[TO ME EDITOR or THE "SPECTATOR."J Sin,—I have no claim
except in my representative capacity to interpose even to thank you for the public spirit you have shown in revealing the facts about the Daily News and its allied papers. Though a Liberal and a Nonconformist, I have declined for the last six months to read the Daily News, as its proprietors have failed to answer your charges. Not wishing, however, to join in any " hep-hep " against members of two families whose many services to the country I have always admired, I should have been content with my private protest had not the publication of Sir Edward Fry's letter to the Society of Friends seemed to call for more definite action. We know now that the " Star and Morning Leader Co." is financed by "Daily News, Ltd.," as well as by its individual directors. The Daily News has for years been appealing for support to all who are opposed to gambling; yet it has devoted more than £9,000 of its funds to the publication of such a betting paper as the Star. Your charge of hypocrisy is fully justified. While most newspapers publish betting news, it would be pedantic to object to anyone on that ground alone ; but what Sir Edward Fry does not scruple to call the corrupting influence of the Star condemns, not that journal only, but still more the Daily News, which helps to maintain it in defiance of its own loudly trumpeted professions. We may all hope that the interposition of the Society of Friends may induce the proprietors to alter the character of their four betting newspapers ; but meanwhile those of us who are serious in our denunciations of gambling as a national curse ought rarely to refuse to support the Daily News. It has betrayed the cause it professed to serve; and for believers in social reform its salt has lost its savour. The Rowntree Social Service Trust is, next to Daily News, Ltd., the largest shareholder in the Star. If a Social Service Trust is putting its moneys to such a use, the trustees owe an explanation to the public as well as to the Society of Friends.
President of the Wesleyan Itlethodiet Union for Social Scrvioe4
Bath.
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