A Noble Journalist

By HENRY W. NEVINSON Faom a famous, liberal-minded historian, an experienced

journalist, and an intimate friend and servant (..f C. P. Scott, we should expect a notable biography of the Manchester Guardian's great editor. And no one who recognizes what a line character is and what great editing implies will be dis- appointed by Mr. Hammond's book.* It is indeed the very

model of a biography—accurate, thoughtful, sympathetic, and written with all the hidden power of self-restraint. There is no rhetoric, no obvious passion, no attempt to introduce at least one epigram into every paragraph.

Into the separate chapters of the Life are gathered the chief interests of the time and of Scott himself during his long editorship from 1872 till his xesignation in 1929. Even after that date his intense interest in his paper never failed. His son Edward succeeded him, earning on the high tradition until his lamentable death by accidental drowning in Windermere a few months after Manchester had honoured his father with a funeral worthy of her greatest citizen.

It is said of him that he was " gentle with a formidable gentleness," and certainly it could be formidable. For beneath the appearance of it lay a stern severity which he exercised equally upon himself and upon his servants. I used once to think the Epstein bust in Manchester too sharp, too severe, but it was that " formidable gentleness " that made me think so. There was an authority in his nature that made it almost

impossible to neglect or refuse his order. Once, in the middle of the Syrian desert, I received a suggestion from him by wireless to proceed to China, but, being deadly ill, I failed him.

For my subsequent peace of mind, I had better have died. It was the attraction of his high character that gathered round him the group of journalists so conspicuous in Man- chester and throughout the country. One could mention William Arnold, J. B. Atkins, James Bone, R. H. Gretton, A. N. Monkhouse, Wadsworth, Herbert Sidebotham, Leonard Ilohhouse, J. A. Hobson, the author of this biography, Lucio," W. P. Crozier, and C. E. Montague, so brilliant a writer, and so endeared to myself as my censor in France (luring the final months of the War. One could mention others, for to have served under Scott was like having taken a high degree at an exacting University.

From this account of his life it seems that the men whose opinion and co-operation he most valued on the political side

'were Montague (especially upon Ireland), Leonard Hobhouse, and Hammond, though the biographer hardly ever mentions his own name. Such were the men who certainly helped Scott to maintain the high level of. the paper as he desired it should be maintained through the crisis of its unpopularity during the Boer War, the financial crisis of 1905; when a vast sum of money had to be raised to buy the ownership from a former partner, and through the perilous rivalry of the " popular Press " which appeared and grew so rapidly in the middle

'nineties. As to the last danger, Mr. Hammond writes :

" If Scott's ambitions had taken this form he could easily have become a paper lord, either by conducting his paper with an eye to profit, or by accepting one of the many offers he received from persons who were prepared to conduct it in that spirit. But he despised the type of mind that prizes wealth and ostentation. When the Manchester Guardian came at last into his hands he decided to use his opportunities as proprietor to carry further the principles on which he had acted in editing the paper., ' And in the biographer's final chapter called " Characteristics "-

we read :

" Scott, using the various gifts of his staff, gave his paper unity, direction, and strength. He made and kept it a paper that men who disliked its warmth had to study for the sake of its light."

One of the most remarkable qualities of his mind was that,

* C. P. Scott. By J. L. Hammond. (Bell. 12s. 6d.)

whereas most ageing men grow stiff and irresponsive as har- dened arteries, Scott continually renewed his youth, becoming more and more adventurous with age, while " tradition, as tradition, had a looser and looser hold on his respect." After being rather stiff and Conservative in youth, he swung further and further " to the left," rousing the admiration, and some- times the fears of his friends. But as to his inward nature, which all the anxieties and controversies of the time did not greatly alter, Mr. Hammond says in noble words :

Nobody reflecting on all that Scott accomplished could fail, to see that there was some secret of character which gave his career its integrity and poWtSk. Nobody would come close to the man himself, whether in life or work, without learning what that secret was. It can best be described in the language that Bacon used of Antoninus Pius, to whom he attributed a mind exceedingly tranquil and serene because ' it was in no ways charged or incumbered, either with fears, remorses, or scruples.' "

Perhaps " scruples " in the modern sense would hardly be the word one would apply to a man so carefully undeviating in the principles which he rightly considered the highest. He was no opportunist, was never carried away by the popular tide, or shifted from his chosen ground by fear of conse- quences. In Mr. Hammond's fine phrase, he was fearless rather than brave. His prolonged loyalty to Mr. Lloyd George often puzzled his friends. He recognized his " charm," his nimble and energetic mind, his immense power of labour, but he wrote at the time of the Peace Conference : " Ll. G. doesn't know (it is an intellectual defect) what principle meani." Certainly Scott did his utmost to excuse that want of principle and to make the best use of his friend's various enviable qualities. In the chapter called "After the Coalition " we read :

The truth about Scott's view of Mr. Lloyd George is well hit off in a jest that used to go round the corridor of the Manchester Guardian : ' A.: Who's writing the Long to-night ? B.: C. P. A. : What is the subject ? B. : Saving Lloyd George's soul again.' " But the treatment of Ireland under the terror of the Black- and-Tans and the "Auxiliaries" in 1919 and 1920 was too great a strain for all Scott's willingness to remain an admiring friend, and many of us were relieved at the definite change of tone.'

When Lord Lansdowne replied to Mr. Lloyd George's demand for " a knock-out blow " to Germany, supposing that thus only we could end the War, Scott stood definitely in agree- ment with the letter of November, 1917. In a fine passage Mr. Hammond describes the meaning and effect of the letter :

" The demoralizing influences of the war were painfully evident in our public life and in our Press.. .. At this moment Lansdowne took the most courageous step that was taken in the whole war.... It was like Campbell-Bannerman's speech on the methods' of barbarism—a proof of mettle and character, when the numbing and cowing forces of mass sentiment were pressing hard on public men. It helped not only to make men think, but to break the tyranny of fear."

One could go on for many columns gratefully quoting passages equally fine, for this is the Life of a great editor written by a distinguished historian who was his servant and friend. It covers a varied and momentous period in the country's history and deals with vital events that many of us witnessed and remember. I have been obliged to omit much, and especially I regret having to omit the services that Scott undertook not only for Women's Suffrage, but for the further- ance of the arts and general intellectual interests of Manchester, raising her to a remarkable height among the intellectual and artistic centres of England and of the world. There is much more to be said, but when I think of this man's noble person- ality; and all that his example has meant to us journalists, and to such statesmen as we have possessed in the last sixty years, I will recall only the Prayer Book's petition " that we may have

a right judgement in all things." For I have never known a man in whom that petition was so fully answered.