MR. FOX-BOURNE ON ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS.* THIS is probably the best
book of its kind that has yet appeared ; it is certainly a very much better book than the late Mr. James Grant's on The Newspaper Press. The rela- tions between newspapers and political parties, the material development of journalism, the advance of the provincial daily Press, at least in respect of news-supplying enterprise, to a position almost of equality with that of the Metropolis, the growth (at once enormous and almost unnoticed) of special trade and professional papers,—to these and a number of other branches of his subject, Mr. Fox-Bourne does ample justice. He frankly explains his own connections with, and indicates his own ideas of, journalism. He evidently regards that department of it which means the expression of opinion, as an affair not only of the head, but of the conscience. Nor, when he deals with existing newspapers and the men who are sup- posed to own, edit, and write for them, does he err seriously in the matter of taste—although, perhaps, it is hardly in a book of this kind that it should be hinted (Vol. II., 335), even if there be anything in the hint, that one of the Members for Northampton is " a man who regards life as a game, and politics as only a form of gambling." Mr. Fox-Bourne is, indeed, too earnest a politician to make a thoroughly good—that is to say, a maliciously personal— gossip. Moreover, the history of newspapers, and of the men who write for them—who, by-the-way, are not quite the same as the men who write to them—presents authentic tragedies and comedies. It gives us Lamb getting up at five in the morning to eke out his income by making jokes for sixpences, and Chatterton calculating whether Lord Mayor Bedford's death should be a motive to the committal of suicide or not. But it may be doubted whether it is possible—and even if it were possible, whether it is desirable—to write a thoroughly satisfactory book of the kind Mr. Fox-Bourne has produced, at once historical, anecdotal, and gossipy. So long as English journalism is essentially anonymous—and long may it remain so !—it is impossible to tell its story completely. For journalists who are loyal to the conditions and respect the privileges of anonymity, and are therefore the life and soul of newspapers, have too much respect for their work, their colleagues, and themselves, to chatter to strangers, or even to intimates, about what is only to a limited extent their business. Mr. Fox-Bourne's statements as to journalistic personnel, and as to the proprietorial vicissitudes of newspapers, cannot, there- fore, but be incomplete. Even he will probably not deny that he is far better acquainted with the interiors of certain journals than with the interiors of others, and that, therefore, while he does them justice, according to his lights, he does others in- justice. Yet, from his own standpoint as a historian of journal- ism, he ought to give the names of the men who write or have written for every newspaper, if he gives the names of the men who write or have written for any. (We say nothing of the inaccuracies that are probably inevitable in a book of this kind. Bat, leaving London journals purposely out of considera- tion, we may point out that Mr. Fox-Bourne does not appear to be aware of such facts as that 'certain provincial papers
• English Newspapers: Chapters in the History of Journalises. By R. R. Fox-Bourne. 2 vols. London : Chatto and Windus. 1887.
which were originally published once a week, appeared for a period twice a week before they became dailies, and that the Edinburgh Courant, as a daily organ of Scotch Con- servatism, is defunct.) We suspect, too, that it is a very limited section of the public that is interested, not in the arguments, information, or it may be the aspirations contained in a news- paper article, but in speculating whether it is A.'s Roman or X.'s Corinthian hand that is to be detected in it, and whether it is trite that the writer prefers spotted ties to black ones, or white wine to red. Not that there is an unhappily large number of people who spend a vast amount of time in the pursuit of useless knowledge. But they like even this knowledge to be full and reliable ; and such they cannot, in the very nature of things, obtain about anonymous journalism. What is true, too, of to-day is true of other and earlier days. The tattle of Horace Walpole and of Greville about public writers, as about public men, may be more piquant than the club-chat of the hour. But it is not more satisfactory as a contribution to the history of journalism. Finally, and to be done with our somewhat reluctant fault-finding, Mr. Fox-Bourne should have condensed the earlier part of his story. Almost everybody knows all that needs to be known about the Spectator and Tatler stage —if it can be called a stage—in the history of newspapers ; about Defoe and Mist, Swift and " Junius," if not about Woodfall and Cobbett, Hook and Coleridge.
While, therefore, we regard Mr. Fox-Bourne's performance as an improvement upon previous works of the same kind, we must also regard it as but a preparation for an authoritative work on the phenomena, as distinguished from the personnel and personalities, of journalism. Of course, it is impossible not altogether to avoid mentioning names in connection with even anonymous writing. A man who starts a first-class newspaper, or who makes a new departure in journalism, or who revolutionises the mechanism of newspaper pro- duction, is as much public property as a Watt or an Edison. Thus, it is impossible, and would be absurd, to speak of the Times and ignore the invention and the inventor of the Walter Press. But it is not impossible, and it is desirable, to speak of the Times as expressing certain opinions at a particular period in the history of the country, without ran- sacking the pages of the gossip-mongers for references to Mr. Barnes's prejudices or Mr. Delane's social acquaintanceships. In short, it ought to be no particularly difficult task to distinguish between that personal element in journalism which is matter of public concern, and that personal element which is not ; and, above all, to do justice to that impersonal— or, rather, third-personal—element which is its true strength. The terra firma of historical fact in connection with journalism is now so extensive, the development, extension, and specialisa- tion of our newspapers till they have become at once the bazaar and the forum of English life, are so marvellous, that it is not at all necessary to wander into any terra incognita in search of interesting material for a good book which should also be a well-compacted one. Journalism—more especially journalism strictly so called—has reached such a position in this country that a history of all, and not merely some of the processes by which that position has been attained, if written in the spirit which has been indicated would prove both pleasant and profitable reading.
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