. LIFE MEMBERSHIP OF THE " SPECTATOR."
THE large number of letters which we have received on Life Membership of the Spectator proves how great has been the interest aroused by our suggestions. The majority of these letters—a selection is published in our present .issue—are favourable in principle, but several of them point out the dangers and difficulties which might arise if we entered into a contract to accord a right of pre-emption to Life Members. We might, one of our correspondents points out, forfeit thereby the very independence which it is our desire to preserve and to secure which the scheme was, indeed, suggested. Consideration shows that though you can, without much difficulty, give a right of pre-emption to an individual (as in the case of Mr. John Walter and the Times), you cannot do so to a group of individuals, scattered, it may well be, all over the globe, without inviting legal compli- cations and pitfalls of a menacing kind. For example, if four or five Life Members were each to claim the right of pre-emption, how could it be decided which should be the purchaser ? Division between men, probably with different aims, might be the last thing they would agree to, while, if the vendor reserved the right to nominate one, as we at one time thought possible, lie would have it in his power to render the scheme nugatory.
But, as several of our correspondents realize, the scheme should not and does not stand or fall on proving it prac- ticable to provide a legal right of pre-emption ; and we think that when we put forth specific proposals, as we hope to do next week, we shall be able to lay down terms of Life Membership which will give readers, who so desire, an opportunity for a closer connexion with the paper that will not, however, in the least, interfere with its full freedom and independence. In other words, though it has not proved possible to give any right of pre-emption —a matter, after all, of no great practical importance in view of the fact that no sale is, or has been, or is in the least -likely to be contemplated—we shall be able to propose a scheme which will meet the wishes of our readers. As is suggested by one of our earliest critics, Colonel Gore-Browne, the essential point is the assembling of a body of readers twice a year, in order that they may ask and answer questions, make suggestions and establish contact with the Editor and his Staff.
It must never be forgotten, however, that the Editor will always remain, as it were, trustee for the interests of the general mass of readers and of the paper as a whole, and that the Life Members will in no sense form an internal oligarchy. They will be " sample readers," not persons armed with tribunician powers.
We desire to thank our correspondents for their very valuable letters. Several of the most notable were too long for insertion, but they were, none the less, care- fully read, and the suggestions they contained duly
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