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I am glad to see that Mr. W. L. Andrews, editor of The York- shire Post, in his editorial address to the Institute of Journalists last Saturday, laid stress on one salient feature of the demands for an enquiry into the ownership and conduct of the Press. It must have struck a good many people as singular that papers which were being universally and deservedly eulogised during the war for their efficiency and discretion have suddenly been discovered, under the same proprietorship, to be guilty of every kind of offence against society. As Mr. Andrews put it, "There are cheap-jacks of political prejudice who want to do us harm. What are they after? Some of those agitating for a public enquiry into the Press—some, I say, not all—are not concerned to defend and expand its freedom... . They think it is a wicked Press when it is against them and against their grandiose plans for changing the control of industry. They think it wrong for a newspaper to strive hard to advance what it believes in —if that faith happens to be opposed to their own." There is a large amount of truth in that, as anyone who has studied the nature and origin of the recent attacks on the Press knows. * * * 11
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