DEFINITIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 67, 10 June 1927, Page 8

DEFINITIONS

Sir,— “Reciprocity is Right” asks, if he were concerned with dividends, would he not be “writing books such as those of Jack London and Upton Sinclair”? The answer is, no; and the reason obvious. He suggests that “sympathetic understanding of the worker’s position” must necessarily follow a period of hard work and small pay His sojourn in the States might have been expected to eradicate such a fallacy. Did the hardships and privations suffered in youth and boasted about in old age render, say, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, of steel fame, “sympathetic” toward his workers? I would remind your correspondent that Carlyle, a literary genius, took liberties with the English language—and got away with it. Ordinary mortals deserting “accepted usage” to ape the eccentricities of genius, display only affectation and make themselves ridiculous. In a previous letter “Reciprocity is Right” was at pains to show that on the authority of Murray’s Dictionary even a “reprisal” constitutes reciprocity. Mow he is railing at what he calls “unreciprocal" tariffs. His “highbrow” use of the word seems to have evolved a monstrosity, namely “unreciprocal reciprocity.” 1 notice “Reciprocity is Right” makes no attempt to explain how his attitude on child slavery can be squared with Christian ethics. Therefore his diatribe anent “godless world revolution” coupled with further platitudes about treating others as thy treat us, w-ill continue to be taken cum grano salis. “RIGHT AMD RECIPROCITY." [This correspondence is now closed. —Ed. THE SUN-1