Self's World's Press, 1919. Edited by E. T. Brown. (Sells.
10s. 6d. net.)—The thirty-fifth edition of this familiar and valuable book of reference contains, we are told, over 32,000
entries. A hundred new journals have been started since the Armistice. Among the introductory articles we may mention Mr. Gwynne's vigorous plea for " The Independent Newspaper " :-
" Either a newspaper, to the best of its ability, puts before its readers the truth, as it sees it, or it must deceive them. It is impossible to combine honesty of thought and personal ambitions. Sooner or later the public will begin to see that the two things are incompatible, and they will demand truth, and insist on getting it. And then the independent newspaper will come by its own."
In another article Mr. Snowden gives the true reason " Why Labour Papers Fail "—namely, that they are run by amateurs primarily as propagandist organs and not as newspapers. When
Mr. Snowden adds that Labour papers feel " under an obligation to maintain a higher moral standard than that observed by the ordinary newspapers," we cannot help remarking that the only Labour daily in London signally failed to " maintain a higher moral standard " in its utterly misleading reports of
the police strike. Possibly Mr. Snowden does not regard truth and morality as inseparable.
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