A LIVELY QUARREL

Southland Times, Issue 20012, 28 October 1926, Page 8

A LIVELY QUARREL

SHAW AND SOCIALISTS VALUE OF WAR STOCK. H. G. WELLS TAKES A HAND. London, August 24. A lively quarrel, adorned with some piquant personalities, has developed between Mr. George Bernard Shaw and the Socialist daily newspaper. In a recent article in a financial newspaper Mr. Shaw said: “The British Government has, by inflation, practically repudiated half the war loan. The Socialist organ described the article as “sheer nonsense,” and “one of the most sardonic and successful leg-pulls of his long career.” Mr. Shaw retaliated with characteristic vigour, declaring:—“l am accused of gross professional misconduct as a journalist in having, it is alleged, hoaxed the editor of a financial newspaper with a spoof article on the French franc. Your expert says ‘those who bought war loan have their property increased by 85 per cent. Well, I bought war loan as an original subscriber. Careless as I am about such matters, I think I should have noticed it if I had become so much richer.” “Mr. Shaw’s unlucky speculation” is the headline giveh to the leading article in which the Socialist newspaper retaliates. ' POVERTY OF KNOWLEDGE. Mr. Shaw has departed for Italy, and Mr. H. G. Wells has now entered the lists on his behalf with a slashing letter to the Socialist newspaper. “I think I have rarely seen anything more stupid and ungracious in the way of headlines,” writes Mr. Wells, “than those which you put to your ‘leader to-day. You try to present Shaw as a greedy war speculator, you pretend he is whining about his own monetary loss, and you cover your poverty of knowledge and thought in dismal allusions to the millions who lost their lives. What have the millions who lost their lives to do with the fact that your financial expert did not know what he was writing about “IGNORANT BOSH.” “He talked ignorant bosh about the war loan stock being doubled in value by deflation, and Shaw has exploded him by a personal instance. Insulting Shaw will not alter that. “Many of your readers would not be Socialists to-day were it not for work he did before they were born. And yet he cannot reply to blazing nonsense about himself in your columns without getting the prompt wad of mud ‘from the workers’ point of view.” The editor of the Daily Herald, attributing Mr. Well’s outburst to the thundery weather, declared that the “blazing nonsense” of their leading article was a repetition of statements frequently made by Mr. Snowden, and adds:—“Our readers must decide which to accept as an authority on problems of finance—writers of popular fiction or an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer.” Mr. Wells returns to the attack with the following letter in the Daily Herald:— “Your controversial methods are as honest as your manners to Shaw are pretty. I said he had confuted the blazing nonsense your ‘expert’ wrote about deflation doubling the value of war loan stock. That was the poin.t at issue. Mr. Snowden cannot possibly have said anything to sustain so ridiculous a proportion, and there is neither sense nor honesty in your attempt to transfer the application of ‘blazing nonsense’ from yourself to him. The blazing nonsense was the Daily Herald’s own. Naturally enough you call me —almost automatically —‘a writer of popular fiction.’ So I get my wad of mud too. I have written other things than fiction, and some have been of service to the Socialist cause, but a writer of your quality would rather die than recognise that. And naturally you try to make yourself and your readers believe I am setting up as an ‘authority on problems of finance’ when I am simply commenting on your ungracious manners, your mental dullness, your tricky irrelevance, and your ingratitude to Shaw,”