THE SHOWER OF HONOURS.
R. GLADSTONE has followed a bad precedent set by Lord Salisbury, and has made it worse. The Unionist Premier gave, we believe, four decorations, two baroneteies and two knighthoods, to newspaper proprietors and editors ; but the Gladstonian Premier, if we count the baronetcies refused by Mr. Brunner and the editor of the Manchester Guardian, has given eight, and given them among "the Birthday Honours," as if to show that the practice is henceforward. to be customary. There are so many editors to be promoted yearly, as well as so many other officers. We have nothing to say against the selection made, except that men of very different calibre are rather absurdly equalised, beyond this, that they are all strong partisans of the Ministry ; that they are none of them men who have performed services to the State outside journalism ; and that they must all therefore be con- sidered as men rewarded for their literary devotion to a politician. They are paid in honours instead of money— which they would all have refused contemptuously—for ser- vices to their party. Moreover, as they are not men of mark outside the profession, the whole profession is assured that journalism has become one of the roads to honour, and that editors or newspaper proprietors have only to be faith- ful and successful to be sure, sooner or later, of distinctions which are still greatly valued, and especially valued, it would seem, by those who proclaim every day the absurdity of hereditary dignities and the inherent equality of all men. We cannot believe that the practice, for of course it will now be a practice common to both sides, is favour- able either to good government or to good journalism. The Government in a free country must depend for its view of public opinion at least in some degree upon the journalists ; and in binding them to itself, or holding out the prospect of reward for deference and support, it destroys much of their utility to the State. Indeed, we are not sure it does not destroy all ; for arguments brought forward with a personal motive lose not only in their weight, but in the acumen with which they are set before the public. It is, however, as indicators of opinion, rather than as debaters, that the majority of journalists are useful to those who govern ; and everything which tends to destroy their inde- pendence, or their readiness to perceive and discuss facts unpleasing to the Ministry of the hour, necessarily diminishes fro tanto that utility. The disposition to report all things disappears under pressure of the wish to report pleasant things; to become acceptable to the men who can distribute gifts, to find a place, in short, in next year's "Birthday-List." The Minister might as well ask his Cabinet for guidance as to opinion, as ask journalists who are pledged to his side not only by their individual views—which are quite sufficient sources of bias—but by the hope or receipt of positive rewards. Every one would perceive this, if the rewards were, as was formerly the case, sinecure " places," and as honours are greatly valued —so valued that their distribution is a Ministerial embar- rassment—it is not easy to perceive the difference. The State loses, in short, one grand source of independent in- formation. As to the journalists themselves, the case is even more clear. They are taught and tempted to seek rewards which limit their independence, fetter them in their work, and very often, we fear, will be found seriously to interfere with their acuteness of judgment. Hitherto they havelooked to the public alone for their reward, and, moreover, to an impersonal public, it being one of the good results of the singular system of newspaper distribution which has rooted itself here, that a journalist has not the smallest means of knowing who reads or who neglects his paper. In future, to those who care for honours—that is probably a majority —the approval of a Premier will be more than the approval of a people ; and " good newspaper policy " will mean neither haughty independence nor the adroit reflection of popular opinion, but careful attention to that which it is known will be pleasing to the head of the Government, or to those who are believed to have influence on his decisions. The journalist, in fact, becomes more or less of what he was in the last century,—a hanger-on, who may by a miracle be independent, but who is tempted at all times to consider whether his independence and his personal objects cannot, by some adroitness in the turning of phrases or the manipulation of facts, be re- conciled. That a great many journalists will rise superior to the temptation may be admitted at once; but we think it an unnecessary evil that it should be spread before them. They are already exposed to a great deal of social pres- sure, and to that loss of originality which comes from much haunting of drawing-rooms; and it was hardly needful to increase the mischief by offering them stimu- lants to every social ambition they may happen to possess. Without going quite the length of those who say that the best journalist is he who sees nothing of the world-- though it is noteworthy that the most successful journalist in England is personally the least known—we should certainly say that judgment, veracity, and independence would be almost in proportion to seclusion. A journalist like Mr. Delano can hardly help being a person of conse- quence, but the wish for that consequence, so far as it existed, was injurious to the value in the community of Mr. Delano.
There are two arguments, each of some force, by which the new practice can be defended, but neither of them breed any conviction in our minds. One is, that both in America and France the English system has long since been departed from. In France the successful journalist of to-day is the inevitable Minister of to-morrow ; and in America he is a political force, is a good candidate, if he is wealthy, for the Senate, and may be, as Horace Greeley undoubtedly was, a popular nominee for the Presidency. That is quite true ; but then it is also true that hitherto the English Press has, in fairness, in judgment, and in free- dom from personal predilections, been much the superior of both its rivals. Apart altogether from the corruption revealed in the Panama trials, the French Press is one of the most unjust in the world, one of the readiest to libel adversaries, one which, of all others, creates in successive Governments the conviction that true freedom of the Press is incompatible with the stability of any political system whatever. It owes this bad repute to many causes ; but one of the strongest of them is that in France every journalist is trying to make himself, and not his paper. Ambition governs him,—not loyalty to his work. The American Press is better ; but it is of all newspaper systems among English-speaking peoples, the most unblushingly partisan. The journalist thinks first, and often thinks only, of the interest of his party, because with its importance his own rises or declines. He is, in fact, though in an indirect way, playing for his own hand. That is the evil which we wish to see avoided here, so that an English journalist may at least have a fair chance of a detached mind ; and that fair chance, as we think, the new practice in distributing honours tends to lessen. So far as it exercises an influence, and we do not at all wish to exaggerate that, it is an influence confusing in the journalist's mind personal with professional ambition, disturbing his judgment, and lowering his point of view. It may be alleged that this is true also of every other pro- fession, or at least of politics and the law. If, it will be argued, politicians expect decorations as part of their reward, why should not journalists ? The simple answer is that politicians are expected to serve, that within certain limits it is their business to serve, both their party and the State, and that the journalist is not. The same inde- pendence is not required of the politician ; nor has he, to put the matter with brutal plainness, the same opportunity of selling himself. He is watched by the House, by con- stituents and by enemies, and must, as a rule, perform actual service before he obtains any kind of decoration. No doubt, as a matter of fact, baronetcies are occasionally given merely to conciliate politicians who think themselves aggrieved, or to reward men who have vacated a seat conveniently, or to " acknowledge " great sums spent in fighting elections ; but then those are abuses only tolerated by opinion because they do not produce much harm, and make a machine full of causes of friction work a little more smoothly. The corruption of the Press would produce harm, and our case against the new practice is that it tends that way. We do not want to make too much of the matter, except as regards the future; but Premiers should remember that journalists, to be worth much to the community, should stand outside the scramble.
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