J. L. Garvin
ON the day on which the Spectator goes to press this week it is to be privileged to entertain Mr. J. L. Garvin to lunch in the Stationers' Hall, by kind permission of the Master of the Stationers' Company. When we learnt of the completion of Mr. Garvin's twenty-one years' editorship of the Observer we ventured to ask him if he would accept an invitation from the Spectator to a lunch to which we proposed to ask some of his well-wishers and admirers. To-day's function is the outcome. We know that had Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey been alive he would have cordially approved of the proposal, for he had a great admiration for Mr. Garvin.
Mr. Garvin has been described as a " great journalist," and it is no exaggeration to say that he occupies a place all his own in British journalism. There are those who claim to despise Mr. Garvin, who say that the Observer would be more powerful if its articles were anonymous. We yield to none in our liking for anonymity in the serious press, but we think that British journalism would be poorer if Mr. Garvin's articles were unsigned : there is a personal appeal and vehemence of utterance which is only possible over a signature. Most of us have at times profoundly disagreed with Mr. Garvin. How could it be otherwise when we remember that for from forty to fifty times a year for nearly a quarter of a century lie has written on every manner of con- temporaneous political and literary subject ? One of the marvels of Mr. Garvin's mental equipment is his profound and wide learning, combined with a retentive memory and a passion—there is no other term—for good literature.
His industry is prodigious. Few journalists have as large an output of thought-compelling articles to their credit. Mr. Garvin pens with equal enthusiasm political articles and essays on Carlyle or Cervantes, on Trollope or the Elizabethans, or on the Velasquez room in the Prado at Madrid. His enthusiasm for good causes is infectious, and his buoyancy has often been an inspiration to younger men, as he rushes exultant on his foes. Mr. Garvin's work in the cause of promoting co-operation among the English-speaking peoples is beyond all praise, a matter as dear to the heart of the Spectator to-day as it was under Mr. Strachey's editorship.
Mr. Garvin's friends are very numerous and are to be found within all parties and in all strata of society, but none is more genuine in wishing him a long life and many years of further activity than we.
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