THE . PRESS AND THE ELECTION.
WHEN Lord Rothermere "and Lord Beaverbrook entered into partnership and became the principal proprietors of the new great newspaper combine, the public were filled with misgiving:. They expected that the Press Peers would try to exercise great political power without condescending to express their opinions in the proper and natural place, which is the House of Lords. They felt sure that sonic plan of campaign, some startling political movement, would be begun very soon. Nor have they had to wait long. Although it is obvious that there is a general mobilization of the Rothermere-Beaverbrook forces, it would tax the resources of the most ingenious and discriminating judge of tactics to say exactly where the Press Peers arc leading their supporters. Possibly the Press Peers have not quite visualized their objective ; perhaps they arc content to go a certain way on a dangerous road and to hope that a little later events will enable them to decide whether it is profitable to go further or whether it would be better to draw hack. All we can say for certain is that there is a mobilization and that the opening thrusts arc mysterious.
Indeed, we question whether anything more mysterious has happened in politics in our time. Look at the s:tuation. Lord Rothet mere and Lord Beaverbrook call themselves Unionists, yet their gramophone news- papers attack the Unionist Prime Minister day by day. They do not do this because they are Free Traders. They are not. But we must refer to particular articles which Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook have written over their own signatures. To the Sunday Pictorial last Sunday Lord Rothermere contributed a long article entitled " Should Free Trade be Given One More Chance ? " With a great many of the arguments in that article we heartily agree, for they are good, sound Free Trade arguments. But what puzzles us is that Lord Rothermere, who professes to be not only a Unionist, but a very strong Protec- tionist, should suddenly go out of his way to ridicule Mr. 13aldwin, who is proposing just as much Protection as the nation is likely to agree to. It may fairly be assumed that Lord Rothermere knows that when you cannot get all you want it is better to get some of it-- with the prospect of getting all later. Yet he writes as though he did not know even that. His arguments for denouncing Mr. Baldwin are, from a Protectionist point of view, the oddest we have ever seen. " I am a Protectionist," he says, " I believe in Protection, and I am convinced that a well-advised system of tariffs . . . would assist us to overcome our industrial diffi- culties ;. but I do not consider that the country should be asked to change abruptly. . . . It is because I feel that Mr. Baldwin's tariff proposals do not go half far enough . . . that I ask : Should we give Free Trade one more chance ? " Lord Rothermere has inverted the very reason which probably decided Mr. Baldwin not to go the whole hog in the matter of Protection. Having answered his question by saying, " Pronounced Protectionist though I am, I feel that Free Trade should be given one more chance," Lord Rothermere goes on to demand the re-establishment of the Navigation laws as regards coal, a standard 10 per cent. tariff on all manufactured goods, special Protection for motor-cars, and so on. The head of the reader swims. Nothing really emerges from all these contradictions except that Lord Rothermere, though a Unionist and a Protectionist, wants to queer the pitch of the Unionist and Protectionist Mr. Baldwin.
To the Sunday Express of last Sunday Lord Beaver- brook contributed an article in which he also argued that Mr. Baldwin had committed a ridiculous mistake in not going -far enough in Protection. But, unlike Lord Rotherthere, he does not ask that Free Trade should be given another chance. He merely abuses the Government for going such a short way, and then very curiously commends the Liberals for " advancing slowly towards the conception of Imperial Preference."
We had not ourselves noticed this advance ; and the fact that Lord Beaverbrook uses the Liberals as a whip to beat the Government dog suggests that he is more anxious to beat the dog than to give a reason for the punishment. The sense of both articles might be expressed in a sentence, " No case—so abuse Mr. Baldwin."
What is the explanation of this remarkable manoeuvre ? Not long ago the Morning Post published a letter from Lord Beaverbrook, in which he promised to support the Unionists, yet now he is making it almost impossible for his readers who accept his advice to vote for Mr. Baldwin. Lord Rothermere has gone further, we fancy, and actually advised his readers not to vote Unionist. What, we repeat, is the explanation ? The Morning Post has suggested one. It deduces from the evidence that a conspiracy has been entered into by the Bother- mere-Beaverbrook Press to re-establish a Coalition Government, in which Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Birkenhead and Mr. Austen Chamberlain would have a place.
The Morning Post has pointed out that all these three statesmen were entertained to luncheon by Lord Beaverbrook immediately after Mr. Lloyd George's return from America. Almost at the same time Mr. Lloyd George was received back into the Liberal Party. No wonder that pangs of suspicion have returned to the breast of the sorely tried Asquithians. Rumour, indeed, is very unkind to them. It keeps implanting fresh misgivings in their minds. One very strong rumour, upon which, however, we cannot profess to pass any judgment, is that Mr. Lloyd George, after having care- fully considered the answers which he received to his agricultural questionnaire, had made up his mind that the agriculture of the Empire must be saved by Imperial Preference. With this conviction almost ripe for ex. pression, says rumour, he was returning from America to throw a new programme at the head of the British public, when he was forestalled by Mr. Baldwin, and immediately Imperial Preference turned for him into " mildewed straw." However that may be, the Morning Post believes that the Press Peers definitely want to reinstate the Coalition. As they dare not tell their readers either that they are in effect opposing Protection, or that they want the restoration of the much-hated Coalition, they have taken the strange and tortuous course which we have described of deriding Mr. Baldwin for very different reasons. It is possible that a corro- borative clue is to be found in that passage of Lord Rothermere's article in which he says, " If the country owes anything to Free Trade . . do not let us discard it unceremoniously in the way Conservative ex-Ministers are cast aside." Another possible clue is the noticeable commendations which have been showered by the gramo- phone papers on Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Churchill.
If Mr. Baldwin should have a great success the power of the huge newspaper syndicate will be marked down considerably in the political market. But even before we know the result we do not need to take our courage in both hands to say that the Press Peers arc mistaken if they think that the public like a great combine and wait upon its words. What the public want is honest news. They feel very uncomfortable and dissatisfied when they suspect that what is set before them as news is simply that which great newspaper proprictor3 wish -them to believe.
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