SCOTT OF THE 'GUARDIAN'

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 84, 9 April 1932, Page 17

SCOTT OF THE 'GUARDIAN'

WRITER AND POLITICIAN

(Concluding Article.) (By "Ajax") The "C. P. Scott Memorial Number" "of the "Manchester Guardian" contains a special appreciation of Scott as "Journalist and Editor," in which ho is credited with "the prime requisites"—a phrase which would perhaps have been less out of place in a butcher's, front ■ "window than in " the: opening sentence of aii excellent article—■

the prime" requisites of a true journalist as distinct from a politician or trader who uses a newspaper maiuly as a hoarding or mainly as a means to wealth.

Admitting that "no decent journalist consciously believes the opposite," the "writer adds that some decent journalists regard a daily paper as "a space on which the placards of a party can bo plastered," while to 'others their work is a branch of commerce—not of dishonest commerce, but of clever trading which makes money by "giving the public or some special part of the public just what it wants to buy."

■ But. there is still a third class of decent journalists whoso point of view is stated as follows:—

Others, the true journalists, feel that they fail if their paper is not, in all its parts, a faithful assistant to every man or woman who has keen interests and really wants to understand, whatever their'special interests may be. Whether it pays or not, this, in their eyes, has got to be done, simply because it is the one thing supremely and unquestionably worth doing- , ■

Assigning-Scott to this third class the article describes "a plain and friendly gravity" as the chief art in his political writing. ■'■■■'■

So immense is the power of unmistakably honest seriousness upon English readers that his writing carried a weight and had traceable effects which might astonish' connoisseurs of piquant literary flavours.

But admirably as Scott was thus equipped, both morally and intellectually, as a.leader-writer it is surprising to learn that during the first 40 years of his editorship he was not a regular or even a frequent writer of leading' articles.

Until the outbreak of the War, says the writer of this appreciation, his influence pver the paper was exercised mainly by. his choice o£ regular and temporary members of its staff and by general supervision of its editorial and business policy. For the years" from 1879 to 1596 the personality which was most strongly expressed in the leading and critical columns of the "Guardian" was that of William Arnold, whom some qualified judges believe to have been the greatest ;of all English journalists, certainly the greatest of all that they have known.

How many people outside of Manchester, Oxford, and Fleet Street were even aware that William Thomas Arnold, was a great journalist? A grandson of Arnold of Biigby and a brother of Mrs. Humphry Ward, he was the first of the brilliant young men whom Scott drew : frqm Oxford to the service^of his paper, an. the " Manchester Guardian's" Centenary. Number, Mr. J. H. Mills classes Mm with Scott and C. E. Montague as "one, of the chief modern makers of the paper.". .

As a practical, serviceable journalist of the small hours, says Mr._ Mills, Arnold has rarely been equalled. Knowing everything about something (Roman inscriptions), he had the further ambition of knowing something about everything. He was the architect of a system of "pigeonholes" which were contrived to serve the cause, not indeed' of omniscience, but of a-kind of omnia-ebnsciousness. His own room at the1 "Guardian." office was elaborately equipped with "pigeon-holes," and was the scene of an incessant alighting of doves from the most remote climates of the foreign reviews, from the cycling papers, from the medical, the ironmongery, and grocery papers, and, indeed, from everywhere and anywhere where "the facts about any subject under the sun could be collected—virginal and unimpasnoned. Mr. Montague has minutely described this method in a chapter of great 'journalistic edification in the Arnold -memoir.

Among the reasons given for the relatively small share taken by Scott in the leader-writing of the " Guardian'? for more than two-thirds of the 57 years of his editorship are the prolonged illness of his wife, the distractions of his ten/years (1895-1905) in Parliament, and the excellence of the staff that he had. gathered round him. But when the outbreak of the World War called Montague and others to the front, Scott became for the first time the chief regular leader-writer of the paper, and he retained that position for many years. Beferring to the claim made for Joseph Chamberlain that he had discovered and developed new powers in the art of public speaking after he passed the age of 50, Mr. Mills wrote as follows in the "Guardian's" Centenary- Number:—

Mr. Scott has bettered the example, and has enlarged the hopes o£ the sixth aid even the seventh decade of human life, for there is no question that his wrist for English prose is easier and more flexible than it was twenty or even ten years ago. The style has reached that high degree of excellence/which only comes when style is hid with thought, when it is, indeed, no longer style, but merely the diaphanous vesture of the thing which it is in his mijid and of his purpose to say.

■Mr. Mills is doubtless sound in his literary judgment, but his mathematics are less satisfactory. Born, in 1846, Scott was nearing tho end of his decade when tho war broke out, and he was half-way through the eighth when Mr. Mills wrote in 1921. 'It was therefore- tho hopes, not of the sixth and seventh decades but of the seventh and eighth, that Scott enlarged. The initials "C.P." which I saw at the foot of a review of a volume of minor verse in the "Guardian" in or about August last showed'that Scott's literary and critical faculties were still as alert as ever on the eve of hia 85th birthday. The hopes even -of the ninth decade were enlarged up to half-time.

Thetestiniony of Mr. Mills to the improvement ia Scott's style after passing his 6otliyear is,confirmed by that of the •writer of, thY appreciation already quoted. •■. ■ I .

Strange^ to say, he writes,' his writing gained in'thesdadyanced years a measure of flexibility and/vivacity which it lacked "during his youth.- His articles had a special character. They were marked by balance, judgment, and patience. . . He could write a trenchant article when he wanted, but he excelled rather in writing the article that makes people think than the article that makes them feel. . . .

He paid liis readers the compliment that lie paid to all his friends and associates— the compliment of assuming that they had his own respect for intelligence and honest thinking.

. Just, as astonishing as any other part of the Memorial Number is tho seqtion which deals with "Tho Editor in Politics: delation's with Statesmen," but space will not allow me to do more than, quote a single passage from it.

As Scott had both the confidence of the Irish leaders and tho respect of the Conservatives, ho occupied a speciaj position throughout the prolonged agitation over Home Rule, the threatened revolt of Ulster, and tho Parliament Act. The following extract from his diary in May, 1914, illustrates tho character and tho scope of his activities:—

Went to London on Slay 4 at Lloyd (j-eorge's request to lunch with him. Dined with Lqrcbunr in the evening. Had two. hours with Dillou' next morning, met Garvin at lunch, and called on George Russell [of Dublin] in the afternoon. Slot Geoffrey Eobinsoiv [now Dawson], Grigs, and Curtis at the "Times" office iv the evening. Breakfasted with Lloyd George on Wednesday. Lunched with Lord Esher, and met Grigg and Curtis at Waldorf Astor's house in St. James's Square in the afternoon. LI. G. wanted me to see the Irishmen and fiud out if they would speak more freely to me than they had to him on their attitude on the Ulster question.