17 SEPTEMBER 1948, Page 20

LORD KEMSLEY'S PAPERS

SIR,—Since, of course, j'assume Janus did not intend to mislead in his note on Lord Kemsley's evidence to the Press Commission in The Spectator of September 3rd I can only conclude that he did not read beyond the written evidence: Giving what he describes as the facts estab- lished Janus states: "There were no syndicated articles, other than foreign news service messages." But when Lord Kemsley was asked how it happened that an appeal for a new coalition Government appeared not long ago more or less simultaneously in most of his newspapers he replied : "I was entirely responsible for it." Was that a foreign news message ? Was it not syndicated ? So much for the alleged independence of the local editors. There are other such instances of Lord Kemsley con- tradicting in his oral evidence the claims made in his written memorandum.

For professional reasons I must sign myself merely A JOURNALIST.

[Janus writes : What I summarised was the gist of part of Lord Kemsley's oral evidence, which I had naturally read in full. The full text of question 12,369 is : "There are no syndicated articles of any sort ? "Syndicated article" is a well-understood term in journalism. For a. leading article in the Sunday Times to be "more or less repro- duced" (not "more or less simultaneously ") in provincial papers the next day is something quite different.]