• News-Sheets and Their Claims
SIR,—I suggest that Janus in his comments, February 24th, on what he calls private news-sheets, but which I call news-letters, misunderstands their purpose. The news-letter with which my name is associated was founded in 1936 with 600 subscribers. By 1939 that figure had grown to 60,000 all over the world ; a very tesriectable postal circulation for a serious weekly.
News-letters are not to be regarded (in my judgement) as substitutes for daily papers or even weekly journals. They exist in their own right. Janus would certainly have to admit, were he invited to look at our thousands of addresses, that many people in responsible positions on both sides of the Atlantic are, according to his definition, "essentially credulous in temperament." The " information of high importance " supported by factual evidence which we presented to the public week after week from 1936 to 1939 was simply the news that Hitler was going to make war on us. It is quite true that we sometimes print information not found in the Press, because a well-run news-letter has thousands of voluntary correspondents all over the world. A news-letter can be (and I think ought to be) a kind of co-operative effort between the member- ship and and the editorial staff. It is an experiment in journalism.—Yours truly, STEPHEN KING-HALL. [Janus writes: This particular news-letter (which I distinguish from the news-sheets on which I was writing) has not so far as I am aware made flamboyant claims to the possession of secret information.]
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