To the Editor of the “Pall Mall Gazette”

Sir,—I read your Gazette so attentively that I am always falling into arrears, and have only to-day arrived at your last week's articles on strikes, arbitration, etc., which afford me the greatest satisfaction, but nevertheless embarrass me somewhat. Will you permit me to ask for a word or two of further elucidation?

I am an entirely selfish person, and having the means of indulging myself (in moderation), should, I believe, have led a comfortable life had it not been for occasional fits and twinges of conscience, to which I inherit some family predisposition, and from which I suffer great uneasiness in cloudy weather. Articles like yours of Wednesday, on the proper attention to one's own interests, are very comforting and helpful to me; but, as I said, there are yet some points in them I do not understand.

Of course it is right to arrange all one's business with reference to one's own interest; but what will the practical difference be ultimately between such arrangement and the old and simple conscientious one? In those bygone days, I remember, one endeavoured, with such rough estimate as could be quickly made, to give one's Roland for one's Oliver; if a man did you a service, you tried in return to do as much for him; if he broke your head, you broke his, shook hands, and were both the better for it.