"THE GREAT ADULT REVIEW."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—May I, as a subscriber to the English Review, protest against the most unfair and undiscriminating attack on it in
the Spectator of June 10th For it is unfair, it is undis- criminating, to condemn a magazine because of one article, which is practically what your reviewer does. He speaks vaguely of "tone and tendency," but when it comes to the point Mr. Frank Harris's "Thoughts on Morale " is the only instance he offers of the sort of thing he very rightly and properly detests. Personally I dislike Mr. Frank Harris's " Thoughts on Morals " quite as much as he does ; but 1 should not dream of withdrawing my subscription on that account, nor of writing passionate protests to the papers.
But your reviewer seeks to justify himself by quoting in full the prospectus of the English Review. Now, I do not altogether admire the style of that prospectus ; it lacks suavity and beauty (advertisements are seldom beautiful and suave) ; it has an air of appeal to the "Big Public " which is beneath the dignity of a " Great " Review, "Adult" or otherwise. But it is perfectly clear that it does not mean what your reviewer says it means. It is a protest, a rather blatant, rather truculent protest, provoked by that mysterious, undefined, unauthorized, malignant influence we call the "Censorship." The English Review can perfectly well prove its boast. It has stood from the beginning, with but few lapses, for " truth and literature "—for the truth which is literature. It has had a splendid record. It has struggled with magnificent courage against every kind of difficulty, against prejudice and apathy, and the British public's active distaste for unadulterated letters. Your reviewer disclaims prejudice. But when a political rival goes out of its way to characterize such a magazine as a dumping-ground for " garbage," what are we to think P If the work of Henry James, Arnold Bennett, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, Maurice Hewlett, and John Galsworthy (to take novelists alone) is "garbage," what is " literature" P But the English Review stands for more than literature ; and this attempt to stifle it raises larger questions. There can be no " truth " and no "literature " without liberty of the Press; and it is for that supreme principle that it stands. I could quote whole pages in defence of its attitude from the " Areopagitica," but for my certainty that the readers of the Puritan Spectator know their Milton by heart. It may or may not be unfortunate that liberty of the Press means liberty for Mr. Frank Harris as well as liberty for his reviewers; but it is better in the long run—better for the world, better for the young person, better for public morality—that Mr. Frank Harris should be free to publish his "Thoughts" on "Morals" than that any influence other than the Criminal Investigation Department should have power to muzzle him.
For the muzzling will not end there, or at any other glaring instance. The new Censorship, whatever its im- mediate benefits, if there are any, is, to the far-seeing, a greater danger than a thousand Mr. Frank Harrises thinking thoughts on morals. And it is not even necessary, for should the thoughts become unthinkable there is always the police.
Of course, the Spectator and the Censor are right in claim- ing protection for the young person. The young person should be protected—by its parents and teachers and medical ad- visers, by public opinion, by the free libraries (perhaps), by the recognized purveyors for the young person, by all fair and legitimate means—but not at the price of a great nation's literature, of a great nation's liberty.—I am, Sir, &c.,
MAY SINCLAIR.
[Miss Sinclair mentions the " Areopasitica." We will supply a quotation therefrom : "That also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit that intends not to unlaw itself." We think, however, that Milton goes too far here. In matters of faith we would at law put no restrictions whatever on free discussion, provided there was no danger of a breach of the peace, as, for example, in the display of blasphemous pictures. Even in regard to morals we would never suppress by law any honest challenge of the existing morality, with the possible exception of pleas for the practice of unnatural offences. But though we would not suppress, we would certainly not force people to trade in, or help to trade in, or refrain from silence in regard to, what they considered to be demoralizing literature. The con- tention that we who believe certain views to be demoralizing are not to say so, or not to do all in their power to stop the spread of those views, because muddle-headed people confuse such action with a Censorship, is a piece of unparalleled absurdity.—En. Spectator.1
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