A Great Editor
THE retirement of Mr. C. P. Scott, after fifty-seven years as Editor of the Manchester Guardian, is an event which has called forth all over the world admiration of what he has done for journalism: He has created a very great tradition out of almost nothing. He has made the cant distinction between journalism and literature look foolish ; he has never once soiled his honour ; he has never failed in vigilance ; he has never hesitated to state his opinions strongly, and yet he has never lacked in courtesy ; and now he leaves to a son, whom he has trained in his ways, the duty and privilege of carrying on the work thus nobly modelled.
Mr. Scott, more than any English editor, has intro- duced people to the judicious delights of reading what they do not agree• with. Even in the days when Manchester was fast in the hold of a majority of Conser- vative Members of Parliament, the Manchester Guardian was the great—one might almost say the only—news- paper in Manchester. When Manchester did not agree it still had a vast respect for the Manchester Guardian, and took a patriotic pride in its high reputation. Those who have not lived much outside London are perhaps unaware of the intensity of the local patriotism of such great towns. These have a sense of their own character, their opportunities, and their achievements, which is necessarily wanting in the London wilderness. To this sense the Manchester Guardian, under Mr. Scott's guidance, always ministered most wisely. He did not allow his readers to think that they had a right to local pride- unless the pictures in their public galleries were the best that could be chosen, unless their music acquitted Manchester of the charge that English people were unmusical, unless all the amenities of the town were well planned, unless decoration was decorous, and new architecture was seemly and well-mannered. One hardly knows whether to say that the Manchester Guardian was a great newspaper of the world because it was in its way a perfect Manchester paper, or whether it was a perfect Manchester paper because, incidentally, it took all the world for its province.
There must have been some plain assignable reasons for Mr. Scott's commanding success, and it would be interesting to try to state what these were. First of all, there is the fact that having " commenced Editor " as a young man he continued a young man in spirit. His sympathy with the forward striving of youth was unbounded. His principles were of adamant in that he could never be induced by any consideration to change what he believed in, but he kept to the last a perfectly open mind about the possibilities of presenting the truth in new and various aspects.
He chose his writers with extraordinary care. He seemed to ransack England from end to end for the man he wanted, and he would search for months, even years, till' he found him. Having found him, he would never discourage him by too severely checking or reprimanding any ebullition in which he recognized a conunendable enthusiasm. Those who had been longest on his editorial staff were in a kind of monitorial relation to their juniors. They knew that certain threadbare phrases were on Mr. Scott's prohibited list. They knew that certain constructions of the English language were considered by Mr. Scott to be faulty, and were also on the prohibited list. The word of warning was passed round. If this failed Mr. Scott himself would write a little note to an offender. The present writer can recall some phrases which were put upon the shelf years ago as temporarily in need of retirement, which could, perhaps, now be revived with a certain air of freshness. But—so strong is habit !-- no old contributor to the Manchester Guardian can probably now read in print any one of the banished phrases without a twinge of pain. All this means that Mr. Scott regarded the use of the English language as a trust. He never forgot that every line written in his newspaper passed under hundreds of thousands of eyes, and made it natural and easy for the reader to reproduce in his own writing phrases and constructions which might be good or might be bad. Mr. Scott judged it his positive duty to see that they were good.
Persons who, in the course of their business, read many newspapers must have been surprised again and again by the discovery that after much reading they can always find in the Manchester Guardian something which is not to be found elsewhere. It makes the old seem new. Nothing is too " unimportant " provided it te significant. It has vivacity, and is not by any chance dull, yet it never dispenses with seriousness. It remem- bers that men live on bread, not on savouries. It has never confused obscurity with profundity, nor antics with brilliance. Its taste under Mr. Scott has always been faultless. It has been able to excite its readers because Mr. Scott understood that turgidity, too many flourishes, too much insistence, diminished the capacity of educated people to be moved.
We have often enough disagreed with Mr. Scott's political opinions, but it was an education in itself to follow his reasoning. There was always unsullied sincerity—in the direct argumentation of Mr. Scott himself, in the analogies which came from the brain of the late Mr. W. T. Arnold, laden with history, or in the famous irony of the late Mr. C. E. Montague. Neither Mr. Scott nor any of his helpers were in danger of thinking for a moment that anything mattered but character, personality, and sincerity in fashioning a newspaper into a great " influence." Against these things mere apparatus, mere organization, counted for nothing. These writers did not ask to be told what to think ; they told others what to think. They freely, boldly, honestly—and, as we think, often wrongly—came to their conclusions, but they never tampered with facts, a plentiful supply of which, however injurious to the Liberal point of view, has always been published in the Manchester Guardian. As Mr. Scott himself once wrote, " Comment is free, but facts are sacred."
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