I AM SORRY to see that the habit of journalists
being offered, and accepting, honours appears to be on the increase. For a great many years the tradition has been maintained that metropolitan journalists (journalists in the provinces, for some reason, are less rigidly bound) do not appear on the Honours Lists. Around the 1820s journalists began to throw off the stigma of being govern- ment hacks; and honours, which along with places and pensions were one of the ways by wit ich governments had become accustomed to bi ibe them into support of the administration, v. ere accordingly refused. The value of this self-deny ins ordinance was later reduced when governan nts found they could just as easily, and much m ore effectively, bribe the newspaper proprietors : the history of the rise in the peerage of the pi ess barons
Hark! the Herald's College sings As it fakes their quarterings
is one of the shoddiest episodes in the whole story government today would bother to hold out the of the press. It is consequently less likely that arlY promise of an honour to any journalist as the price of his support. Still, it was a valuable tradi' tion. It taught journalists to maintain complete independence of outlook, and not to expect any favours from the governments.of the day. And it is still, after all, conceivable that a journalist who feels. his services might qualify him for 400' ance on the Honours List should begin to plaY down criticism of the government. Those journal' ists who have received them have been more worthy of them than many other recipients. But it would do no harm if all the national newspaper5' at least, kept to the rule which, I understand, The Times imposes on members of its staff : that honours are not to be accepted.
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