A LETTER AND ITS SEQUEL
Sta,—A short time ago you published a letter of mine, in which I made a protest against the attempt to represent the Germans as having been, to a special degree, an aggressive nation throughout the ages. This letter has had a curious sequel. A little time after it appeared I received, at the address printed on the letter, two or three cyclostyled pages of violent propaganda against our war effort and in condonation of the doings of the German Government. There was no name or address on this document; nor any indication of its provenance, except that the envelope was postmarked from Buxton. I suppose that the simple-minded conspirators who sent it imagined that, because I objected to what seemed to me the cruder forms of anti-German pro- paganda, I must therefore be susceptible to still cruder pro-German propaganda. As they evidently read The Spectator, perhaps I may be allowed to assure them through your columns that this is not so, and that such obvious sophistries as they have treated me to are not likely to have the slightest effect on my views. If the document had been signed, I might have thought it worth while trying to answer it. At any rate, it might have been regarded as an honest, if mistaken, statement of views. But the anonymous circulation of propaganda of this kind is difficult to reconcile with honesty of intention, and I have forwarded the document for the consideration of a higher authority.—
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