A DEFENCE OF LORD NORTHCLIFFE.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."( Sra,—Was not Lord Northcliffe ono of the watchmen who, before the war, warned his fellow-countrymen of the coming danger, when many others were calling him and Lord Roberts and everybody else who spoke the truth panic-mongers ? Did he not do more to encourage the art of flying, which has proved so indispensable since, than any other man in England ? Since the war began did not the Northcliffe Press force the country to realize the dangerous shortage of ammunition at the very time when influential people, who should have known, wore doing their best to lull the eountry into a sense of false security on that subject, just as the very same people had lulled it into a sense of false security before the war on the subject of war ever coming ? Has not the Northcliffe Press supported the Government loyally in prose- cuting the war with the greatest possible energy ? Has it not given the strongest possible support to the policy in which you believe— universal service for men of military age ? What reward has Lord Northcliffe received for these very real services ? Envy, hatred, abuse are his rewards. If he is a believer in Socrates, it is the reward he might have expected for telling the truth to a democracy. But at all events he is a watchman who never fails to blow the trumpet when it is his duty to do so, and in so doing he clears his own soul:—
"In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. Paid by the world, what dost thou owe Me? God might question; how instead, 'Ti s God shall repay : I am safer so."
[No doubt Lord Northcliffe and his newspapers have done a great deal of good, as well as a great deal of harm. Unfortunately, however, on a strict account the harm transcends the good. We are quite willing, as we have said previously, to admit that Lord Northcliffe's intentions arc patriotic, but in war time everybody's intentions are good. What we have to consider and to judge him by are his methods. —En. Spectator.]
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