To the Editor of Liberty:
Am I to understand from your article, A Sound Criticism, in No. 316 of Liberty, that you no longer adhere to the position you took up on p. 136 of Instead of a Book? Or do you consider that the latter position is in harmony with your latest utterance in a Sound Criticism? Personally I am driven to the conclusion that your latest opinions re the child question are antagonistic to the opinions expressed by you in Instead of a Book. For example, in answer to the question If a parent starves, tortures, or mutilates his child, thus actively aggressing upon it to its injury, is it just for other members of the group to interfere to prevent such aggression?
you said: If, instead of
Is it just?
he (the questioner) should ask, Is it Anarchistic policy
? I would make reply as follows: Yes.
And, again, in answer to the second question of the same series: If a parent neglects to provide food, shelter, and clothing for his child, thus neglecting the self-sacrifice implied by the second corollary of the law [would you say
you replied (with the proviso: guiding principle
?] of equal freedom, is it just for other members of the group to interfere to compel him so to provide?Is it Anarchistic policy?
): Yes, in sufficiently serious cases.
(Instead of a Book, pp. 134–6.)
Now, in No. 316 of Liberty, you say: I hasten to say that his (
At this point, I think, if I put the first sentence of the paragraph you quote from Mr. Fisher’s article in Personal Rights in an interrogative manner, it will be on all-fours with the question put to you in Instead of a Book, thus: H.’s
) main contention that parental control of children is too excellent, too useful, too obviously proper a thing to warrant the setting-up of a superior right of the community [or group?] in the premises, even in the interests of those who suffer (italics mine) from parental abuse of parental liberty, appeals to me as entirely sound.If a person, male or female, alleging parentage, beats, enslaves, or defrauds a child, has the Individualist [or group] a right to interfere?
Further, I cannot, in the meantime, agree with you when you say: The only question is: Who shall own him—the parent or the community?
and for the reason that I think that guardianship, not ownership is the real question at issue. In the article already referred to in No. 316 you hold: Till that day (of self-emancipation) he must remain in the category of the owned, and, as a matter of course, till that day he must have an owner.
I should like you to justify the must have an owner.
But admitting, for the time being, such ownership, another question presents itself to my mind. May the parent (I know you have a warm side to the mother in this matter)—that is, the owner—sell the child if he, or she, as the case may be, can find a purchaser? If not, why not?
I confess freely that I agree, rightly or wrongly, with Comrade Badcock when he says that in defending others against aggressors, we lessen the chances of being attacked ourselves,
and that any child must be allowed to accept such outside help whenever its own parents forfeit their position as guardians by neglect or cruelty. To deny such liberty to the child would be an aggression upon the child.
(Slaves to Duty, p. 20.) In conclusion, I take the opportunity of saying that I have endorsed and quoted as Anarchist policy your attitude in Instead of a Book, and, if I have wrongly charged you with contradicting yourself, I am prepared to take hte usual drubbing,—but with it the reasons annexed. My work here in Scotland, as you are aware, is of a pioneer character, so to speak, and I must, as far as possible, give chapter and verse for all that I advocate in the propagation of Anarchism.
Yours cordially,
William Gilmour
26 St. Claire St., Glasgow, July 31, 1895.