19 APRIL 1913, Page 12

THE MARCONI CASE.

[TO TIM EDITOR Or TRU "SrscrATon..-1 SIR,—The aeutest symptom of the mischief underlying the Marconi scandal seems to have hitherto escaped notice. It is not that Ministers have been guilty of want of delicacy ; that is not so unusual in a democracy. It is not that libellous charges have been made; in that case the injured have their remedy. Had Ministers been guilty of actual corruption it would not have been so serious; in that case the country would have its remedy. The evil is both deeper and more diffused. It is that the country has come to think so lightly of the honour of its public men that it lends a ready ear to the accusations, innuendoes, and hints that have been in the air for so long. It seems to feel that they are the stamp of men of whom such things are to be expected. Surely it would be easy, even now that payment of members has tarnished so many seutcheons, to form in imagination a Cabinet of living politicians in regard to whom such charges would recoil with ridicule upon the heads of their framers. This has been so in the past : that it should be so no longer is, I submit, far more deplorable than any isolated case of corruption would be, however gross.—I 17 &mile .Row, Landon, W.