset. WILFRID COWLEY.