MR BELLOC AND THE PRESS.
-Mr Hilaire Belloc, M.P., essayist, novelist, and politician, has, in the 'English Review,' an article entitled • The Source of Information,' which attracted more than ordinary notice owing to the. editor, after it was hi print, censuring it. In explanation of this (somewhat extraordinary course tlie editor, in a note, says: "The article contained certain accusations which they believed to be true. Mr Belloc was exceedingly unwilling that we should publish his article without these accusations, and in order to*prove that he, at least, has the courage of his/oonvicti'ons we have adopted the form in which the article at pa-sent appears. We do this the more willingly since it demonstrates how in this country the law of libel aids that very obscuring of facte to which Mr Belloc refers—that obscuring of facts which is one of the most serious of modern tendencies." - A Man of Kent," in the ' British weekly,' comments as follows on Mr Belize's essay:—Mr Belloc protests against the manner in which the popular mind is debarred from the truth. He says: "The statesmen of foreign nations envy England in nothing more than this, that ~ the sources of information in this country onen and close, mechanically as at a word' of command, and that the public knowledge of this or that can be canalised almost at will." He then makes certain charges, hut, mindful of the law of libel, the editor has blackened the critical part of those charges. fc'cme are left as thev stand. Thus ; "To turn to foreign affairs": Let an alliance be thought advisable with a certan: country; that country puts to death in cold blood (and mutilates after death) a number of prisoners of war. In what organ of opinion should we lind tliis truth? An understanding is thought advisable with another Power: this Power obtains .information in the field by the persistent i:se of the most horrible forms of torture. Where would the public discover this fact?"' To this I reply that if these are facts, and if Mr Belloc is in a condition to prove them, ;uiy respectable newspaper iu the country will give them room. If ho cannot prove them, then, of course, they are best excladed. —Zoia and Dreyfus.— However, we learn something of Mr Belloe's views in his attack on Zola. He says: "In what place could Englishmen learn the man's full title to dishonour? His works, indeed, in their utter bestiality are well known here, for they were largely written for our market, and secretly they are still largely read. But what ed'ueated opinion was ever formed upon his origins?" He goes on: " Why has so much of our foreign information for ten years centred round the low and unpleasiug figure of a man twice condemned for treason, supported by the cosmopolitan finance of Europe, amnestied, the centre of a discord with which we had in this country nothing to do, and yet of which wo made our principal public occupation for many months?" To this I reply that the bestia"lity of Zola's works has' been amply denounced in England, and by none more eloquently than by Mr Swinburne in the 'Athenaeum.' Also in England a, publisher was sent to prison for selling his books. And now I put a question to Mr Belloc: What about Dreyfus ? I supose Mr Belloc means Dreyfus when he talks about "a aiecord with which we had in this country nothing to do." What? Nothing to do with the utter vileness of Dreyfus's condemnation? With the incrediblo wickedness of the Roman Catholic press m I France? Mr Belloc always writes as a Roman Catholic. Let me advise him to leave Zola alone and sav nothing about Dreyfus, the chief shame of official Catholicism for many years. Whatever Zola's errors were, and they were plentiful, no doubt he did much to retrieve them by his brave and costly stand for truth and justice in the case of Dreyfus. —The Congo Business.— Again, Mr Belloc makes this statement: "He must not be content to show that the . Congo Reform business ie a bit of cant and hypocrisy; he must get hold of the names of the people who found the money; he ; must get hold of the facts in the past ! careers of thoss who made the agitation, and he must hold them ready to publish." iSo it appears that Mr Belloc champions the administration of the King of Belgium in the Congo! Happily he is theonlyman I have ever heard of in Parliament on one side ot another who did—the only decent person who ever did. As for his threats of exposing the Congo Reform movement and the antecedents of those who take part in it, why does he shrink? If he has anything to say, why does ho not say it? Of coUTc=e, he would bo called upon to prove whatever he said, but docs he object to that? It is all very well to throw stones at our newspaper press, but think of what our newspaper press would be if it were dominated by Roman Catliolics like Mr Hilaire BeUoc. As for the , plan of publishing the article with erasures, the editor of the 'English Review' will find it desirable not to repeat it. Let him have the courage of his convictions, or hold his peace. i
I In what month ought, monkey -to bathe? —Ape-ril.
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Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 5
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899MR BELLOC AND THE PRESS. Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 5
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