The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical EditionVol. 3: Literature, Politics, Belief, 1927-1929

Censorship. To the Editor of Time and Tide

Time and Tide, 9 (23 Nov 1928) 1131

Sir, – I have read with great interest Mr. Bernard Shaw’s article on the Irish Censorship in your issue of November 16th. ² After this article and that of Mr. W. B. Yeats in The Spectator, it seems that there is little more to be said. ³ Yet I am tempted to write, both because it is a rare pleasure for me to find myself in almost complete agreement with anyone so eminent as Mr. Shaw, and because I feel that this is a subject upon which every man who writes or thinks (or both) ought to speak his mind.

It pleases me to find that opinions which I have expressed elsewhere coincide with those of Mr. Shaw. It is important to recognise that this outburst of Puritanism in Southern Ireland will injure the Catholic Church in the opinion of Englishmen. It may not be important, but it is interesting to me personally, to find myself agreed with Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Yeats, against the powers of Ulster, and of Dublin, and against the author of a book entitled The Prayer Book Crisis. ⁴

Yours, etc., t. s. eliot the monthly criterion, 21, russell square, w .c.1.