A SPECTATOR
'S NOTEBOOK THE Press has critics enough at the moment, and I have no desire to lend them much support. But one or two recent manifesta- tions call rather imperatively for comment. In his book on Spain published this week Lord Templewood includes some appreciative passages on Lord Beaverbrook. The Evening Standard, faithful to the rule of boosting proprietors wherever possible, reproduces them in full. This is one of the Press's worst habits, and it is by no means confined to Lord Beaverbrook's papers, though they are, I think, the worst offenders. If what Lord Templewood said about Lord Beaverbrook was of general importance other papers would have quoted it ; if it was not, it would better befit Lord Beaverbrook's papers not to. At the same time something else this week compels strange reflections. I read in a penny paper a fairly full report of the astonishing case in which a Wiltshire farmer secured £5oo damages for libel from the chairman of the local War Agricultural Committee, whom the Ministry of Agriculture had promised in advance to indemnify—an action on which, together with other features of the case, the Judge made more scathing remarks than have been heard from the Bench for some time. Turning to The Times for the full and authoritative report which the paper habitually publishes in legal cases of importance, I found—fourteen lines in an obscure corner of the paper. Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express, it is fair to add, reported Mr. Justice Atkinson's trenchant judgement to the extent of nearly a column_
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