LETTERS TO THE PRESS.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEE "ETECTATOR."3 SIR,—Yout incidental reference in Saturday's Spectator to a gentleman who used to write to the Press and returned to the habit even after having protested that he would never, no never, do it again greatly interested one of your readers. He finds the letters to the editor not the least attractive feature. of the Press. It is not the itch for writing in any depreciatory. sense that prompts them. They are disinterested. The writers have not to toe the line of a policy or to coincide with a common expectation. Let hint say that to certain pages of the Spectator week by week be turns with unalloyed delight, and that he always glances gratefully to the generous space conceded to letters to the editor. They are the products of intelligent if not always intellectual people who, not under compulsion to say anything, have something to say.
The subject is peculiarly important just now. In the grave, incalculable days through which we are passing party lines are sharp. Necessarily newspapers have a clear, well-defined, insistent policy. The moderate man, admittedly the man who turns the balance, has few opportunities of expression, For. example, I know a Nonconformist minister, an Irishman, who cannot approve the Home Rule policy of the Government. His favourite religious weekly strongly supports that policy. He has assured me that he must seek the hospitality of a Unionist paper—my friend is a Liberal—or be content with the wilderness. In this case letters to the Home Rule editor have, so far as his experience goes, failed of publication. One can scarcely blame the paper. Yet surely my friend has a point of view which ought to be set out. It has no opportunity In the Press which on the whole he prefers, unless the corre- spondence columns afford it, So letters to the Press vaay mean independence of thought and fearless conviction, qualities which a free Press will desire to cultivate within wise and practicable bounds.—I am, Sir, &c., J. EDWARD HARLOW.
Madeley, Gravesend.
[We agree. The letters to the editor are often the best, things in our own and most other papers. The difficulties of selection are, however, by no means easy to overcome. In our opinion the questions which the editor must consider are : (1) Is the letter imperative, because within a reasonable space it corrects an actual error of fact P (2) Is the letter of interest ? it is useless to print letters which no one will read. After this last condition is satisfied the editor will perhaps find that he has selected three times the number of letters which he can print. How shall he act then ? In our opinion he must give preference to the letters which are contrary to his own views. He must do his best to allow both sides to be beard. At the same time, he cannot accept a dull, foolish, badly written letter merely because he does not agree with it, or because it calls him names.—En. Spectator.]
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