Mr. Harold Nicolson
It is necessary at this time to take the broadest views, and on that basis to say of Mr. Harold Nicolson's appointment as Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Information that we are content that The Spectator's loss should be the country's gain. The magnitude of the loss it would be affectation to minimise. Mr. Nicolson's weekly article in our columns has been described by a competent American authority as the out- standing feature in contemporary English journalism ; we may be satisfied to leave it at that. Certainly Mr. Duff Cooper could have been given no better coadjutor. Mr. Nicolson's diplomatic experience, which has given him a special know- ledge of Germany and Turkey in particular, his psychological insight, his general sureness of judgement and his capacity to distinguish between immediate and ultimate effects make it certain that his association with the Minister of Information will substantially raise the quality and increase the effect of what in war-time we need not hesitate to call plainly British propa- ganda. As for The Spectator, it will have to face other im- poverishments than the disappearance of " People and Things " before the war is over, and with the support which its readers have never failed to extend to it with generous sympathy it will survive them, and in due time regain its normal shape and standard.
Previous page
