That sounds very well, but surely a very much better
way would have been for Lord Curzon to have written and published a. set of instructions to the chief official concerned with the Press, directing him and his subordinates to take no notice whatever of the Times attack, but to supply all information as before. He should have gone on to point out that news was supplied to the Press not as a reward, or as a bribe, 'or in sny sense to placate the great journals, but solely in the public interest and to prevent misunderstandings. It must therefore be supplied to the hostile quite as readily and fully as to friendly newspapers. That would have been the truth and would have put the relations of the Press and the Ministers on a sound basis. Incidentally, it would have been one of those polite " scores " which the public love. Evenness of temper and suppression of anything approaching anger is what the nation admires in its public servants. If they can turn the laugh against a newspaper, they become actually popular.
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