26 NOVEMBER 1943, Page 12

SIR,—I am indeed sorry that my hypothetical -savage—poor fellow, he

was really more a child of Hobbes than of history—so provoked the Earl of Mansfield.

Otherwise he might have persevered to the concluding sentence of my article, which advocated a positive conception of freedom " in which the purpose of State control and the guiding principle of its application is the achievement of true freedom." Surely this does not regard con- trols as " desirable in themselves "? Or would the Earl of Mansfield say that a visit to the dentist is "desirable in itself " because it leads to