" The Spectator " and Its Readers
THE demise of The Week-End Review, so far as publi- cation .as a separate organ is concerned, is at once a misfortune in itself and a reminder of the difficulties under which the literary weekly reviews labour. The case of The Week-End Review itself is unique. It was founded at almost a moment's notice in a spirit of great enterprise and courage, when, on a question of principle, Mr. Gerald Barry and his staff walked out of the office of a journal that Mr. Barry was then editing, and within nine days had found offices, a printer and financial backing enabling them to bring out the first number of the new journal within ten days of quitting the old. So gallant an endeavour deserved a better fate, but the economic conditions prevailing from 1931 onwards imposed an abnormal strain on papers with far longer traditions behind, and far deeper roots beneath them. The financial support up till then available had to be withdrawn, and it could not be replaced except on conditions which the Editor, no doubt rightly, found unacceptable.
t In the valedictory article he published last week, Mr. Barry made some pertinent and suggestive observations on both the position and the functions of weekly re- views generally in this country—if the word " generally " may be properly applied to a class so small as that re- presented primarily by The Spectator, Time and Tide, The New Statesman and The Week-End Review, the two last being now merged. The number of such journals has never been large, and when in the course of half a dozen years two papers like The Nation and The Week- End Review abandon their separate identity the per- centage of mortality is sufficiently great to raise the question whether journals of this character can maintain a place at all without reliance on some subsidy—for a subsidy, if large enough and indefinitely maintained, would of course enable any paper to continue publi- cation.
Certain papers, devoted to some special subject im- portant in itself but making no wide appeal, must neces- sarily depend on such extraneous assistance, and the world would suffer definite loss if the assistance were withdrawn and the publication stopped. Is that to be the case with the weekly reviews ? In that connexion it may be appropriate to quote here a letter, signed by the Editor of this journal, which appeared in last Saturday's Times, and ran as follows : " Sir,—In an interesting discussion of the position of the weekly reviews generally in this week's issue of the Week-End Review— whose disappearance as a separate publication is a matter for much regret—it is observed that most of the weekly reviews in the past, whether of short or longer standing, have had to be subsidized.' There is nothing in the least derogatory in the acceptance of a subsidy provided it involves no compromise of principles, but it would, I think, be unfortunate if the impression were created that weekly reviews generally cannot live in this country on a business basis. Perhaps, therefore, I may be allowed to state that so far as The Spectator is concerned it has never received a subsidy of any kind, and in recent years has always been able to pay its share- holders a modest, but not, I think, unsatisfactory dividend.— Yours, &c."
So much it is desirable to make clear. There is no need to trouble The Spectator's readers with its domestic concerns. But the question whether there is a sufficient public in this country to enable weekly papers devoted to serious and considered discussions of politics, literature, the arts, and in the case of this journal at any Fate, re- ligion, to exist on a normal business basis raises much wider issues. For that reason, if no other, it is a matter for satisfaction to those associated with the production of The Spectator that, in conditions which are not growing easier, it is still possible to end each financial year with some margin of profit. The paper is not in the ordinary sense a commercial undertaking. Its shares are held by men and women concerned not primarily with their dividends but with the maintenance of a paper standing for certain principles, and fulfilling certain functions, in which they believe. Such a journal ought to be able to pay its way and yield to those who invest in it at any rate what they would have got if they had confined themselves less adventurously to Consols. That, in fact, is the case with The Spectator, and there is every reason to hope it will continue to be the case, for in the absence of some sudden deterioration in its quality an adverse turn of fortune could only mean that the reading public was becoming increasingly in- disposed to take serious affairs seriously. To some extent that may be so. That the pace of life is increasing, and times of leisure diminishing, is a truism. The wireless is to some extent supplying the platform which the weekly journals have aimed at providing—though the spoken word is evanescent, as the written is not—and at the same time the competition of publications allied therewith, and enjoying a monopoly in the publication of wireless talks, is a new and far from negligible factor in the situation.
Despite all that there is every evidence that the weekly review of the type into which The Spectator has evolved in its hundred years of history still in fact has its place. Its function is quite different from that of the daily papers. Their primary duty, though they have extended far beyond it, is to give the news of the day.
The business of the weekly is to sift and summarize the news of seven days, to discuss and comment on and explain it, and to lay before its readers views, either its own or those of qualified contributors, on subjects which hardly come within the daily papers' purview at all. It still devotes a far larger proportion of its space than they do to current literature—though here some of the Sunday papers have in recent years established themselves in what used to be the weeklies' special preserve—and it makes a special point of providing a forum for its readers by allotting ample space to correspondence. Such are the general traditions of the few weekly reviews, and with necessary adjustments to changing conditions they have evoked a response which showed that a real need was being met.
Such papers are sometimes spoken of as journals of opinion. The term is just so long as it is not taken to imply that they aim at imposing opinions. The main service a weekly review can do is to survey the world's affairs with a little more detachment and deliberation, and put a point of view which deserves serious consideration, whether after full reflection those who study it accept it or not. It has, of course, its own convictions. If it is a party organ, as The Spectator is not, its reactions on a given subject are likely to be easily predictable. In any case it will have a more or less consistent attitude towards life, even though it eschews popular labels as both fettering and misleading. Mr. St. Loe Strachey, who filled the editorial chair of this journal for twenty- eight years, was accustomed to describe the position of The Spectator as Left-Centre, and that description serves as well as any other today. Those who have followed its leading articles in the last few years will have found them approximating broadly to the political doctrines of progressive Conservatives like Mr. Baldwin and Lord Irwin, into which many of the tenets of tra- ditional Liberalism have been assimilated. Convinced that the day of insularity is past, it holds it of supreme importance to develop and consolidate the free partner- ship between the States of the British Commonwealth, to maintain unjeopardized a relationship of friendship and understanding with the United States, and to strengthen by every means possible the prestige and authority of the League of Nations. In home affairs its endeavour is to state the case for constructive social reforms and the maintenance of certain standards of thought and taste commended by experience and neces- sary to progress.
That is no complete statement of the views it is sought to present for consideration week by week in these columns. The general standpoint of a paper is familiar to those who read it constantly, and new subscribers will not take long to discover it. The opinions we present we press dogmatically on no one. There would be little satisfaction in producing The Spectator if it were read only by those who habitually agreed with it. Often both sides of a question are deliberately stated. In others argument and discussion in the correspondence columns is wel- comed. To those who have assisted the paper in the most effective of all ways, by purchasing it regularly week by week, we would take this opportunity of express- ing gratitude. Thanks to them we have held our own through the inevitable difficulties of 1983, and can enter on 1934 with a reasoned confidence.
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