The Daily News resents the criticism very naturally made on
its attitude towards the Government on the Suez Canal ques- tion. But our contemporary has quite mistaken the point. Even a loyal supporter of the Government may find himself at times constrained to oppose some proposal of the Ministry, or to censure their management of a measure of which he may chance to approve. We have occasionally been in that predica- ment ourselves. The complaint against the Daily News is that it passes judgment on the immoral system of condemn- ing first and inquiring afterwards. Last Saturday, when the Daily News opened its battery upon the Government, it had no fair presumption against the prudence of such a Govern- ment as this, and did not even know the facts on which the Government htvl founded its judgment. Surely, the duty of a loyal Liberal journal under such circumstances was
to counsel moderation and patience. What the Daily News did was to prejudge the case against the Govern- ment, and make a bitter attack upon it. Nor is this the only occasion on which the Daily News has exhibited an im- patient eagerness to damage the cause which it professes to support. We all remember the astounding series of articles in which, outstripping even the zeal of the Jingoes, it advocated a precipitate declaration of war against Afghanistan, on the re- pulse of Sir Neville Chamberlain's mission at Ali Masjid. It is a humiliating fact for Liberals that in a grave crisis like the present, the Standard is the only paper in the morning Press of London in which they can look for a statesmanlike and dis- passionate discussion of the questions in debate.
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