ENGLAND DIFFICULTIES

Evening Star, Issue 15899, 3 September 1915, Page 3

ENGLAND DIFFICULTIES

WILL WAR SOLVE THEM? " Fairplay," in the obituary notice of its founder, and till three years ago its editor, Mr Thomas Hope Robinson, says:—"Up to th© time when he finally ceased to for 'Fairplay' "he took an enthusiastic delight in his work; he was never happier than when he was given the opportunity of exposing some dishonesty or of supporting some genuine cause. In or out of print his advice was as spontaneous as it was practical. Theories which lead to nothing were no good to him. He treated'them as he treated the offer of a safe seat in the House, which he refused because he didn't like the talking shop. He wrote ' with a pen cf > iron and the point of a diamond,' and it i was with them that he thought; with him j to see th© central fact and to pin it down I required a single movement. His' death i has robbed the flipping community and a I still wider world of a notable, figure. He j represented the journalistic tradition at its ! best—the ability to lead, a bitter loath- : ing- for humbug, and an ever-insistent desire to see justice done and England the first in doing it. He despised excesses of every kind ; he was the raciest of racou- j tears, and the most abstemious of b-on vivants. '■• "During the latter years of his lifo the I political and social upheavals which brought uneasiness to the thoughtful largely affected him. In the absence of a general war he oould see for England no real way out of her difficulties. Death has i called him before the cataclysm thiough ! wMch the world is passing has come to us ' final issue; but even while he lived he ; saw in the conflict the certainty of a I stronger a,nd better England emcrp-in" ! from the furnace." ° ° I