Evening Post. SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1921. A NEWSTAPER CENTENARY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 150, 25 June 1921, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1921. A NEWSTAPER CENTENARY

[ The day on which the greatest of soldiers died also saw the birth of one of the greatest of newspapers, The.first number of the Manchester Guardian appeared as an eightpage weekly on the sth May, 1821, and the price was sevenpence, of which no less than fourpence, subject to a discount of 20 per cent., went to the payment of the newspaper tax, then at its maximum. This outrageous " tax on knowledge," which was reduced to a, penny in 1836, was not abolished till 1855, and in that year the Manchester Guardian was converted into a daily. Its centenaryvnumber, which runs to 104 pages, exclusive of an inset reproducing the first number in facsimile, was sold at half the amount which the news-, paper had to pay in taxation during the first' fifteen years of its existence, and fitly commemorates, without hysterics or grandiloquence, one of the very greatest achievements in the history of journalism. The number is brimful of historical and literary interest, and has a permanent value for [ the light that it throws not merely on newspaper enterprise but on the public life of England during the last hundred years. It is an inspiring story, vividly but modestly told, of a great undertaking, inspired by high ideals, maintained with unswerving fidelity through good report and ill, and crowned with a • brilliant success. • Agreement with all or any part of the newspaper's policy is not a necessary condition of one's admiration for such a performance. Lord Derby,, who presided at the centenary dinner, was able to say that "on no single occasion had the Manchester Guardian supported the policy that he advocated, and he could not remember supporting any policy which the Guardian had advocated." 8ut,116 was glad to be there, and he gave his admiration of the paper's integrity, honesty, straightforwardness, and avoidance of personalities as the reason. The aim of the founders of the Guardian was modest enough. They sought to establish " a newspaper which, by supporting a consistent character for sincere and undeviating attachment to national liberty, may promote that union and concentration amongst the friends of freedom in this neighbourhood which is in itself so desirable, and the want of which has been hitherto so sensibly felt." Coming into the world two years after Waterloo and eleven years before the Reform ■Bill, when the attentions of the Attor-ney-General and of a "Constitutional Association for opposing the progress of disloyal and seditious principles" were a terror to Liberal editors, the new paper had no light task in advocating the cause of Reform and " the principles of civil and religious liberty, in the most, comprehensive sense \ of those terms." These principles were consistently maintained by the Manchester Guardian from the first, but it was under the present editor that it developed from a local into a national organ. To-day the Guardian is not merely a national organ : it is beyond question the leading organ of Liberalism, _and among all the dailies it stands second to The Times alone.. f . Mr. 0. P. Scott," who has accomplished this great work, has been no less than fifty years in the editorial chair,' and during the last sixtsen.has been governing director 1 also. In the seventy-fifth year of his age, he still rides about the crowded streets and the bone-shak-ing "setts" of Manchester on his ! bicycle, and .still spends the midnight hours at the Guardian office writing leaders, while freely accessible to the distracting calls of business. The. following extract from Mr. Scott's centenary, article is interesting as giving his idea of the first duty of a newspaper: Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it mast see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in,, the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth, suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred. " Propaganda," so called,, by this means is hateful. The voice of opponents no Jess than that of friends has a right to be. heard. Comment also is justly, subject to a selfimposed restraint. It is well to be frank; it is even better to- be fair. This is an ideal. Achievement in such matters is hardly given to man. Perhaps none of us can attain to it in the desirable measure. We can but try, ask pardon for shortcomings, and there leave the matter. ; The function of an, editor is, therefore, in this veteran journalist's opinion, much like what Lord Bryce lays down for the historian. "It is Facts; that are needed," says Lord Bryce ; " Facts,, Facts, Facts." The passage is also .interesting aa showing that what

one of Mr. Scott's staff calls "his wrist for English prose " has not lost its cunning or its vigour through fifty years of unremitting labour. In the special section of the centenary number dealing with "The 'London End'," a brief reference is made to the important news which the Guardian has sometimes been able to get ahead of its London contemporaries. " The list," we are told, " from the announcement of John Bright's resignation from Mr. Gladstone's Government to the transfer of Mr. Churchill from the War Office to the Colonial Office is a long one, but need not be detailed at length,?' It is, however, upon performances of another kind that Mr. C. P. Scott and his staff prefer to dwell. Two of the most momentous decisions in the history of the Guardian were those that ranged it in support of Gladstone's Home Rule policy and against the South African War. One aspect of the price which the paper had to pay for the second of these decisions is thus described: , The Guardian office was often threatened with physical violence, and was sometimes under police protection, as, some- i what to his dissatisfaction, was Mr. ! Scott's own" house. It is a chapter in the history of the Manchester Guardian which should be turned over with pleasure even by those who think the raper was wrong on the merits of the South African War. That the decision to oppose the war was taken without the smallest, regard to the commercial interests of the paper is personal to the Manchester Guardian itself, but that the risk should have been* run with perfect success reflects hopefully on the condition of public life in England, and lights a lamp on the roadway of faith. It is evidently to the Manchester Guardian that Lord Bryce refers in his last book when he says that by telling the truth about the South African War " an important newspaper incurred much unpopularity, and lost heavily, but it held on, and when the . . . war was over regained more than it.had lost." The Guardian has shown that principle can be made to pay. It has admirably achieved what Lord Robert Cecil at the centenary dinner declared to be the great object of the conscientious journalist—viz., "to make righteousness readable."