GOVERNMENT BY NEWSPAPER.
WE went to press last week too early to comment upon the outrageous attack made by the Daily Mail upon Lord Kitchener. In condemning Lord Northcliffe for his action in this matter we find it difficult to show that restraint and moderation of language which the gravity of the situation demands. Though, in our opinion, the importance of the whole incident and the power of Lord Northcliffe to injure the Secretary for War or anybody else have been very much exaggerated, the attack deserves, and must receive, the severest reprobation. But while the Daily Mail thoroughly deserves all that has been said about its leading articles, there is real danger lest the national energy and national concentration required to array the nation for war and make good our shortage of ammunition should be wasted in the punishment of a peccant newspaper. The need of the hour is shells, not scapegoats. Here rests Lord Northcliffe's condemnation. But the proposition in a certain sense applies both ways. We must be careful while condemning Lord Northcliffe not to forget the shortage of shells. We must not drown our resolve to increase the output of munitions by over- indulgence in vituperation of his action.
That the Daily Mail and the rest of Lord Northcliffe's newspapers had a perfect right to insist that the need of the hour was more high-explosive shells, and to stimulate that demand by pointing out what the conse- quences of a shortage have been, we do not deny for a moment. We have ourselves repeatedly drawn attention to the need for more men and more munitions of war, and have urged the Government to face and make good the deficiency. But criticism of this kind, and that conveyed in the leading article in the Daily Mail of Friday week, are poles asunder. What we complain of is not so much what was said as the way in which it was said, and the intention to injure, and if possible destroy, the influence of a particular man—Lord Kitchener—which showed through the comparatively mild invective of the article. The manner of the attack remains absolutely inexcusable. It cannot be defended by any appeal to the merits of the question. It is idle to assert that there was no other way of drawing attention to the facts or of awakening the Government and the people. The shortage of high explosives might perfectly well have been insisted upon without the note of personal depreciation.
The manner in which the British public instantly seized on and recognized this truth was most striking. We do not doubt for a moment that the men at the Stock Exchange and in the Baltic rooms who made their sensational pro- test felt quite as strongly as the writer in the Daily Mail the gravity of the situation, and were determined to do everything in their power to set it right. They realized in a flash, however, that the right thing was being done in a way so wrong that they had no choice but to throw their weight into the other scale and support Lord Kitchener. That was and is our own feeling. There have been faults in Lord Kitchener's military administration, but in face of the personal attack upon him even the moat legitimate criticism must be absolutely silenced. The only wise course, the only patriotic course, at this moment is to drop all talk about Lord Kitchener's faults and to dwell only on his achievements. We can best illuetrate and emphasize w hat we mean by saying that though on the merits we last week criticized the form of his new appeal for men, an appeal which we thought was contrary to that scientific system of recruiting which we desire, though we spoke strongly about the shortage of high-explosive shells, and though we believe both those criticisms to be sound, not one word would have been said by us on these matters had the Daily Mail article appeared before we went to press. That we are not alone in this attitude, but represent the opinion of the better and saner portion of Lord Kitchener's critics, we are certain.
All Lord Northcliffe has done by his attack has been to rally the whole nation to Lord Kitchener and to place him upon a pinnacle above criticism—a position which we freely confess is in itself bad for any man, no matter how great his task or how high his merits. There is no need, however, to labour this point. Lord Northcliffe has given Lord Kitchener a blank cheque on the con& dance of the nation, and all we can now do, and all that we desire to do, is to ask Lord Kitchener to remember the tremendous extra weight of responsibility that has been placed upon him, as it always must be placed on a man who by some accident or other is put out of the reach of criticism, that antiseptic of conduct. It is not expedient for any of us to have blank cheques on the confidence of our fellows, and Lord Kitchener may well feel appalled at the thought of the position of power to which be has been raised by the utter collapse of his assailant.
It is unpleasant, nay, odious, at such a moment as this to assume what may look like the role of the school- master, but all the same we are going to assume it, and for good and sufficient reasons. In the first place, we would ask Lord Kitchener to spare his own back, and to remember that neither he nor any other man over created can carry more than a certain weight or do twenty-four hours' work in a single day. Even if he feels, as a man of his temperament is no doubt inclined to feel, that unless he does all the big jobs himself they will be badly done, he must school himself to entrust even some of the biggest of them to other men, and to be content to see things done even in what he may think not the best way rather than let them not be done at all—which is the actual alternative when a man tries to do more than it is physically possible for him to do. The other piece of advice which we venture to give Lord Kitchener is one which he will find it far easier to follow. We are pretty confident, indeed, that be has already of his own motion determined to follow it. This is to remember that as regards his own profession magnanimity should be his rule of conduct. That he will not bother his head with Lord Northcliffe and the personal side of the attack we do not doubt, but he must go further than that. He must resolve that he will banish from his mind any thought of who else may have been drawn into that attack, and not allow any differences or disputes upon which the attack may be said to have been parasitic to cloud his mind even for an instant. No doubt there will be all sorts of people, some interested and disingenuous, some merely foolish and angry, who will talk to him about plots and intrigues and conspiracies, and of the punishment and exposure which ought to fall upon all concerned in them. There will be urgent appeals to him to make examples, to teach people for the future, and all the rest of the babble of the political auction-room. From all such things Lord Kitchener must abstract his mind. That he will easily do so on purely personal grounds we fully admit ; but he must also remember to hold on this course when he is confronted with the far more dangerous and insidious plea that though be may wish to be magnanimous from the personal point of view, he must be vindictive on public grounds. That is an entire delusion. The magnanimity within his own profession of which we speak is required on public far more than on personal grounds.
The great thing is to get on with the work of saving the nation and destroying the Germans. But to say this is to leave no room for personal reprisals of any sort. We trust and believe that Lord Kitchener will have the wisdom to take the line that be who tries to look beyond the attack made upon him and to discover instigators, supporters, or auxili- aries of Lord Northcliffe will be doing an unpatriotic act. Lord Kitchener must insist, not merely for himself, but for all his subordinates, that there shall be a complete mom- torium in regard to all the incidents of the past week. We must make an absolutely fresh start with the National Government. Not only must the failings of the Government in the matter of high-explosive shells be forgotten and for- given in the new determination to make good. The sponge must also be passed over the slate in regard to the attack that failed. Incidents of this kind are not new in the world's history. The past is full of them. Let us draw Lord Kitchener's attention to what happened during the American War, and especially to that marvellous letter which Lincoln addressed to General Hooker when Hooker had been decoyed into something which appeared to be in the nature of an intrigue against the President and Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States. Here are the words which Lincoln addressed to Hooker. We do not, of course, suggest that they in any way fit the present case, but the spirit behind them is the spirit which Lord Kitchener must follow :—
" I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gala successes can
set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army of criticizing their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as for as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if ho were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and eleeplem vigilance go forward and give us victories."
We have headed this article " Government by News- paper," and if the country is wise it will make the chief lesson of the past week a determination not to be governed by newspapers. Though we are newspaper people, and not only intensely proud of our profession, but also clearly of opinion that an honest, a self-respecting, and a responsible publicity plays, and must play, a great part in the world, we have no doubt whatever that when newspapers attempt to usurp the function of govern- ment their claim must be sternly denied. Their function is to criticize, not to rule. But they must remember so to be critics as never to forget they are patriots. Milton said in the Areopagitica: "The State shall be my governors but not my critics." That was a profoundly wise saying. It keeps separate the functions of the State and the Press. We may say with equal truth : "The Press shag be my critics but not my governors." The fact that a man bas been a successful trader in newspapers and has made a great fortune by such trading does not by any means show that he has the instinct of statesmanship. In fact, we are inclined to think, with the writer of the Apocrypha, that just the reverse is the case, and that the man who makes much money—the mammoth trader— is almost sure to be a bad rather than a good adviser in the world of politics. The successful business men, the great money-makers, are not the men who are capable of rule "The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure and be that hath little business shall become arise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that deiveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullock/ P He giveth his mind to make furrows[ and is diligent to give the bins fodder. So every carpenter and workmaster, that laboureth night and day and they that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work The smith also sitting by the anvil, and considering the iron work, the vapour of the fire wasteth his flesh, and ho fi,ghteth with the heat of the furnace ; the noise of the hammer and the anvil is ever in his ears, and his eyes look still upon the pattern of the thing that he maketh; he setteth his mind to finials his work, and watcheth to polish it perfectly So doth the potter sitting at his work, and turning the wheel about with his feet, who is alway carefully set at his work, and maketh all his work by number He fashioneth the clay with his arm, and boweth down his strength before his feet ; he applieth himself to lead it over ; and he is diligent to make clean the furnace : All those trust to their hands and every one is wise in his work. Without these cannot a city be inhabited and they ehall not dwell where they will, nor go up and down: They shall not be sought for in publick counsel, nor sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit on the judges' seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment they cannot declare justice and judgment; and they shall not be found where parables are spoken. Bat they will maintain the state of the world, and [all] their desire is in the work of their craft."
But though we have condemned, and shall continue to condemn, Lord Northcliffe for his attack on Lord Kitchener, we cannot in justice refrain from pointing out that our leading statesmen and our chief rulers are themselves largely to blame for Lord Northcliffe's attempt to usurp power—an attempt foiled not by the Government but by the good sense of the nation. During the past two or three years there has been far too much abuse of Lord Northcliffe behind his back and of kow-towing to him before his face. The men who have abused him in secret have too often done their best to curry favour with him and his newspapers. Let us trust that a position so unsound has now been brought to an end, and that in future we shall get a whole- comer attitude from public men towards the Press.
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