As an example of Mr. Chesterton's foolish recklessness of language
we may remind our readers that he seriously accused the Spectator last autumn of attempting to shelter the Government in regard to the Marconi affair because we would not imitate his inflated language in our com- ments. Yet we expect that the Government really preferred exposure to the full blast of Mr. Chesterton's heroics to taking shelter behind our more prosaic comments. Mr. Chesterton was no doubt sincerely anxious to guard the integrity of our political life, but in reality he was doing nothing to preserve it, but a great deal to injure it, by his violence. There is no surer way of disgusting Englishmen than to make criticism ten times stronger than the facts warrant. The Chesterton episode is in truth an utterly unimportant incident in the Marconi controversy, and the trial leaves matters exactly as they were.
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