The Passing of a Great Journalist.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 7 August 1912, Page 4

The Passing of a Great Journalist.

-Because of the peculiarities of the mao, the majority of his fellows fail to recognise the true worth and work of the late W. T. Stead. It is so easy to repeat the judgment of some one else, and to avoid the trouble of seizing the facts for ourselves and yet, even the repetition of the sayings of of others, should cause us to hesitate in lightly dismissing the name and fame of such, a man as Mr Stead. When the news came that the Titanic, had gone down with appalling loss of life, and that the editor of the Beview of Reviews was auion&st the missing, there was widespread grief. The London Times spoke of his troops of friends. His kindness, sympathy and liberality, combined with his dynamic force, his unbounded courage, and dedire for truth had; won a place in the uenrts of many. Had he been more conventional and less impulsive, he *vould have suited British ideals better, but he would not have served his day and generation aa he did.

At Westminister Chapel, a memorial service to his memory was held, and although fixed for the hour of 6.30 pirn. some 2,500 gathered together. The Queen Mother was represented and at least six members of the Cabinet were in the congregation. At the age of tweuty-two, W. T. Stead was appointed editor of the Northern Echo, of Darlington, and the way he conducted that paper, led to his introduction to Thomas Carlyle, whose opinion was thus expressed, "Hike that Maister Stead of the Northern Aicho. I think he is a good man." That was the original of the famous phrase, "That good man Stead." Prom Darlington he was called to London to the Pall Mall Gazette. Sir Henry Lunn, for some years his colleague, tells the following :—

An illustration of the way in which he accomplished things is furnished by a story he told me, I do not exactly remember when, of his visit to the King of the Belgians on the Congo question. He said, " I wanted to see the King, and I asked a certain man if he could tell me how to do it. He said, 'Do you know so-and-so ? By approaching him you might manage an interview with so-and-so, who is in the Belgian Court.' I wanted to get the thing done, so I went to the telegraph office, and telegraphed: ' Bis Majesty the King of the Belgians, lam coming to see your Majesty on theOongo question.—Stead, Editor, Pafi^JCall Gazette'; and within twenty-four hours I had an interview with the Kmg in print in the columns of the Fail MaU Gazette."

! At 4he tiuW of the Jameson Raid he was Bhodes's most intimate friend. It is, perhaps, not generally known, what he told me himself, that, if it had not been for the Boer War, he would hare been the sole executor and trustee of Rhode*, with Lord Rothschild as financial adriier. Even when the will finally came put his name had been left in some capacity with others; but he retired from the trust, as it was impossible to work with those who were connected with it.

Perhaps the most interesting of his many interviews with Rhodes was one of which he told me when Erodes left him for the last time. >:*

i-'he war was over. The question of how South Africa was to be : ettled bad scarcely come over the horizon. No one foresaw that after the overwhelming defeat of the Tories in 1906 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as Premier, would boldly grant self-go vernmept at once to the Transvaal. Mr Stead said to me, " When I saw Rhodes off-at the station, he took my hand in both of his, and said to me, ' Within two years' time, Stead, you and I will be the best hated men in the kingdom, because I am going baok to South Africa to preach what you are preaching here. There is only one hope in South Africa, and that is in the reconciliation of Boer and Briton." Said Lord Milner, who was associated with Stead on the Gazette l< I have heard him discussing all sorts of subjects with the keenest minds of the times, and I never saw him worsted. Lord Fisher and Lord Ether were two of his friends that cultivated his acquaintance to the last, even though his spiritualism estranged others. Sir William Robertson Nicoll, who as a literary man and journalist combined is at the pinnacle of the profession, states that he pressed Stead strongly to write an « Inner History of England from 1880 " as for that task he had supreme qualifications. Says Nicholl :— I Toward the end of his life he abandoned a lucrative position on the press | for conscientious reasons. " Can you afford to do this ?" a friend asked him " Well," he said " you see I have a very wealthy partner." " Who is he " 11 QPP ALMIGHTY," was the reply. " Qqd (say^ Jhe pennon ragged to the dawn That signs to moon to stand, and sun to fly ( And flutters when the weak is over* borne To stem the tide of fate and eternity. That knows not reason, and that seeks no fameBut has engraved around its stubborn wood Tte words: " £night Errant till Efcrnity I"