The Question

On January 7 the magistrate of Clerkenwell Court was asked: “The railways are public property, aren’t they? ” and he gave the following answer:—

“The nationalised railways don’t belong to you and they don’t belong to me. They may belong to us—in a peculiar kind of way.”

Now, dear reader, if they do not belong to me and do not belong to you, it is obvious that they do not belong to the plural pronoun, us, just as the National Consolidated Debt does not belong to us.