LESSONS OF HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 23, 27 July 1934, Page 8

LESSONS OF HISTORY

(To the Editor.)

Shy—At the meeting of the Navy League, as reported in "The Post," one speaker, Mr. Callaii, in a part of his address,, made a statement which I contend is inaccurate. He said: "But do not let us keep from our children one great lesson that is to be learned from history. That is- this: that the comfortless have ever been ready to despoil :'tho' comfortable,: and have' habitually'done whenever -and -whereever"they_were strong enough; that the hungry wOl not remain; hungry in sight of any food of the well-fed which they are strong'enough to take; that human nature being as it is, glaring inequali ties of possessions have, caused strife ian_d will cause it again." Well, pos sibly Mr. Caillaa may possess some exclusive historical knowledge, but I sug gest that the ordinary person:who has read history, and in particular' English history, is not aware of the alleged predatory propensities of the;' ' comfort less to habitually • despoil whenever and wherever they were strong enough; but 'rather the fact of tie common people humbly and dutifully "knowing their: place" has excited- the wonder Vof Historians. Just one comment from thte-historian, David Hume:' "Nothing is- more, surprising to those who ccjnsideiyhuniaii affairs with: a philosophic eye than the easiness with which the many aro governed by the few, 'and the implicit submission with which men resign 'their own sontiinents and passipns to vthosb of their rulers.'' '!.

I wonder if Mr. Callan has read about various Enclosure Acts passed in England which ousted, the people from their centuries? old rights to use tho "common" or waste lands of rural England. On the subject of property rights in England, Mr. David Lloyd George has occasionally adverted to this, and doubtless many will remember some of his very pungent references on the question of titlos, or the absence of titles, of lands in the possession of people not df the "comfortless" class. —lam, etc.,

OBSERVES.