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.]
THE MESOPOTAMIAN REPORT.
[To Tee EDITOR or TER " SPECTATOR:1 cannot help saying how heartily I agree with your note about the reception which has been accorded by the Press and the public to the Report of the Mesopotamian Commission. I do not want to enter into any discussion on the merits of the findings of that Report, of which I am one of the signatories; but it is obvious that the Government, Parliament, and the public ought to receive the Report in a spirit not less judicial than that which (as I hope) inspired the Report itself. A bowl for indiscriminate punishment will not encourage Commissions in future to attempt s candid and unreserved statement of the truth. If, when a jury found • verdict of guilty against an offender, the galleries of the Court burst into a loud and vindictive outcry, shrieking "Hang him!" "Punish him!" "Flog him!" and the like, the administra lion of justice would be hindered in many ways, and not least by preventing juries finding verdicts according to the evidence. If • draught from the well of truth makes the public fighting-drunk, those in authority will be inclined to think it best to keep that well firmly scaled down in future.—I am, Sir, Ac., Bran CECIL.
20 Arlington Street, S.W. 1.
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