BOYCOTT OF THE TIMES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17873, 30 August 1921, Page 5

BOYCOTT OF THE TIMES.

CRITICISM RESETTED.

ATTACK ON LORD CURZON.

GOVERNMENT'S DISAPPROVAL.

A brief statement of the circumstances in which the British Foreign Office placed J a "boycott" upon the London Times and | its associated newspapers—and pursued I Viscount Northcliffe with its displeasure ias far as the United States—was given ; m the cable news last month. The apj parent cause of the trouble was a leading I article in the Times of July 13, a few i days before Lord Northcliffe left London, discussing the representation of the | British Empire at the Washington conferj ence on Pacific questions. In the course of this article, the Times I said "the organs and other I Government machinery for regulating | opinion, are conveying, with all the concord of simultaneous inspiration, that Mr. ; Lloyd George will cross the ocean as chief i of the British delegation, while it is furJ ther suggested that Lord Curzon will acj company him. In so grave a matter as j this—a matter which promises permanj ently to affect the relations, not merely of London and of Washington, but of all I the English-speaking peoples—it seems to j us a duty to record without delay our ! strong and clear conviction that neither j the Prime Minister nor the Secretary of j State for Foreign Affairs is fitted by his : position, by his temperament, or by his past career to take a direct part in these j negotiations." Pompous and Pretentious.

After criticising the action of Lord | Curzon in engaging in " conversations" with the American and Japanese Ambassadors and with the Chinese Minister upon the subjects which it was known were engaging Mr. Harding's attention, the article proceeded : —" It is for the same i reason of avoiding suspicion that the attendance of Mr. Lloyd George or of Lord Curzon at Washington seems particularly undesirable. The pompous and pretentious manner of the Foreign Secretary, his business incapacity, as exhibited in the present state of his department, and his obsequious docility to the Prime Minister's behests, even when these may not commend themselves to his judgment, unfit him for the discharge of the responsible duties which the mission would impose upon him. The Prime Minister himsilf has many admirers at home, even among his opponents. The ' magnetic influence' of the man, his courage in debate, and his humour appeal^to them. But of all statesmen in Europe he is probably the most distrusted. It is notorious that no Government and no statesman who has had dealings with him puts the smallest confidence in him. . . . The great qualification needed for the representatives of the Empire is a character for conspicuous straightforwardness and We have many such men in our public life, but Mr. Lloyd George is not of them." On the following day the Times announced that " Lord Curzon has passed sentence of excommunication upon the Times for its impiety" in criticising him. It observed: —" In the course of its long history the Times has ofter had to discharge the painful duty of criticising the shortcomings of Foreign Secretaries, and of opposing, sometimes violently, the vagaries of their policies. Some of those Foreign Secretaries have, in consequence, visited us with their displeasure—and have lived to regret such ebullitions of wounded vanity. "

Mr. Lloyd George's Opinion. There was an animated debate on the matter in the House of Commons on July 18. Mr. Lloyd George said:—"The Times published a personal attack of a peculiarly offensive and mischievous character on the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs with special reference to some momentous and difficult negotiations on which he was engaged in pursuance of a policy representing not only the Government of the United Kingdom, but the Prime Ministers of the Dominions and the representatives of India. Such an attack at such a moment seemed to us to fall below all the normal standards of English journalism. ... It is, therefore, essential that the British Government, as a whole, should mark strongly its disapproval of such an attack upon a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at a critical moment. Official information is, of course, available as before to the Times, but the special favour accorded it by tradition in the past is entirely withdrawn." The correspondent of the Globe and New York Times obtained th 6 opinions of the editors of leading upon the Government's action. ''All, without exception, condemn it as childish and ineffective," he wrote. " and" declare it has put the Foreign Office in an impossible position. It must climb down sooner or later, and it will find that the information it so greatly cherishes will reach the Times and the Daily Mail in a manner that will surprise but may not delight." Lord Northcliffe himself made a. statement, in the course of which he said: — " They know nothing about the management of newspapers. They do not realise that if the Government attacks one newspaper other newspapers come to its help. My newspapers, therefore, now present as good a share of Government news as the others, and for several reasons. One is thnt the Government offices are always leakv where news is concerned, and another is that other publishers come t-> my Tescue, knowing that I should come to theirs if they were similarly attacked. '