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New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 125, 14 November 1941, Page 4

Sir,-All of us are strongly tempted to dismiss the opinions of our opponents as those of fools, But in our better moments we know that to call a man a fool is not to answer him. You publish in The Listener of October 31 an article from The Economist which describes Captain Ramsay as "a complete fool." Your own editorial supports The Economist. Yet neither The Economist nor you adduce evidence to prove that he is a fool. The evidence does prove that he holds ideas that are hated at present by the great majority of Englishmen. But those ideas need to be shown wrong by argument, and cannot be so shown by mere abuse, The dictionary tells me that a fool is "a silly person, simpleton, person whose conduct one disapproves of." You have proved that Captain Ramsay is a fool in the last sense of the word, but not in the commonly accepted sense in which you doubtless intended the word to be taken. The Economist suggests that he was a fool because he did not "keep his mouth shut." Yet Mr. Fraser has recently advised us that now is the time to speak the truth as we see it. If Captain Ramsay is a "complete fool," that is to say, a silly person or a simpleton, why has the British Government troubled to lock him up in Brixton Gaol? If you had been content to show that Captain Ramsay held wrong, unreasonable, and unpopular opinions, I would not have had any protest to make. But I do protest against what seems to me to be a departure from your usual standards of liberality in controversy. Captain Ramsay may be wicked, he may for all I know be a fool, but you have not proved him a fool by just saying he is one.

FEEBLE-MINDED

(Christchurch),

(Aren’t we all?--Ed.)