EQUALITY.

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 12, 13 July 1918, Page 4

EQUALITY.

10 THE EDITOR. Sir, —I am obliged to "Anti-Cant" for his courteous and clear reply to my questions. If, in my statement of them, I attached, too much importance to the financial side of "equality," surely I was not erring more than "Anti-Cant" himself, for the tone of his fir6t two letters was distinctly financial. Moreover, the ultimate cause of his appearance in print was Mr. Beauchamp's protest against conscription of wealth. In taking ''First Debenture" to task, "x\nti-Cant" naturally laid himself open to the accusation that he was defending Mr. Beauchamp, and, may be, even now he has not cleared himself in many quarters, where his taking exception to the catch phrase "equality of sacrifice" may be attributed merely to his irritation at the particular application of it. ' I cordially agree with "Anti-Cant" when he says, "Perhaps the difference between myself and "First Debenture)" is that I try to see things as they are, and he as he thinks they ought to be. It is clear that he is prepared not only to see but to accept things as they are. Good Conservative (I am using the word not contemptuously, but with respect) that ho is, he can see nothing but danger in any attempt to change the present state of things, and with his knowledge of what, in ages past, similar phrases did in uprooting things as they were then, his whole soul trembles before this latest one—'equality of sacrifice.'

"Too many popular 'sayings suggest" (he says) "the possibility of equality in some way or other, and" inevitably lead to disappointment, culminating in envy and- malice," For instance, there was a popular saying of the late eighteenth century, "Liberte, Egalite, Fraiernite." What a ridiculous combination of irapoepossibilities! As if Liberty were at all possible in a world with a population of more than one, and in which not the least obstacle to perfect liberty of action is the law of gravity! As if Equaity—but hereon see "Anti-Cant"—and as for Fraternity, how can that be a living force apart from a certain very closo blood relationship? And yet that phraeo became the motto of a nation. It engendered feelings which, according to the dictum of "Anti-Cant," must have been injurious to those who felt them, and to those who experienced actions arising from them. There can bo no gainsaying this. The old regime.in France suffered some littlo •injury from the actions arising from these feelings, and not a few of the Revolutionaries found an early grave. Think, too, of its damnable effect on the modern world. It is our own adherence

to tho application in international affairs, of the policy deluded mankind has associated with this phrase that led us into this war. Fancy our ever being so foolish as to imagine, let alone to argue by force of arms, any question of equal, ity between two such nations as Ger-. many and Belgium, The- truth of the -matter is -that the political history of mankind is one long record of futile endeavour to remedy our primal inequality, and one rather 'notori •. ous political document recites, inter alia, that "Whereas all men are born equal." The very state of things as they are to. day, of which "Anti-Cant" is enamoured, is one result of this futile strugglo for equality, and there are some few misguided ones who- are not merely bent upon our own age's playing a part in this struggle, but who are so unkind as to Ba.y that, away back in the dim early days of mankind, and through theclas6ioand the middle ages, there was always the same voice crying, in the face of overy attempt to Ameliorate the lot of the imdor-man, the same old catch plirose, "From birth wo are unequal, and always must be," and that, the man behind the voice wa-s always "AntiCant," Of course, I do not range myself with thtse any more than I would accuse "Anti-Cant" of having used, in the early days of the war, the offensive catch phrase, "business as usual," or of being addicted to talking of "business methods-" or "efficiency," .or of harbouring n. halfsuppressed desire to cite, as a deterrent ■from equality-mongering, the case of a certain man, an inhabitant of Nazareth, who once upon a time suffered the extrome penalty of the law for preaching the pernicious doctrine.—l am, etc., ENLIGHTENED, (alias PERPLEXEDV 11th July.