ROYALTY AND THE COLONIAL PRESS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 10986, 8 June 1901, Page 6

ROYALTY AND THE COLONIAL PRESS.

If they found any time at all to read newspapers the Royal guests, whilst in Australia, must have been more than favourably impressed with the appearance, style, and tone of the great journals of the Commonwealth. In the special efforts they put forth, all of them, but especially thj Melbourne "Argus," attained a standard of excellence which convinced the distinguished journalists who are travelling with the Duke, that their fellow craftsmen in the Southern Hemisphere are no _ unworthy brethren. Nor do we doubt that the Press of this colony will, if our population is considered, be deemed creditable to the community by which it is supported. The tone

of tho great Australian newspapers," it need not be said, was heartily loyal; they felt and expressed with cardial warmth the gratitude of tho people of tho Commonwealth for the sacrifices made by the Royal Family in • carrying out the promised visit in spite of its recent bereavement. To this tone and attitude there is, however, a painful exception. The Sydney "Bulletin" during the visit published comments upon their Royal guests that can only be described as grossly offensive. No one, of course, expected the journal in question to give expression to feelings of loyalty—that is not its "metier." Its attitude to everything, from a theatrical performance to a political from the latest book to the latest war, is "Nil adinirari." One expected, of course, that the' extravagances of the tuft-hunter and wire-puller, inseparable from such an occasion as a Royal visit, would be treated with the scorn of scorns in its columns; that the outbursts of popular enthusiasm would be jeered at as .grovelling sentimentalistm, and that the institution and purposes of monarchy would be criticised with ultra-republican acerbity. But one did expect that even the "Bulletin" would refrain from cowardly personalities and gross abuse of the Duke and Duchess themselves. An actress, whose personal attractiorfe form part of her professional stock-in-trade, would in most neAvspapers be immune from the sort of impertinent comment the "Bulletin" passes upon the Royal visitor. The writer of the paragraphs seems to have forgotten at once the sex of the Duchess of Cornwall and his own; for the Duchess, be,she never so .royal, is a woman; and the writer —''God niade him, «b let him pass for a man." The tone and language of some of the comments are beyond the limits not merely of good taste, but of manly decency. The. allusions to the Duke are oontemptuoua and offeowivo; but j

author that he is attacking a _nj^ '. <'jgßfS. ferences to the Duchess _re «6&'a#9p£ make every decent royalist 'or republican,-' .wf witi &s_%_% tion that tiieyr should have &ft3Bls-' reference to tlie nation's guest.' ter Press" of Paris had, at tional hatred to plead as-e*^ excesses; tho occasional scurrility o{ a iS|2. hn paper may claim to have some pohtioal motivo beliind it. But A* tin" can plead no such excuse., It T: no liagher motive than wanton **»»•-. ?£■* abuse. Epigram is so much easier to'k * ''~ } tarn to in attack than in appreciatJo tt - # and m the columns of the "Bulletin" &' ""-• gram counts for everything. One can fS .'- ---give it much for its trenchant wit j it faH not undeservedly that Ma_c O'Rell JL* 0 . cribed it aa "the wittiest paper i a world." Its tirades on the Transvaal W excited a good deal of disgust, and.nm* '-' have lost it many friends. I n that «v» * * although it took the unpopular side *& showed some wit and no little Its impertinent personalities diwoWvagainst tho R_ ya l v«itor»-ai_d against the Duchess—are neither witty nor "-' ami King, but simply unadulterated* Ud J J taste. Every loyal Australian, we sure, will resent the insult to the guests'C* of his nation. , "V