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Otago Daily Times, Issue 23689, 22 December 1938, Page 17

in my statements, and yet evasive and deceptive; dreadfully bad company, and yet courteous and sincere; insincere, but well-meaning; kind, but callous; modest, but anxious for the adulation of hordes of feminine relations and friends; helpful, but not helpful; godlike, but shallow; a Capitalist, but not a Capitalist; and so on. Why a shy and gentle contributor should earn these descriptions must be regarded as a great mystery. It is doubtful whether any contemporary has been called so many names, which upon examination, proved to be remarkably contradictory. If my opponents, who are, presumably, members of the alleged intelligentsia, are not able to achieve some consistency or sense in their attacks upon an unimportant person, I submit that they fail pathetically to develop an intelligent appreciation of important affairs. Which is, indeed, true. A characteristic of Bolshevism is the shocking chaos it causes, not only to nations and institutions, but to the minds of individuals. We have even had the spectacle of a correspondent who muttered darkly about some sort of persecution in the dim and distant oast, seemingly as a justification for the Communist tactics of murder, torture and rapine. We have had the spectacle of another correspondent, Mr John Law. who talked mysteriously about Catholics who do not understand their belief, but, in spite of their alleged ignorance, manage miraculously to obtain skilled teachers. Why, being happy in their ignorance, should they have teachers at all? Mr Law neglected to reconcile his funny contention with the current insistence of the Catholic Church that Catholics, one and all, should apply themselves with unprecedented zeal to the more intensive study of their beliefs. We must allow Mr Law his whimsies. They are, at least, a source of mirth to every Catholic who notices them, but Catholics do feel sorry for critics with such peculiar ideas. „ Now, we come to Miss H. Gow, of Balclutha, who has not had a happy year. Miss Gow has visions of my poor self, seated like a sultan on a silken cushion, and entertaining the ladies of the harem with a breezy account of the controversy. Alas, this is not so. I am practically a hermit. My feminine relations are interested in Miss Gow only because of her affection for Bolshevism. They want to know why a member of a modern community should admire such an oldfashioned form of materialism as Communism. It was Gilbert Keith Chesterton who discussed Bolshevists as hopelessly antiquated and foolishly regarding themselves as modern They reminded him of that Victorian oddity he described as the Original Woman s Rights Woman, who dressed herself in bloomers and goggles, deliberately to make herself hideous. Miss Gow is obviously out-of-date in her amusing views. In conclusion, there is Mr E W Hunter, of the so-called Spanish Medical Aid Committee, with whom I hope to deal on an early occasion.— I am, etc.. nn Avila. Wellington, December 20.