THE ELGIN MARBLES
[To the.Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Can you find room for a few lines of protest from one of an older and less enlightened generation against the proposals for returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece ?
• We came by them in a perfectly legitimate way. It would seem to be a wholesome rule of the world that when people have precious things to guard and do not guard them, the trust should pass into other hands. So it has been here. If the title deeds of all our possessions—and other people's too—are to be narrowly looked into, the shifting will not stop short with the Elgin Marbles. Every nation in Europe owns treasures, which once belonged to someone else. And if, as is sometimes said, they are a world possession,* the world will have a better chance of seeing them in London than in Athens, "The appetite grows with eating." If the sentimental altruists get their way, I have xio doubt that we shall presently be faced with the demand to give back Gibraltar to Spain, and probably the Cape to theDutch.
To the less exalted the-whole thing seems, if the expression
may be pardoned, a piece of cant and humbug.—I am, Sir, [We have already given reasons why the Elgin Marbles should be returned to Greece. We admit there is much to be said on the other side, but nevertheless we adhere to our opinion ; what the world needs more than anything is altruism. In external and internal politics the chief hope of the future lies in the substitution of the law of "might is right" by the rule of justice.—En. Spectator.]
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