THE B.B.C. AND "THE SPECTATOR" six,—Your contributor "Janus," who is
usually fair-minded, except when he is referring to the Government of Northern Ireland, a subject which teniporarily separates him from his sense of justice, lapses very badly in your issue of February 28th, when he rebukes the B.B.C. for its " display " of "its worst characteristics" in report- mg the speech made by Mussolini on the previous Sunday. "It is nuo!erable," he says, "that a speech which listeners expect to hear in the form of a fair and competent summary should be interlarded with gratuitous continents and cheap gibes, duly accentuated by sarcastic inflexions of the announcers' voices." These, " Janus " con- cludes, are " puerilities." Dear, dear, dear! And tut, tut, tut! And naughty, naughty, naughty! I am, perhaps, a thick-skinned chap, but I did not find myself upset in the slightest degree by the com- ments and gibes, none of which appeared to me either " gratuitous " Or "cheap." That, however, is neither here nor there. What is both ,here and there is the implication contained in the complaint by Janus" that the B.B.C. report of the Duces speech was unfair and i.ncompetent. Was it? In what respect? And why, Sir, is it cheap" and " gratuitous " and " puerile " of the B.B.C. to let a sarcastic inflexion creep into the voice of the announcer when you, Sir, may, without rebuke, indulge yourself in exactly the same way in the very issue in which the B.B.C. is cursed and damned for its offence against decency and morals? I invite you to read the follow- excerpt from your editorial, entitled "Spring is Coming," and then ask your left hand, "Janus," what he thinks your right hand, the Editor, is up to:
Italy had to start the war before she was really ready. She obviously had. France was already collapsing, and if Mussolini was determined on his stab in the back he must get it in while there was still a belligerent back to stab. As for the Libyan affair, Marshal Graziani, having branded himself as an aggressor on every front by invading Egypt, British Somaliland and Kenya, W33 most undeservedly attacked by General Wavell (before spring had come) just when he was preparing to carry his aggression further. War is hardly worth fighting, if such things can be.
The thought and the sarcasm in that reference to Marshal Graziani's aggression seem to have got themselves inextricably entangled and to have become meaningless, but let that pass. What one of your readers wishes to know is what "Janus," hot with anger at the B.B.C., said to the Editor of The Spectator, when, on Friday morning, he opened the paper and read the passage I have cited.—! am, Sir, your [A B.B.C. report of a speech, like the report of a speech in a daily paper, should be straight news, pure and simple. A Spectator leading article, like every leading article, consists not of news but comment. Is the distinction unfamiliar to so good a journalist as Mr. St. John Ervine?—En., The Spectator.]
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