Mr. Birrell (I quote from memory), in referring to someone
who had quoted Thoughts in Prison, by the Rev. William Dodd, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, noted the omission of the information that the thinker in question was subsequently removed from prison and taken from the place from whence he came and hanged by tine neck until he was dead. That passage is recalled by an adver- tisement in the weekly journal Truth quoting the following " tribute to this paper's remarkable pulling power " paid by Col. Josiah Wedgwood in the House of Commons on October 15th:— " It is widely read . . . very widely in the clubs and messes, by that large class of people who are referred to as the governing class in this country. Its circulation may not be very large, but for every copy issued many people read it. The effect of the continual propaganda put forward by that paper may be very great."
The member for Newcastle-under-Lyme certainly said that. He said it in the course of a speech in which he observed, inter alia (and there were plenty of alia), that the journal he was attacking " used to have a great reputation in the days of Henry Labouchere. It has now become a public danger."
adding later that " I have to prove that the policy of this paper is dangerous to our war-effort. 1 say that it is pro-Fascist, it is anti-Semite, it is pro-peace, it is anti-Churchill, it is anti-American, it is pro- German, and it is now anti-Russian."
No doubt pressure on space compelled selective citation.
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