PUBLICITY V. SILENCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.1
Sr,—With your article in last week's issue on Mr. Wood's "Plea for a Press League of Silence" all thinking persons and journalists will cordially agree. But are you quite con- sistent with regard to your own editorial treatment of the suffragettes P In the case of Dhingra, there can be no question that the publication of his speech from the dock must have satisfied every true Britisher that his grievances were abso- lutely groundless. Now, with regard to the suffragettes, you say that you are not publishing any records of the more violent acts of the militant women suffragettes because their chief purpose is advertisement. In my case we continue to publish reports of these violent acts just because we cannot conceive that these women could find a better way of convincing sensible people—and the nation is, in the main, composed of such—of their utter unsuitability for the exercise of a responsibility like the franchise. You may reply that the difference of opinion between you and me just shows how each case must be considered on its merits by individual editors. I maintain, however, that mine is the more consistent course.
—j am, Sir, Ste., AN ANTI-SUFFRAGIST EDITOR.
[7ery possibly our correspondent has chosen the better course; but even editors are human beings, and we confess to a strong dislike to devoting space that might be so much better filled to the doings of the suffragettes.—ED. Spectator.]
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