He carried his reticence beyond even professional knowledge. For example, he regarded what was said in a club smoking-room as said under the seal of secrecy, and nothing would induce him to repeat what he had heard. Strangely enough, he was a member of the Garrick Club, and I remember him once mentioning that Thackeray used to hold forth in the smoking-room to all present. Naturally I thought that he would be willing to describe some of these talks, for they had obviously made a great impression on him. He, however, was adamant in this matter. When people talked in club-rooms, he argued, they ought to have the feeling that it was like talking in their own house and to their own family. For him Clubs were "tiled" houses.
I think, myself, that he went too far here; but certainly he was erring on the right side. At the present moment the habit of certain lawyers, doctors, and businessmen, to discuss the private affairs of their clients and customers in public is much too common. No doubt most of them are careful to use a good deal of camouflage and to tell their stories as "A" "B" cases, without mentioning names. But that is not always successful. Chance and the impishness of coincidence will very often enable one to discover the most carefully camouflaged secret. I remember, as a young man, coming across an instance of this kind which very much struck me. It happened that the barrister in whose chambers I was a pupil said, very properly, to me on the first day that he supposed I understood that whatever I saw in papers in chambers must be regarded as strictly confidential. It might, he said, happen that I should see things of a highly confidential nature about someone whom I knew in Society; and he went on to tell a story of how, when he was young, two young barristers or students came across a set of papers in which two young ladies, sisters, who happened to be acquaintances of these young men, were mentioned as having a reversionary interest in a very large sum of money with only one old life between it and them. Though apparently only daughters of a struggling professional man, they would soon, it appeared, be great heiresses. The result was two proposals and two marriages! Whether they lived happily ever afterwards is not stated, but they lived, at any rate, "wealthily."
I did not condemn the principle as unsportsmanlike but I remember thinking that there must be a million chances against a barrister ever seeing papers relating to someone he knows. Yet, within two or three days, I was told to help in drafting a marriage settlement which dealt with people at whose house I was going to dance on the very night in question. To my surprise I found that my host and hostess were very rich people. Though I lived for nearly two years in Mr. Simpson's house, and for the next fourteen years, that is, till his death, I saw him constantly, I neither exchanged a bitter word with him, nor felt the slightest indignation or annoyance at anything he did or said. He was at heart one of the kindliest as well as one of the shyest and apparently most austere of men. Mathematics and law may have dried up his intellect, but they never dried up his heart.
Though he was a man of fine intellect, and had a great and deep knowledge of many subjects, I think I never saw a man who was so absolutely devoid of any interest in poetry orBelles-Lettres. I believe indeed that he was quite without any understanding of what poetry meant. If I had been told that he was the Wrangler who said that he could not see "whatParadise Lostproved," I should not have been the least surprised. And yet the style of his writing was often remarkable for its perfect clarity and perfect avoidance of anything in the shape of ambiguity. He could say what he wanted to say in the fewest number of words and in a way in which the most ingenious person could not twist into meaning something which they were not intended to mean. He was indeed a super-draftsman. But that is a gift which every man of letters who is worthy of his salt ought to salute with reverence.
My treatment of many things in this book has been inadequate owing to want of space, but in no case has it been so inadequate as that of London of the 'nineties. But my complaint here is, of course, a complaint common to every biography.
Biographers, I am told, always write in this strain. They begin by declaring that they have nothing to say and end by wailing over the insufficiency of the space allowed them.
When I became not only sole Proprietor ofThe Spectatorbut also Editor-in-Chief, Chief Leader-writer, and Chief Reviewer, it was natural that I should confront myself with the problem of the position and use of the journalist—in a word, that I should ask myself what I was doing. Should I accept and be content with the ordinary outlook of the journalist on his profession, or should I in any particular strike out a new line, or an extension of an old one for myself?
At that time, i.e. in 1898, the air was full of talk as to the functions and duties of the journalist, for journalism was emerging from its period of veiled power and was beginning to fill a much larger space in the public mind. But in my case this was not the whole of the opportunity. By a singular set of circumstances I found myself in the unique position just described. Townsend and Hutton, it is true, were joint Editors and joint Proprietors; but the sense of responsibility of each to the other was a strong check. I, however, as sole Proprietor and sole Editor, could do exactly what I liked. I could decide, without reference to anyone else, the policy to be adopted. Further, as Chief Leader-writer, I was the man who had to carry out the policy adopted. I had, that is, the function of making the decisions immediately operative. This is more important in fact than it is in theory. In theory an Editor's word—subject to the Proprietor's veto—is final. He gives his instructions to the leader-writer, and the leader-writer, presuming that he is not a fool or a headstrong egoist or a man determined to flout his Editor's wishes, obeys them. That is the theory. But there are several mitigating circumstances. In the first place, it is often difficult for an Editor to make his policy quite clear to his staff. Next, the leader-writer, no matter how strong his intention to obey his instructions and to enter into the spirit of his chief, may fail to do so, from want of that complete clarity of mind that comes only with personal conviction. If not his own view, his own understanding of the facts is apt to get in the way and prevent him carrying out his duties exactly as his chief meant him to perform them, and exactly as he himself wishes to perform them.
Again, by a sort of law of reversed effort, the leader-writer may be too anxious to carry out his chief's wishes and so may distort the Editor's view. There is yet another way in which a loss of power may occur. If the Editor had himself been writing, he would have seen as he wrote that this or that particular line of policy that he had adopted was not tenable, and therefore he would have altered that line. The conscientious leader-writer may, however, resist this conversion by circumstantial argument. He may feel:
This seems to me to be all wrong, but I have got to make the best of it. Otherwise I shall be taking the responsibility, which I do not want to take, of altering my Chief's instructions. He said, "Defend the Government's action," so defend it I must.
But the Editor himself may be in a similar position. If he has an active Proprietor who gives regular and specific instructions, he is not really the Editor but only the Proprietor's mouthpiece. In that case, he, too, can, as it were, avoid a great deal of the feeling of personal responsibility. He may say,
I do not like this view. But, after all, it is the matter for the Proprietor, and he may have good reasons for his decision. Anyway, I cannot in a matter of this kind attempt to dictate to him, because if a mistake is made, he will have to stand the racket. After all, I may be wrong as to the policy we should pursue, and if I am, then I shall be doing what I do not want to do, that is, gravely injuring somebody else's property and position. A man may make great sacrifices and run great risks with his own property, but I don't want to be told later that I was the man who insisted on taking his own line against the opinion of his chief with the result that a fatal blow was given to the position of the paper, I don't feel justified in risking another man's property.
The Editor, in fact, is very much in the position of the leader-writer.
These things being so, I realised that the responsibility for whatever was done inThe Spectatorwas going to be my responsibility in a very special degree. I could not plead consideration for anyone else's need if I had to defendThe Spectator'sposition. Therefore, I must be not only specially careful as to what I did from day to day, but I must think out for myself an answer to the journalistic interrogatory "Quo vadis?" What is the journalist's function in the State, and how am I to carry it out? The formula for the discharge of the journalist's functions, which I ultimately came to consider to be true in the abstract and capable of being translated into action, was, curiously enough, the formula of a man whose judgment I profoundly distrusted, whose work as a journalist I disliked, and who as a man was to me exceedingly unsympathetic. It was that of Mr. Stead, the erratic Editor first of thePall Malland then of theReview of Reviews. The journalist, he declared, was "the watch-dog of society." Stead, though a man of honest intent and very great ability, was also a man of many failings, many ineptitudes, many prejudices, and many injustices—witness the attitude he adopted in his last years towards Lord Cromer. Further, there was an element of commonness in his mental attitude as in his style. But with all this, he had a very considerableflair, not only in the matter of words, but in ideas. Though the phrase was not used in his time, he was a pastmaster in the art of making "slogans." This, of the watch-dogs in the case of the Press, was one of his best. It exactly fitted the views which I was gradually developing in regard to the journalist's functions. In the course of my twelve years' apprenticeship atThe Spectator,The Economist,The Standard,and the other journals for which I wrote, I made it my business to study the work of my colleagues. I soon saw that the men who did the best and most useful work were the watch-dogs; the men who gave warnings. But I also very soon found out that in practice the part is one which cannot be played if the performer wants to have a pleasant time in the world, or to make himself generally liked by his fellow-men. A watch-dog is never popular. How could he be? People do not like to be disturbed, and to be warned generally means a loud noise and often a shock to delicate nerves. Besides, it generally ends in asking people not to do something they are strongly tempted to do. The bark of the watch-dog is, in a rough-and-ready way, much too much like the voice of conscience to be agreeable to the natural man. Though sometime after he may be very grateful to the watch-dog for his bark, when he first hears it he is inclined to say:
Oh! drat that dog. I wish he'd shut up. There he is barking away, and it is probably only the moon, or some harmless tramp, or a footstep a mile away down the road, for the brute's power of hearing is phenomenal. Yet if he goes on like that I must pay some attention, or else there'll be an awful row with the Boss to-morrow morning if anything was stolen or any damage done. The creature's spoilt my night, anyway; I must get up and see what's going on.
The result is that the tired householder paddles about the house in carpet slippers, grumbling about this folly of thinking that anyone could be so unjust or unfair as to attack a well-meaning man like him. It would be an infamy to think of any such scheme. "I want my neighbours to trust me, and they will never do that unless I trust them. So I will have another glass of port and get to bed, and, if that infernal dog will allow me, go to sleep."
"All's Well" is always a more popular motto for life than "Beware!" It is not only the householder who dislikes the watch-dog. There are people who have more sinister motives than a love of peace for disliking the watch-dog. Those who like to have a night out occasionally without comment from the Master; and those who think it only fair that certain perquisites should be smuggled out of the house by the charwoman and others without any fuss, "cannot abide" the dog and its horrid way of barking at a shawl thrown over a large plaited basket.
Nobody [they argue] wants to see the master robbed, but there is a great difference between robbery and having things a little easy now and then, and no tiresome questions asked. If we are all to be deprived of our night's rest by that dog, there will be no end of trouble, and if it goes on much further we shall have to see about getting rid of him, or else changing him for a dog that is more reasonable.
But that is not the whole of the trouble. Not only is the watch-dog generally disliked, but he is in danger of being turned from what he ought to be, into a gruff old grumbler. You cannot go on perpetually barking out warnings without getting a hoarse note into your voice, and that makes you compare very ill with the parlour dog and his charming manners, or with the sporting dogs who go out and attend their masters at their pleasures. The working dogs, too, such as those of the shepherd, are far more popular and far more picturesque.
Finally, the watch-dog is often misunderstood because he has got a very narrow gamut of notes. His bark is taken as an angry warning, when all he means to say is: "This is a new man and a new policy, and you had better look into it and see whether it is all right. I should not be doing my duty if I did not warn you to look out." Then if the new-comer turns out to be a harmless or useful person, the watch-dog is blamed because he did not recognise merit on the instant.
But if acting as watch-dog is a disagreeable job, as it most undoubtedly is, it has its compensations. Journalism of which the mainspring is the gaining of pleasure may easily degenerate into something akin to the comic actor's function. Stevenson in a famous passage compared the writers ofbelles-lettresto "filles de joie." That was not, I think, appropriate to the artists in words, but at any rate it is a condition into which the journalist who knows nothing of the watch- dog's duties can easily descend. Our danger is to fall into a kind of intellectual prostitution, and from this the duty of barking keeps us free.
"But," it may be argued in reply, "why need you bark in such a loud and raucous way? Why need you be so bitter?" Here comes a close and interesting issue. How is it possible to give a warning in earnest without exposing one's self to the accusation of being bitter? I have again and again tried, as a journalist, to consider this question, for it has often been my lot to be accused of "intense personal bitterness." Yet in reality I have felt no such feeling. What people have called bitterness has to me seemed only barking sufficiently loud to force attention. I have often, indeed, had a great deal of admiration and sympathy for the men for whom I have been supposed to entertain angry feelings. I have longed to say nice things about them, but that, of course, is impossible when you are on a warning campaign. The journalist that does that is lost. At once the friends of the person against whom the warning is issued complain of your lack of character, of your want of stability, of your habit of turning round and facing the other way. You cannot be a watch-dog only at stated hours, and on off days purr like the family cat.
I will take a specific illustration of what I mean by the watch-dog function in journalism. Throughout my life I have been a strong democratic Imperialist. To me the alliance of free self-governing Dominions, which constitute the British Empire, has a sacred character. It has rendered great help to the cause of peace, civilisation, and security, and it will render still more. I feel, further, that throughout Africa, as throughout India, we have done an incomparable service to humanity by our maintenance of just and stable government. Our record on the hideous crime of slavery, even if it stood alone, would be a justification for the British Empire. But it does not stand alone; there are hundreds of other grounds for saying that, if the British Empire had not existed, it would have had to be invented in the interests of mankind. But though I was always so ardent a supporter of the British Empire and of the Imperial spirit, I was not one of those people who thought that the mere word "Imperialism" would cover a multitude of misdeeds.
To come to close quarters with my illustration, I thought that the watch-dog had to do a good deal of barking in the case of Mr. Rhodes's practical methods of expanding the British Empire. They seemed to me so dangerous and so little consistent with a high sense of national honour and good faith that I felt it was part of my job to protest against them with all my strength. We were told, for example, by his friends, that Mr. Rhodes believed in the policy of the open cheque-book. If you wanted a thing, you must pay for it, and he did. He went further than that: his favourite maxim was said to be, "I never yet saw an opposition that I could not buy or break." It appeared to me that here was an extremely dangerous man, and one against whom the public ought to be warned, and as loudly as possible.
What first set me on his track was Rhodes's gift of £10,000 to Mr. Parnell for the funds of the Irish Nationalists. The gift was made about the time when Mr. Rhodes wished to get his Charter through the House of Commons. Of course, I know that Mr. Rhodes was accustomed to say that the gift and the Charter had nothing to do with each other, and even that the dates would not fit. It was, he declared, an unworthy suspicion to suggest that it had ever crossed his mind that Parnellite criticism, then very loud in the House, could be lulled by a good subscription. Besides, he was and always had been a whole-hearted Home Ruler. Mr. Rhodes, who bought policies as other men buy pictures, made it a condition, of course, that the Nationalists should assure him that they had no intention of leaving the Empire!
My view of the facts was different, and I believe it was the true view.
Mr. Rhodes wanted the Charter badly, and he did not much mind how he got it. He did not, of course, want the Charter in order to make himself rich. He wanted to extend the Empire in South Africa on particular lines, and these included a Chartered Province under his personal guidance. To accomplish this he was perfectly willing to take the help of bitter enemies of the Empire and of England, like Mr. Parnell; men who wanted to give our Empire the blow at the heart. Worse than that, he was willing to give them the pecuniary help they needed in their effort to destroy England, and to risk the consequences. That was surely a case for the watch-dog. "Look at what the man in the fur-lined Imperial cloak has got under it."
To my mind what was even worse than the Parnellite subscription was the way in which the Chartered Company was run and the way in which its shares at par were showered on "useful" politicians at home and in South Africa. The Liberal party at Westminster professed to be anti- Imperialist and pro-Boer. Yet I noted to my disgust that Mr. Rhodes not only called himself a Liberal, but that quite a number of "earnest Liberals" were commercially interested in the Charter.
In this context I may recall a phrase used by a witness before a Parliamentary Committee at Capetown, which made inquiries as to the distribution of "shares at par" when the selling price of Chartered stock was very high. The witness was asked on what system certain authorised but unallotted shares were distributed at par. They were, he stated, given to journalists and other persons "who had to be satisfied on this Charter." I am not by nature a suspicious person, but, rightly or wrongly, that appeared to me to be a short cut to ruining the Empire. Though personally I knew nothing about Rhodes, and was inclined to like an adventurous, pushful spirit, it was clear to me that, holding the views I did as to the functions of the journalist, I had no choice but to bark my loudest. My Imperialist friends were for the most part horribly shocked at what they called my gross and unjust personal prejudices against a great man. Some of them, indeed, asked me how I could reconcile my alleged Unionist and anti-separatist views with opposition to the great Empire-builder. When I told them that it was just because I was an Imperialist, and did not want to see the Empire destroyed, that I opposed Rhodes, pointed out to them that he was an arch corrupter, and insisted that corruption destroyed, not made, Empires, I was told that I did not know what I was talking about. I was a foolish idealist who did not understand practical politics. Such self- righteous subtleties must be ignored in the conduct of great affairs.
This talk, instead of putting me off, made me feel it was absolutely necessary, however disagreeable, to pursue my policy. In this view I soon had the good fortune to obtain the support and encouragement of Lord Cromer. Here, by the admission of all men, was the greatest of living Imperialists. Yet I found that he was in full sympathy with my determination to let the British public know what was going on.
As I have said, I felt very deeply about the gift to the Nationalists. Later, I heard that Mr. Rhodes had not only bought off, or tried to buy off, Irish opposition, but that he had actually offered and given a considerable sum of money to the funds of the Liberal Party in order to get them to change their policy in regard to Egypt. The great part of the Liberal leaders and the party generally considered that we were pledged to leave Egypt. This did not suit Mr. Rhodes, with his curious shilling-Atlas and round-ruler point of view about a Cape to Cairo Railway. What would happen if, when the railway was completed to the Egyptian frontier, the platelayers found either a hostile Egypt or a foreign power in possession, and determined to prevent a junction of the rails? Mr. Rhodes regarded such a possibility as intolerable, and, after his manner, determined to buy out the opposition to his great hobby. Accordingly, he approached Mr. Schnadhorst, the Boss of the Liberal Party, and told him that he, Rhodes, was a good sound Liberal, and wanted to give £10,000 to the Liberal funds, which were then much depleted—owing to the secession several years previously of Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. But the gift was conditional. Mr. Rhodes did not see his way to present the money unless he could have an assurance from Mr. Gladstone himself that the Liberal party would not, if they came into power, evacuate Egypt. In a word, he proposed to buy a non-evacuation policy, and offered a good price for it. Mr. Schnadhorst wanted £10,000 for his party, and wanted it badly. Accordingly he wrote a letter to Mr. Rhodes, assuring him that the party would not evacuate Egypt. The letter would not do for Mr. Rhodes. He wanted a categorical pledge from Mr. Gladstone. This he only obtained indirectly, and ultimately I believe that only about £5,000 was paid.
But though for several years I heard rumours of a large subscription by Mr. Rhodes to the Liberal funds, they were vague. Chance, however, enabled me to prove what I felt was probably the truth. It happened that Mr. Boyd, one of Mr. Rhodes's private secretaries, sent a letter toThe Spectatorabout Rhodesia, in which he made a clear allusion to the subscription to the Liberal funds. I at once noted this admission and insisted that the matter should now be cleared up. The Liberal leaders ought, I declared, to say frankly whether any subscription had ever been accepted from Mr. Rhodes.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as leader of the Liberal Party, wrote an indignant letter toThe Spectator, declaring that the statement was a lie. He added that he was authorised by Sir William Harcourt to say that he joined in the denial and so in the accusation of falsehood against Mr. Rhodes's secretary. I then called on Mr. Rhodes in justice to himself to make good, if he could, the allegations of his private secretary.
Then the whole strange story came out. Mr. Rhodes wrote to say that the correspondence with Mr. Schnadhorst was at the Cape, but that he had cabled for it, and that when it came he would send it toThe Spectatorand let the British people judge whether the story was or was not a lie. When the letters arrived they showed that Mr. Rhodes had actually proposed to buy the policy he wanted, as he might have bought a shirt or a suit-case, and that the famous Liberal Manager was quite willing to do business—especially as it was pretty obvious that the evacuation of Egypt was no longer popular with a considerable section of Liberals.
I was, naturally, well satisfied with the result of the warnings which I had given in regard to Mr. Rhodes. I had brought about an exposure of his methods, and had also exposed the carelessness and recklessness which allowed the agents of the Liberal Party to make a secret deal with a man like Mr. Rhodes, and a deal in which the consideration was a large sum of money. And all the time a number of the conventional Liberals were denouncing Mr. Rhodes for his shoddy Imperialism! The attitude of the public at large in regard to my action was curious. The politicians on my own side evidently thought that I had pushed things too far, and had been indiscreet. Some of them naively asked, in effect, where should I be if something unpleasant were to come out about the past of my own leaders. When I suggested that I should have to do exactly what I had done in the case of the Liberals, they were very much shocked at my "disloyalty to my party."
The Liberals, on the other hand, though the vast majority of them, leaders and led, had known nothing whatever of the transaction, and were in truth greatly ashamed of it, instead of being angry with their chief Party Manager, were violently angry with me. They declared that I was showing a most vindictive spirit towards a great and good man like Mr. Gladstone. I had "entered into a conspiracy with Mr. Rhodes in regard to the publication of a private correspondence." When I pointed out that, as a matter of fact, I disliked Mr. Rhodes's methods quite as much as they did, and held that it was as bad to buy a policy as to sell one, they inconsequently murmured that I had dealt a deadly blow against the sanctity of public life by helping Rhodes to break faith, and that my conduct was unforgivable.
I may end my story by a description of an interview which I had in regard to this matter with Mr. Rhodes at his hotel in Mayfair. It was the only occasion on which I saw or spoke to him. His private secretary, Mr. Boyd, came to me and said that Mr. Rhodes was very anxious to hand over to me in person the letters between himself and the Liberal Manager. Would I therefore mind going to see Mr. Rhodes, and letting him tell me the whole story in his own words? I did not feel in a particularly kindly frame of mind towards Mr. Rhodes, and I knew and thoroughly disliked his ways with the Press. Further, I did not want to run any risk of Mr. Rhodes hinting later that I had tried to blackmail him, or that he had made a suggestion as to interesting me later in the Chartered Company which had been apparently welcomed by me, and so on and so on. I therefore expressed my opinion that there was no need whatever for a personal interview. Mr. Boyd thereupon made a strong pleaad misericordiam. Mr. Rhodes was, he said, exceedingly ill and was worrying himself greatly about the matter. He had not long to live, and I should be playing a very inhuman part if I did not grant the interview to a very sick man. Melted by Boyd's evident sincerity and anxiety I agreed, but only on the condition that if Mr. Rhodes had anyone present at the interview, I also must have a friend present. That I felt was rather an insulting condition, and I rather expected that Mr. Rhodes would have replied: "If Mr. Strachey cannot treat me like a gentleman, I don't want to see him." Instead, a most polite message came back from Mr. Rhodes, saying that he gladly agreed to my suggestion and that he would see me quite alone. Why Mr. Rhodes was so insistent as to an interview I cannot tell, unless it was that he had been rather worried aboutThe Spectator'shostility to him, and he thought he might be able to mollify me in the course of a private talk. I remember Mr. Boyd told me how he had heard Rhodes often express great trouble and surprise at my attitude towards him. Why should a journalist whom he had never seen be so hostile? What could have induced him to take the line he took inThe Spectator? "I have never been able to make him out," was how he summed up the position. That struck me as very characteristic. It had evidently never occurred to Rhodes that a journalist could act on the watch-dog principle. The way his mind appeared to work was something like this.
Strachey andThe Spectatorare avowedly Imperialists and strong anti-Little Englanders. Therefore they ought to be on my side. If they are not with me, it can only be that they are standing out for some reason or other. What is it? It isn't money. If they had wanted to be "satisfied on this Charter" they would have made it clear to me. It can't be pride or prejudice. You can't wound or injure a man you have never seen. As far as I know, Strachey has not been got at by any of my personal enemies. He hates Kruger and his party even more than he does me. It's a most disagreeable and distracting puzzle.
That, I am told, was the way the great man argued till hisentouragecalled the spectacle of the puzzled pro-consul deeply pathetic. Rhodes was, I believe, genuinely "haunted" by the problem which he could not solve. I andThe Spectatorgot on his nerves. But perhaps if he saw me he could get the solution he desired. He had squared Boers and Governors and high British Officials, and Generals and Zulu Chiefs, and missionaries, and miners, and Jewish diamond-dealers by talk and nothing more. Why not this journalist? He would try. He would worry his secretaries to within an inch of their lives till they got the Editor to see him.
Touched, as I have said, by the appeal about the anguish of the dying lion, I yielded, went to his hotel, and was ushered in by Boyd. I did not feel the charm which was supposed to flow from Rhodes. To begin with, I thought him an ugly-looking fellow. The "late Roman Emperor" profile was a very flattering suggestion. Instead, his appearance explained a quaint and Early Victorian saying which had greatly tickled me when it fell from Lord Cromer's lips. "I saw him once in Cairo. I didn't like him. He seemed to me a great snob." Rhodes ought to have had the manners and mental habits of a gentleman, but apparently these had suffered a good deal of dilution in the diamond-fields. His address was distinctly oily, and I remember thinking what a mistake he had made in his conception of the stage directions for the short dialogue scene which he had insisted on his entourage producing.—"Empire- Builder, generous, human, alert, expansive, and full-blooded.Publicist, dry, thin-lipped, pedantic, opinionative, hard." That was what he, no doubt, expected of the cast. In a word, his attempt to fascinate lacked polish. It was clumsy, almost to the point of innocence, and opportunist to the point of weakness. He did not know how to take me, and was obviously "fishing."
I was determined to seize the opportunity of telling Mr. Rhodes fairly and squarely what I thought of him and his policy. I therefore received his elephantine flatteries and civilities with a grim silence, and then told him I should like him to know what had made me oppose him, and would continue to make me do so. I was an Imperialist, I pointed out, and I regarded him as an enemy to the cause of my country. He had given payments of money to the Irish enemies of Britain and the Empire, and that I could never forgive. "The Parnellites were engaged in a plot to ruin the British Empire. You knew it, and yet you helped them. You gave them the means to arm and fortify their conspirators and assassins." Mr. Rhodes appeared put out by this frontal attack—no doubt an unpleasant one, and so intended. He began by making elaborate explanations, and by declaring "the dates won't fit," but his arguments were muddled and incoherent. "I assure you you are doing me wrong about the Irish policy. I know it is not an intentional injustice, but indeed you are wrong. I am sure I could convince you of this if there was only time."
Though I was not mollified I felt there was no more to be said. Mr. Rhodes was not going to convince me nor I to convert him. Accordingly, I got up and moved to the door. On this Mr. Rhodes said, very flatteringly, by way of goodbye, that he was greatly pleased that "these letters," as they were obliged to be published, should appear inThe Spectator. His device was pathetically obvious. He knew, or believed he knew, that the journalist's passion was "copy," and he wanted to remind me that he had supplied me with one of the very best political "stories" ever put before an Editor.
I was comparatively a young man then, only a little over forty, and I was disgusted at what I felt was an impertinent attempt to "land" me. I instantly pulled the papers out of my pocket and flung them on to the table, saying,
You are entirely mistaken if you think I want your letters forThe Spectator. As far as I am concerned, they may just as well appear inThe Timesor any other paper. All I want is publicity. I have been accused by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman of publishing lies, and that I do not mean to endure. I make no claim, however, on behalf ofThe Spectator. Choose your own paper.
Here Mr. Rhodes showed an excellent command of himself. He urged me strongly, nay, he implored me to take the papers. No other course would be fair to his secretary, who had been called a liar. "As poor Boyd was unjustly accused of lying, inThe Spectator, I am sure you will agree that it is only fair that his good faith should be vindicated in the same place." To this plea I could, of course, offer no opposition. I therefore replaced the papers in my pocket, said "good morning," and walked away.
I suppose many people, certainly Mr. Rhodes's admirers, will say that I was brutal and unjust. If they do, I think I have a good defence, but I am not going to set it forth here. More interesting is the general opinion I formed of Rhodes after seeing him in the flesh, and experiencing what was supposed to be his special gift—that of talking a man round.
Rhodes, I had to acknowledge, was not the kind of magnificent man that I had sometimes envisaged him. I think he was a lucky man rather than a man of genius. The chief trouble with him was that he really believed that all men were buyable. He was a kind of throw-back to the eighteenth century, just as the eighteenth-century politicians were to the age of Juvenal and Tacitus. He took their records seriously and acted on their views of humanity. If he chose to use his money for buying policies as other people used theirs to buy places, why not? What else, granted that he was the kind of man described, could Rhodes do with his money?
But these excuses, though I admitted them, made me not less but more eager to oppose Mr. Rhodes and the influences he employed. My duty was to expose Mr. Rhodes,i.e.to get people to understand his methods. These almost entirely depended upon secrecy, and that made publicity my best weapon. When once the Rhodesian moral strategy was made public, the game was up.
I believe I did some good by my double warning. In the first place, I warned the British public that Rhodes, if not watched, would secretly buy policies behind their backs and that the party machine, when in want of money, would with equal secrecy sell them. And I proved my point, incredible as it may seem.
"But why rake up an old scandal?" asks Urbanus with an ironic smile. Because the warning ought to be a standing warning. I am by no means sure that when all the secrets are known, we, or rather our grandchildren, will not find that Mr. Rhodes has had imitators, in recent times.
I could, of course, mention other examples of the way in which this particular watch-dog gave trouble, and got himself heartily disliked, but the one I have given will serve. Besides, the other examples touch living people, and with living people I want to have as little to do as possible in these memoirs.
The watch-dog's function by no means exhausts the work of the journalist. There remains that strange function which is not yet quite realised or understood in a modern community, the function of publicity. Publicity is, in one sense, the method or instrument by which the watch- dog gives its warning: it is his bark. But there is something more in publicity than this. Publicity is an end as well as a means. There are positive and distinct virtues inherent in publicity quite apart from the fact that it is the medium through which the journalist works. This fact is beginning to be realised more and more in this country. In America, it has long been recognised. There, indeed, publicity may be said to have been crowned. It is considered one of the pillars of society, and so in truth it is.
I can best illustrate what I mean by this, by telling a story of Delane, the editor ofThe TimeswhenThe Timeswas at its greatest. It is one which should never be forgotten by the critics of journalism and journalists. Someone had been taking Delane to task over an incident connected with his newspaper, and Delane replied: "You appear to forget that my business is publicity." If the public would not forget this essential fact in regard to newspapers they would attain to a much clearer and juster understanding of the problems of the Press. We must always remember that the journalist's business is publicity. At first the plain man may be inclined to say that Delane's words have nothing to do with the matter, or, rather, he may feel inclined to reply in the spirit of Talleyrand's answer to the man who said he had to live— "I do not see the necessity." A very little reflection, however, will show the necessity of publicity, will show, I mean, that publicity has a real and very important function in the State, and that it is literally true that the modern world could not live and progress without the newspaper. The newspaper is indispensable to progress, and to progress in the right direction. Unless we know, day by day, what people are doing, in our nation, in our country, in our town, in our village, we should be like men wandering about in the dark, and we should find it far more difficult than we do now to obtain the co-operation of others for good and worthy objects. We should fail also to get that encouragement, moral, intellectual, and social, which is obtained by knowing that others are thinking the same thoughts and entertaining the same aspirations that we are. It is good to know of the righteous work which is being done by others. It is even good to know, within reasonable limits, the evil that is being done under the sun, in order that we may lay our plans and bring up our forces to check that evil. Without that daily report on the world's doings, which is the modern newspaper, we should for the most part be blind and deaf, and if not dumb, at any rate hardly able to speak above a whisper.
This view may at first sight seem the presumptuous claim of a journalist for his trade. Let any of my hearers, however, try to imagine a newspaperless world and he will soon realise that I am not exaggerating. It is not merely a desire for amusement that makes the leaders of men in a besieged town, or even in so narrow a field as an Arctic expedition, encourage the foundation of a newspaper. They want it as a means of illumination quite as much as of entertainment.
People sometimes talk of men's instinctive desire for news, but, like many other instincts, this one is founded on convenience and the law of self-preservation. Readers of Stevenson'sKidnappedwill remember how, after the Appin murder, the fugitives on the heather obeyed, even at very great risk to themselves, the sacred duty of the Highlands to "pass the news." In savage countries and in troubled times a man is looked upon as a wild beast rather than a human being if he does not pass the news. Asian travellers dwell upon the way in which the Bedouins observe the duty of passing the news, and described how, if a solitary Arab is encountered, the news is, as a matter of course, passed to him. The seclusion of women even yields to this imperative law of the desert, and an Arab man and an Arab woman may be seen with their horses, tail to tail, and so themselves back to back also, giving and receiving the news over their shoulders.
I am tempted to give a modern example of the advantage of news in the purest sense. Some years ago, in the course of one of those brave attempts which have been made to cleanse the Augean stable of municipal politics in San Francisco, the editor of the chief newspaper engaged in the campaign of purity was kidnapped in the streets of San Francisco. He was hurried off in a motorcar and placed under restraint in a train at a suburban station, from which he was to be carried to a place some 500 miles away. It happened, however, that a reporter caught sight of the editor's face in the reserved portion of the Pullman car where he was imprisoned, and telegraphed to a San Francisco evening paper that the well-known Mr. So-and-So was "on the —— train, going North." The reporter had not the slightest notion of the romantic circumstances of the kidnapping and thought he was merely telegraphing an item of social news. One of the editor's colleagues in the campaign against corruption happened, however, to see this item in the evening paper and at once realised what it meant. He instantly telephoned to the proper authorities at a town halfway between San Francisco and the kidnappers' destination; the train was stopped, and the kidnapped man brought before a judge on a warrant of Habeas Corpus, and promptly released. No doubt mere publicity can occasionally serve the evildoers equally well, but here, at any rate, is an instance of its utility which may be regarded as proof of the advantage of collecting and transmitting news even of the most unimportant, or apparently unimportant, kind.
Though I hold that publicity is a function of very real utility to the State, it must not be supposed that I think it can be practised without limitations, or that I do not realise that it has dangers both great and many. It has been said that honesty is not as easy as Blind Man's Buff. The same thing may well be said of publicity. The first and most obvious limitation of publicity is that publicity should only be given to truth and not to error. Here, however, we must not forget that there are certain forms of error which can only be exposed and got rid of by publicity, and, again, that it is often only possible to find out what is truth and what error by submitting the alleged facts to the test of publicity. What at first seems an incredible rumour turns out to be literally true, and therefore a failure to report it would actually have been a suppression of the truth. The more one studies this question of publicity the more it appears that what is wanted in the public interest is a just and clear understanding of the way in which publicity is to be achieved. The journalist's business is publicity, but it is also his business to see that this duty of publicity, though carried out to the full, is carried out in a way which shall do not harm but good. If the methods of publicity are sound, fearless, and without guile, all is well. If they have not these qualities, then publicity may become the most dishonourable and degrading of all trades.
It must not be supposed, however, that by saying this I am trying to give a defence of the Yellow Press. I fully realise its evils, only I desire that the Yellow Press should be condemned for its faults, and not merely for its virtues when carried to excess. What the Yellow Press should be condemned for is its tendency to that supreme evil— indifference to veracity of statement. Another of its extreme evils, an evil made possible by publicity, is that of triviality. It debauches the public mind, in my opinion, much more by its triviality than by its vulgarity or grossness. Sensationalism and want of reticence will in the end cure themselves, but triviality is a defect which grows by what it feeds on. People get a habit of reading silly details about silly people, and the habit becomes an actual craze; they can no more do without it than they can rest without chewing gum. This triviality is indeed twice cursed. It degrades both him who reads and him who writes. As to the public, indeed, I sometimes feel inclined to say with Ben Jonson in his famous Ode:
If they love lees and leave the lusty wine,Envy them not their palates with the swine.
But it is a pitiful sight to see unfortunate men who might do better work, condemned to filling the trough with insipid and unsavoury swill collected from the refuse-pails of the town.
Twenty years ago, I had a conversation in regard to this point with the reporters of two very Yellow newspapers, on an Atlantic liner outside the port of New York. TheLucaniahad run upon a sand-bank, and we had to wait all day in sight of that towered city, exposed to the full fury of the interviewer. When I ventured to ask the two reporters in question whether they did not think it was perfectly absurd and ridiculous to print the chronicles of small beer, or, rather, of small slops, such as appeared in their columns, they readily, and I believe perfectly honestly, agreed, but said in defence that they had to obey their editor's orders. To me, at any rate, they acted most honourably and gave no report of our conversation, for I had reminded them that dog did not eat dog. A third reporter, however, to whom I had not thought it necessary to indicate as "private and confidential" an enthusiastic remark drawn by the beauty of New York harbour in an autumn sunset, was not so sensitive. "This is more splendid," I said, "than even the approach to Venice. There is nothing in the whole world like the sea- front of New York seen from the sea." This reporter honoured me next day with a headline of such magnificent triviality that I cannot refrain from quoting it: "Editor Strachey says New York skins Venice!"—a contribution to the illimitable inane worthy to stand by a headline in an English provincial paper: "Vestryman choked by a whelk!"
Publicity, when it is honest publicity, is as important a thing as the collection and presentation of evidence at a trial. Without the evidence, of what avail would be advocacy or judgment? I have dealt with the problem of publicity, but publicity of course is not the whole of journalism. Besides news there is comment, and comment, at any rate among serious-minded people like the British, is quite as well thought of as news. It is with that part of journalism, indeed, that the editor of a weekly newspaper has most to do. The journalism of comment may be divided into parts, both perfectly legitimate. There is what I may term judicial journalism, and the journalism of advocacy. In judicial journalism the writer attempts to approach the jury of the public rather as a judge than as a barrister, to sum up rather than make a speech for the prosecution or the defence. This does not, of course, mean that he does not in the end take a side or give a decision. He forms a view and states it, but in stating it he admits the existence of the other side and does not try to carry the jury away with him by the arts of rhetoric. Such journalism is not necessarily cold-blooded. Just as a judge may denounce baseness or misconduct in burning words, so the journalist who endeavours to maintain the judicial attitude may, when the necessity arises, be strong in his denunciation of what he holds to be weak, dangerous, or evil. He, however, who is bold enough to essay this form of journalism must never forget that a judge who professes to be judicial in tone, but who ends in being partial, is a worse man than an honest advocate, because he is, in fact, cloaking partisanship by hypocrisy.
Little need be said in defence of the advocate journalist. He makes no pretence to be doing anything but pleading the cause of his party, and placing it in the best possible light. It is not his business, but that of the opposition writer, to put the case for the other side, and if he occasionally pretends to an enthusiasm which does not really belong to him, he is only practising the innocent artifice of the counsel who tells the jury that he will be an unhappy man should he have failed in the task of persuading them to restore his long-suffering, if burglarious, bibulous, or bigamous, client to his best wife and family.
It must not be supposed, however, that the advocate journalist is a cynic who realises that his own cause is a poor one, but calls it the best of causes because he is paid so to do. That, as all men of experience know, is a fallacy as regards the barrister, and it is still more a fallacy as regards the journalist. We should remember the story of the barrister who, at the end of a long career, declared that he had been singularly fortunate. He had never been called upon to defend a guilty person or to argue a case where the merits and the law were not strongly on his side. If this feeling grows up in the case of a man who, changing from prosecution to defence and from plaintiff to defendant, may often have to alter his point of view completely, how much more is it likely to grow up in that of the advocate journalist who is always on the same side? Believe me, the notion of the political journalist perpetually writing leaders against his own convictions is a pure figment of the popular imagination. No doubt an editor will sometimes ask a leader-writer not to put a particular view so strongly as he, the leader-writer, is known to feel it, but such reticence cannot surely be regarded as insincerity on the ethics of anonymity in journalism. The public are apt to suppose that anonymity is the cloak of all sorts of misdoings, and I have often heard people declare that in their opinion every leader-writer should be forced to sign his name. As I once heard it picturesquely expressed, "The mask should be torn from the villain's face. Why should a man be allowed to stab his neighbour in the dark!" As a matter of fact, I am convinced that anonymity makes, not for irresponsibility but for responsibility, and that there are many men who, though truculent, offensive, and personal when they write with the "I," will show a true sense of moderation and responsibility when they use the editorial "we." The man who writes for a newspaper very soon gets a strong sense of what is right and proper to be said in that particular organ, and he instinctively refuses to give way to personal feeling and personal animosity when he is writing, not in his own name, but in that of his newspaper.
I have hated and distrusted So-and-So ever since I was at Cambridge with him. I know what a false-hearted creature he was then, and how vain and supercilious, and I should like to get my knife into him some day. I feel, however, that theDaily Cometcould not possibly attack him in this way. Even though my editor has told me that I may say what I like about him it would not be fair to go for him unless I signed my name.
That is an imaginary soliloquy which, I am sure, represents the feelings of plenty of leader-writers when confronted with a personal issue.
Again, men who write anonymously, and in the name of their paper and not of themselves, are much less likely to yield to the foolish vanity of self-assertion. When Zola visited England, I remember a very striking passage in which he expressed to an interviewer his astonishment at the anonymity of the British Press. He wondered how it was that our writers refused themselves the "delicious notoriety" which they might obtain through signed articles. Thank heaven, our writers prefer the dignity which can be maintained through the honourable tradition of a great journal to such "delicious notoriety" The delicious notoriety of the individual is the ruin of the better journalism.
Again, we must never forget that the signed article, however true and sound it may be, is always to some extent discounted through the personality of the writer. "A" may have written in perfect sincerity of a particular statesman, but if he signs his name the gossip-mongers are sure to say that the article in question is to be accounted for by the fact that a fortnight before the writer was stopping with the Cabinet Minister who has been well spoken of, or because the writer's wife is well known to be a friend of the statesman, or for some equally trivial reason. Just as a good chairman of a committee should sink his individuality and speak for the committee as a whole, so a good leader- writer can with perfect honesty and sincerity sink his individuality and speak for his newspaper rather than himself.
But, though I incline to anonymity as the rule of political journalism, I quite admit that in pure literature and in the arts the signed article is often to be preferred. For the object with which the reader approaches a literary article is the desire for pleasure, and that pleasure is naturally heightened by knowing the name of the actor who is on the stage. Though it might be an amusing trick it would be on the whole very disappointing to the public if the play-bill on which the names of the characters appear had instead of the actors' names arbitrary letters, like X, Y, and Z. They would probably not appreciate the task of guessing who was concealed under the wig or the shadows painted on the face which converted Miss Jones' somewhat aquiline features into anez retroussé. No one can doubt that the Parisian public liked to know that theCauseries de Lundiwere by Sainte- Beuve, just as they now like to see the signature of Mr. J. C. Squire at the end of an article. To push the point to extremes, who would care to grope through a nameless Georgian Anthology in which each poem had to be taken on its intrinsic merits? Even if the public could stand the test, I feel certain that the critics could not. I have always had a good deal of sympathy for the dramatic critic in Mr. Shaw's play when he declares that he can place a play with perfect certainty if he knows whom it was written by, but not unless. Fancy the poor critic going through a volume and saying to himself: "Now is this Shanks or is it Graves trying to score off him by a parody? Again, is this one of the Sitwells writing like Sassoon in order to drive the grocers to delirium?" But, harrowing thought, perhaps it is neither, but only some admirer of the Georgian Mind at Capetown or Melbourne, who has produced for his own use an amalgam of several styles. The mere writing about it is making me so uncomfortable that I must hastily desist!
There is another point upon which I must touch, though very shortly. That is the ethics of newspaper proprietorship. People sometimes talk as if it were a great misfortune that the newspapers of England are, as a rule, owned by rich men. I cannot agree, though I do think it is a great misfortune that a newspaper cannot be started by a poor man. My reason for desiring that as a rule a newspaper proprietor should be rich is the danger of newspapers being bought, or, at any rate, of their articles being bought, as too often happens in countries where newspapers are not great properties. It is often said, for example, that a hundred pounds or so will procure the insertion of an article in most continental newspapers. This is no doubt a gross libel on the best foreign newspapers, but it indicates a danger when newspapers are owned by men of small means and make small profits. When a newspaper is bringing in £50,000 or £60,000 a year it is obvious that even if we assume the newspaper proprietor to have no sense of public duty, it will not be worth his while to sell the influence of his paper. He is not going to risk the destruction of a great property—destruction would surely ensue from his corrupt act becoming known—for a few hundred pounds. To put it brutally, "his figure" would be too high for any to pay—a quarter of a million at least.
But though it makes for soundness that newspaper proprietors should be personally independent, it is also most important that they should be men whose wealth is derived from their newspapers and not from other sources. A great newspaper in the hands of a man who does not look to make a profit but owns it for external reasons is a source of danger. Strange as it may seem at first sight, the desire for direct and legitimate profit in a newspaper is an antiseptic and prevents corruption. One does not want to see a newspaper proprietor, with his ear to the ground, always thinking of his audience, but the desire to stand well with his readers is often a power in the direction of good. The proprietor who endeavours to be the honest servant of his readers will not go very far wrong. When I say honest servant I mean the man who plays the part of the servant who, though he will do his master's bidding when that bidding is not positively immoral, at the same time is prepared to warn that master, courteously but firmly, against rash or base actions. There is nothing corrupt in such honest service, when rendered either to a man or a nation, or even to a Party.
To put it in another way, there are worse things than studying public opinion and endeavouring partly to interpret it honestly and partly to guide it in the right direction.
I will end this chapter by asking the readers of a Journalist's Memoirs to do two things. Firstly, to think better of journalists and their morals than they are at first sight inclined to do. Secondly, not to exaggerate the influence and power of the Press. No doubt it has some great powers, but those powers are much more limited than is popularly supposed. Remember that by using exaggerated language in regard to the power of the Press, people increase the evil which they desire to diminish. Dr. Johnson said very truly that no man was ever written down except by himself. Believe me, this is as true now as when Dr. Johnson said it. I do not believe in the power of the Press either to crush a good man and a great man, or to exalt a weak man or a base man. No doubt a conspiracy of journalists might conceivably keep back a wise statesman or public man for a year or two, and, again, might for a time advertise into undue prominence an inferior man. In the end, however, matters right themselves. The public have a very sound instinct in persons as well as in things, and when they recognise real worth in a man they will know how to prevent the newspaper from doing him wrong, supposing him for some reason to have incurred the enmity of the whole Press—not an easy thing to accomplish. If theDictatormakes a dead set against Smith, theDetractoris pretty sure to find good in him, and may even run him as a whole-souled patriot! We are a contradictious trade.
Don't be afraid of the Press, but do it justice and keep it in its place, that is, the place of a useful servant, but not of a master.
This is the last word on the Press of a working journalist, one who, though he holds no high-falutin' illusions as to his profession, is at the same time intensely proud of that profession, and who believes that, taken as a whole, there is no calling more worthy of being practised by an honourable man, and one who wishes to serve his country.
The war is too near, too great, and also too much an object from which people turn in weariness and impatience to be dealt with by me, except very lightly. In spite then of the transcendent effect which the war had upon my life I shall only touch upon one or two salient points. The first that I select is as curious as it was interesting. It is also appropriate, for it marked a step, and a distinct step, if one which covered only a small space, towards the goal that I have always put before me. That goal is a good understanding between both branches of the English-speaking race. It involves above all things that Americans shall never be treated, either in thought, in deed, or in word, as foreigners. When the war had been going a week or two, I and a number of other editors were summoned to a solemn conclave presided over by a Minister of the Crown. We were asked to give advice as to how the Government should deal with the American correspondents. Owing to the increasing severity of the censorship they were unable to get any news through to their newspapers. Though they were quite friendly and reasonable in one sense about this, they were in a state of agitation because their editors and proprietors on the other side, unable as yet to understand what modern war meant, and to envisage its conditions, were cabling them imperative messages to send something, and something of interest, to the American public which was suffering from a news- hunger such as had never before existed in the world's history. If the correspondents could not get anything to send they must make room for those who could. The notion that the order for news could not be obeyed was regarded as "impossible."
But the Government, though anxious to do everything they could for the American correspondents, was itself in the grip of the censorship. The Prime Minister's speeches, even, were censored lest they should afford information to the enemy. This policy of intensive suppression was enforced by all sorts of gloomy prophecies from Naval and Military chiefs:
If you allow things to be sent out before they have been carefully considered, and that means long considered, we cannot be responsible for the consequences. Things which look perfectly innocent to you or to the people who send them, when read by the keen-eyed men in the German Intelligence Office may give them all sorts of hints as to what are our doings and intentions. By pleasing one American newspaper you may send thousands of men to their doom by sea or land.
That being the tone of the Censor's Office, the Government was naturally in a state of perplexity. At the same time they felt, and rightly felt, that it was most undesirable to confront our American friends of the Press (for they were all friendly) with a purenon possumus. What made it worse was the fact that the correspondents had told Ministers in plain terms that if they could get no news here they must pack their portmanteaus and go to Holland and thence to Berlin, where correspondents were made much of and allowed to send any amount of wireless.
Many plans were suggested at the meeting, but those which found favour with the Press made the representatives of the Government shiver with horror, while the official suggestions, on the other hand, were, I am afraid, greeted with polite derision by the journalists. Greatly daring, I proposed that we should do for the American correspondents what was done for them in their own country by the President. President Wilson met the correspondents at Washington every Monday for a confidential talk of twenty minutes or so. What he said and they said was not to be reported, but they were "put wise" as to the general situation. I suggested that in a similar way Mr. Asquith might give a quarter of an hour once a week to the American correspondents. He would not, of course, be able to give them anything to publish, but at any rate if they saw him they would not feel so utterly out of it as they were at the moment. To see no one but a Censor who always said No, was like living on an iceberg on a diet of toast-and-water. They would be able at least to cable to their chiefs saying that they had seen the Prime Minister and had heard from him the general outline of the situation, though they could not at present publish any of the confidences which had been entrusted to them. Anyone who knows anything about the relations between the Government and the Press at the beginning of the war will be amazed at my daring, or shall I say "impudence"?—though by no means astonished to hear of the response with which it met. The spokesmen of the Government said in effect: "Mr. Strachey, you must be mad to make any such suggestion. It cannot be entertained for a moment. You must think of something better than that." Unfortunately I could think of nothing better, the other journalists could think of nothing better, the officials could think of nothing better, and so the meeting, as the reporters say, broke up, if not in confusion, at any rate in depression.
I was so much alarmed by the notion of the correspondents leaving the country, and also sympathised so strongly with my American colleagues that I felt that I must do something on my own. I therefore went straight back to Brooks' and wrote to Mr. Asquith, telling him what the situation was, what I had proposed, and how I was regarded as quite crazy. I went on to say that I knew this would not affect his mind, but that I was afraid that he would probably not be able to spare the time for a weekly interview, and that I therefore suggested a compromise.
Will you [I said] come and lunch with me next Wednesday at my house at 14 Queen Anne's Gate to meet all the American correspondents, and so at any rate give them one talk? As it happens I don't know any of the American correspondents, even by name. All the same, I am quite certain that if you show them this mark of your confidence you will never regret it. There is not the slightest fear of any betrayal. I am, indeed, perfectly willing to guarantee, from my knowledge of the honour of my own profession, that not a single word that you say but do not want published will ever be published.
In a word, I guaranteed not merely the honour but the discretion of my colleagues from across the water. I am not a political admirer of Mr. Asquith, and have had, perhaps, to pummel him with words as much as any man in the country. I was not, however, the least surprised to find that he would not allow himself to be overborne by the suggestion of his subordinates that the scheme was mad and so forth. Very characteristically he wrote me a short note with his own hand, simply saying that he would be delighted to meet my friends at lunch on Wednesday next as proposed. This acquiescence relieved me greatly, for I was convinced that the situation was exceedingly dangerous and disagreeable.
My next step, and one that I had to take immediately, was to get my guests together. As I have said, I knew nothing of them and for a moment thought it not improbable that even if I did manage to get hold of their names and addresses they might when they received the letter think it was a hoax. However, the thing had to be done, so it was no use to waste time by foreseeing difficulties. My first step was to get the help of my friend, Sir Harry Brittain (then Mr. Brittain). I wrote to him, asking for the names and addresses of all the correspondents of American newspapers in London, for I had reason—I forget exactly why—to believe that he possessed the information I so greatly needed. The messenger whom I had despatched with my note brought back a prompt answer conveying the information I required. I immediately sat down, dictated my notes, about twenty I think, and had them posted. In these I described the situation quite frankly. I said that as a journalist I had been very much struck and also very much worried by the thought of the situation in which the correspondents had been placed. They were, I said, like men in a house in which all the lights had gone out, and that house not their own. In such circumstances, who could wonder if they knocked over half the furniture in trying to find their way about or to get hold of a light somewhere. I ventured further to propose, though not known to them, that they should give me the pleasure of their company at luncheon on the following Wednesday, at 14 Queen Anne's Gate, to meet the Prime Minister, in order that they might, by means of a talk with him, get a general outline of the situation.
I knew, of course, that it was not necessary to put my colleagues formally on their honour not to publish anything without definite leave so to do. The first principle upon which an American correspondent acts is that, though he expects frankness from the people he talks to, nothing will ever induce him to reveal what he has been told is confidential and not for publication. You can no more get stuff not meant for publication from an American correspondent than you can get the secrets of the confessional from a priest. Reticence is a point of honour. I have no doubt that some of my American journalistic friends will say that there is no great merit in this, because the correspondents know quite well that if they were once to betray a public man they would never have a chance to do it again. Their professional careers would be utterly ruined. Though I should not agree that self- preservation was the motive, I knew at any rate that every consideration of sound business and professional pride as well as of honour made it quite certain that there would be no betrayal.
I was, therefore, most anxious not to appear ignorant of this fact or to seem to doubt my guests. Accordingly I merely added that whatever was said was not for publication and also that I was anxious that the fact of this luncheon taking place should not be disclosed. I gave my reason. If the luncheon, and if any other meetings which I hoped to arrange, became known about by the representatives of Foreign newspapers, I felt that pressure might be put upon me to include them in my invitations. The result would be a small public meeting, and not an intimate social function such as I desired. My wishes were respected in every way. No word said at the luncheon, or at any of the weekly gatherings that followed it for nearly three years, was ever made public. Further, their existence was never alluded to, though the meetings would have made excellent copy, quite apart from anything that was said at them. The secret was religiously kept.
I was deeply touched by the letters which I received in reply to my invitation. They were all from men then unknown to me, though I am glad and proud to say that many of them were from men who have since become intimate friends. They were written with that frankness, genuineness, and warmth of feeling which are characteristics of the American, and contrast so strongly with the stuttering efforts of the Briton to be genial and forthcoming.
Owing to the fact that we had moved to our house in the country in the last days of July, 1914, my London house was shut up except for a caretaker, and my wife could not bring up servants for the occasion or give me her help, which would have been invaluable, because she was tremendously busy with Red Cross organisation and getting our house ready for what it was so soon to become,i.e.a hospital with forty beds. I had, therefore, to do the necessary catering myself. I felt that, considering the need for discretion, my best plan would be to go to so old-fashioned an English house as Gunter's. The very name seemed stable and untouched by the possibility of spies.
Accordingly I told Gunter's representative to make arrangements for a luncheon for twenty people and to be sure that all the waiters were Englishmen and, if possible, old service men. That accomplished, I awaited the hour. I do not think I was anxious as to how my party would go off. I was much too busy for that. I was at the time deep in work that I considered appropriate to the Sheriff of the County of Surrey, which office I then held. On the Tuesday before the luncheon I was sleeping at Queen Anne's Gate, but went as usual toThe Spectatoroffice in the morning, transacted my business, and got back half-an-hour before "zero," which was 1.30, so that I might arrange the places of my guests, a task in which I was helped by Sir Eric Drummond, then Mr. Asquith's Private Secretary. Unfortunately I have not a record of all the people who were there, but I know that among them was Mr. Edward Price Bell of theChicago Daily News, known throughout the newspaper world of London as the doyen of American correspondents. He is a man for whom respect is felt in this country in proportion to the great number of years which he has devoted not only to the service of his newspaper but to improving the relations between this country and his own. Mr. Price Bell is the most patriotic of Americans, but he has never hesitated to make it clear that the word "foreign" does not apply to the relations between Great Britain and America.
Mr. Roy Martin, now the General Manager of that wonderful institution, The Associated Press of America, and his colleague and successor now head of the London office, Mr. Collins; Mr. Keen of The United Press and Mr. Edward Marshall ofThe New York Timeswere certainly there. Another of the men present with whom I was in the future to become intimate was Mr. Curtis Brown, the well-known and very able Literary Agent and the representative of the New York Press. It was, indeed, at his suggestion that these Memoirs, which have proved the pleasantest literary task ever undertaken by me, were begun and were placed in the hands of Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton in England and of Major Putnam in the United States. Mr. Fred Grundy, Mr. Patchin, Mr. Tewson, and Mr. Tuohy were also among my "first-nighters."
These men became the stalwarts of my regular parties, but there were also a number of other good friends and men of interest and ability, such as Mr. Palmer, who occupied journalistic posts here for a short time only, and then were moved either to the front or to some other part of Europe or back to their own country.
The luncheon proved a great success. From the first moment I realised that there was to be no coldness or official reticence or shyness, but a perfectly easy atmosphere. Mr. Asquith made himself exceedingly agreeable to my guests, and they did the same, not only to him, but to each other, to Mr. Asquith's staff, and to me, their host. Needless to say that as my object was to introduce the journalists to Mr. Asquith and get him to talk to them and they to him, I placed myself as far away from him as I could, though I was still able, if the conversation flagged (which, by the way, it never did) to put in a question or to raise some point about which I knew there was a general desire to get information. Wisely, as I think, I would have no speechmaking. After luncheon we retired into my library for our coffee and cigars, and I was then able to take each one of my guests up to Mr. Asquith for a few minutes' talk. The result was excellent. Mr. Asquith was very frank, but, though light in hand, he was as serious as the occasion demanded. I felt that the general result was that my guests felt that they were receiving the consideration they ought to receive, which I knew the Government desired that they should receive, but which they had very nearly missed, thanks to the fact that Governments so often find it impossible to do what they ought to do, and, indeed, want to do. Official efforts at politeness, instead of being the soft answers which turn away wrath, too often prove violent irritants.