compete against each other; and very keen the competition is, because the success of one man is in its own exact measure a reproach and a humiliation to the rest. And with all this competition, what have the rival seekers after the new, the secret, the unknown, to offer for it? Nothing: nothing tangible, of course. In France a good deal of business is done in this commodity on a solid footing; but there the inquiring firms are mostly financial, operating for bourse-purposes and by no means to supply the public with news. The Own Correspondent has no commission to pay a political functionary's debts or anything of that sort, and would not consent to work in any such way. He has nothing to offer but his card and his civilities, wherever he may seek what he is in want of daily. Even for the means of carrying on an inferior though still important part of his duties, he must studiously compete with the rest of the dozen in being agreeable. It is his business to make himself persona grata with all the more lofty functionaries in Court and Government, or how shall he hope for a good place for describing State festivities or on grand ceremonial occasions? And then as to higher things, how else is he to stand a chance of getting choice political information? To be sure, there is resort to the British Embassy in the capital to which he is accredited; but though our Foreign Office officials abroad are a trifle more yielding, I believe, than they in Downing Street are, there are no flintier sources of political revelation in the world than the British secretariat. The other Embassies afford better sport, and it is a matter of great importance to be on friendly terms with them

all; for it is impossible to say when any one of them may not have reasons of State for worrying another by the revelation of a half-formed scheme or the publication of a compromising despatch. Above all, the Foreign Correspondent must stand well with the Government of the country he lives in; and the only way of keeping well with these highest dispensers of information is to take a friendly view of their policies and proceedings whenever it is possible and as long as it is possible.

Now as the British journalist carries the spirit of independence abroad with him, and is, according to my observation and belief, remarkably sensitive to the professional point d'honneur, he has an extremely troublesome time of it between what is expected of him at home and the pressure to which he is subject in the capital where he is stationed. That it cannot be otherwise is in the nature of men and things; and no man needs another's glasses to see the length and breadth of the facts. It is only a ruder and coarser embarrassment for the correspondent in France, in Germany, in Austria, when his editor, acting upon an independent opinion, writes in persistent hostility to the Government in either of these countries. And what is the result? The result that might be expected is a good deal of complaisance. As a matter of fact, however, there is very much less of it than might be inferred without excess of suspicion. But yet, as I have had occasion to remark before now, it is at this point that the independence of the English press is weakest. Here it is most often exposed to subversion to subversion of a very subtle kind; and unfortunately

the public cannot always see where the correspondent has been "planted" with some insidious suggestion, some half-true yet wholly mendacious denial, or some statement intended to assist the least admirable arts of diplomacy. But this is by no means an uncommon operation in troubled and exciting times, when times, when the correspondent himself, perhaps, is caught by the fever that rages about him. Not, of course (but that has been understood all along), that there is the faintest reason for complaint when British interests are involved, or British honour. Nor can there be the least reason for fear, either when the correspondent is an Englishman or when he is a foreigner scrupulously faithful to his salt. But when foreigners are employed to send foreign news to English journals, together with hints and criticism of foreign affairs, these writers should be warranted incapable of undertaking a divided duty.

In any case, whatever danger there may be lurks not in the news that the correspondent sends, but in the comment, the conveyance of impression, which form so large a part of the telegraph matter from abroad. What is meant by that may be illustrated by a little experience of my own, otherwise hardly worth mentioning. In the early days of the 'Pall Mall Gazette' I had a visit from a certain Dr P., a Berlin official. He introduced himself as coming directly from the German Chancellor with a proposal which von Bismarck took a personal interest in. He often read the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' and was greatly pleased with, much admired, or sincerely respected, a variety of qualities which he habitually found there. On that

account the Chancellor desired to to the Pall Mall be of use Gazette,' as he might be by supplying the paper occasionally with really good information on foreign affairs. If that would be agreeable to me, Dr P. would be the means of despatching such news from time to time-a regular correspondence at irregular intervals being the kind of thing proposed. Further to enable him to show that this was a genuine offer, von Bismarck had intrusted to Dr P. a few lines in his own hand to say as much. Document then produced, shown to me, and returned to Dr P.'s pocket-book. With the best face at my command, I asked whether it was proposed to send news alone, or also to send letters of observation and comment; to which the reply was that both news and comment were intended. What I then said I do not remember; but my meaning was to point out as inoffensively as possible that the Pall Mall Gazette' being a small paper, the Chancellor's kindness would be much enhanced if nothing but concrete news was sent, or such information as could be conveyed in a simple paragraph of affirmation, explanation, correction, or denial. We seemed to understand each other at once; and though Dr P. said very politely that no doubt this could be arranged, I never heard another word of the business he came about after he had left the room.

The bearing of this little story lies in the fact that brief paragraphs of plain statement bring the writer to a full sense of his responsibility while he is inditing them; and that the language of reporting is neither fluid enough nor voluminous enough to carry any great amount of feeling or innuendo, whether for business or

undesigned. Dr P. meant business, no doubt, though to my mind not very culpably; ruse is the recognised instrument of every diplomacy except our innocent own. But even in professional politics there is such a thing as unconscious feeling, unintended twists of partisanship; or else what is meant by the belief, which exists in every Foreign Office, that an ambassador may live at one Court too long? Not that the particular signs which suggest too long a residence at the same post are often shown in the case of the correspondent. I do not know that he ever shows them, indeed. But, being human, he is in danger of answering more than he is aware to the various influences persistently bearing on him. It is even possible to plant him with misleading ideas, interested suggestion, erroneous sympathies; and since that is the case, we may doubt whether journalism is improved by taking from the correspondent long screeds of speculation and comment for publication under the head of News.

So

That is the objection. printed, they delude-not by intention of the writer, but through the imagination of the reader. We all know how unconsciously imagination can lead us astray. Because these screeds are telegraphed, and because they are printed with news as news, the writer's remarks are invested by most minds with the importance due to a statement of facts. Whatever may be his aim, whether to persuade or dissuade, to appease or inflame, to allay mistrust or to alarm suspicion,all is understood as if resting on a background of actual knowledge. To the fancy of the reader, the special correspondent in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, is always a news

writer. He never loses that character, whatever he may say; and so the reader often takes that for veiled information which is merely speculative, or the fancy of excited sympathies, or even something which somebody hopes to bring into existence by persistent prophecy.

For these and other reasons, I can but think it would be well were foreign correspondents to go back a little to their old ways, which were the ways of simple and straightforward reporting. Nor are they strange to us even now. Reuter's agents adopted them, and faithfully stuck to them till quite lately; with the result that Reuter's telegrams came to have more weight generally with experienced readers than those of any newspaper correspondent. Now that Reuter's agents seem inclined, here and there, to depart from the unambitious simplicity of the reporter, reason the more for rescuing political discussion from a great deal that distracts, overloads, and fatigues it. It may be asked whether I propose, then, that opinion and observation accumulated by watchful and keenwitted correspondents "on the spot" should go to waste. Of course I do not. But I do think that more of it might advantageously pass to publication through the sieve of editorial responsibility; and that to appear in its true character all such matter should be printed apart from the news columns, where it takes a significance and authority which it should be guarded from.

That avowed partisans should be employed to send home news from foreign parts, and be so employed because they are partisans, is an entirely new thing in journalism, and one that would have been thought incredible not very long

ago. It is honestly done, however. So far from the partisanship being concealed it is proclaimed, or even vaunted; so that nobody is deceived and everybody understands what to expect. But that it is an innovation good for journalism I am not yet persuaded, nor does it seem likely to be good for those who practise it. The shrewdest of Own Correspondents may fall into error, the wariest may be taken in and become the channel of representations less accordant with fact than with policy. In short, the partisan reporter in full employment may be more partisan than he knows; and when the exaggerations and the rusé suggestions that he did not mean to be guilty of are discovered, he may find himself in danger of being considered a willing agent of deceit. If so, that will not be good for him-except as he is absolved for good intentions; and it will be bad for journalism, which is expected to be trustworthy first and to put on the other graces afterward.

After acknowledging the common merit of independence, courage, incorruptibility-qualities for which the British newspaper press stands far above any other in Europe we see that the most striking claim to journalistic honours is that of the war-correspondent. Sir William Howard Russell may be said to have created a service in 1854, which, after a brilliant existence of forty years, no longer offers opportunity for the distinction that Mr Forbes and Mr MacGahan won-to name two of a dozen men whose hardihood and devotion were never exceeded in any service except that of the Christian Church. The regular means of transmitting news leaves much less to personal enterprise

and ingenuity; and, as Mr Forbes has said, "nowadays the avocation of the war correspondent is simplified and at the same time controlled by precise and restraining limitations." The precise and restraining limitations include some that the generals are more and more resolute to impose. Warcorrespondents were never loved by the generals-for professional reasons which, no doubt, are sound professionally; and the correspondent who, when the next great war breaks out, asks at our own War Office for "facilities" (and what more liberal War Office is there anywhere?) may count upon a cold and niggardly response, and a wise one. And so on all hands the romance of war perishes while its menaced horrors accumulate.

All newspaper editors, however, had not the good fortune to be served by Russells, Forbeses, and the like; and in their hearts, therefore, are not so very much dissatisfied with a future of "restraining limitations," which will bring war-reporting to a nearer equality. Partly from ill - luck, partly from other circumstances more or less excusing, war-correspondents were not infrequently disappointing, and they were sometimes a trial. We say nothing about it, but British soldiers have been known to run. We keep it dark, but war-correspondents have been known to invent, only in detail, not in gross. If there be any case to the contrary, it is a solitary one. Yet in the files of a great provincial journal may be read, I believe, an account of the first hours of a battle that was never fought at all-the whole of its stirring details being evolved from a noise which the chronicler, sitting aloft in his hotel, took to be the sound of cannonading coming from a quarter where a

though

fight was then expected. To forestall other reporters, whom the likelihood of the fight had drawn to the same place, he dashed off his partial report of the engagement, despatching it with great secrecy and expedition to a near frontier station. The rest he would have written after a visit to the scene of conflict; but when he proposed to set out he discovered that what he had supposed to be the distant firing of artillery was, in fact, the kicking of some frightened horses in an adjacent shed.

I myself know what it is to have a perfect "handful" of a war-correspondent, and yet a remarkably clever man; but whenever a reproachful thought of him intrudes I remember that at the moment of starting for the Franco-German war he gave me a very impressive "tip." He was a Frenchman; and he said, "Mark this: the end of the war will be decided at the beginning. I know my fellowcountrymen. If they win the first battle on German ground, nothing will stop them this side of Berlin: it will be a hurricane. But if the first engagement is a French defeat on French ground, not a single Frenchman will cross the frontier unless as a prisoner." Had the prophet known of von Moltke's genius and the German preparation for hurricanes he might have hedged his meaning a little. But its general significance was striking, and the events of the war as each followed each kept it in memory. The more, perhaps, because no better contribution to guidance came from that correspondent; but it would be monstrous in me to complain, for I had another who, for despatch, achieved the first great feat on the warcorrespondents' roll of honour,— nor was it ever beaten afterwards.

To make it the more memorable in newspaper record, what was brought to London for the printer on that occasion was the first report of the battle of Sedan and the surrender of the French Emperor one of the greatest and most determining events of the century. My correspondent was with the Prussian King's staff on the Frénois heights above Sedan when the Emperor's letter of surrender was brought in. Night was coming on, but, without so much as ten minutes' preparation, Mr Holt White rode down the hill, straight across the battle-field, and so over the Belgian frontier and home, contriving by various expedients, but at great fatigue, to get a brief report into the Pall Mall Gazette' two days before a word of the matter was published elsewhere in England. Nor did any other report appear till the day after his second screed had told the whole story.

Now here was a kind of competition which there cannot be too much of. For it is by no means enough to be a good courier and smart in delivery. The war-correspondent's aim would have been entirely missed if in the endeavour to be "first out" he failed in accuracy, in breadth of view, in apprehension of main points, or in close yet full and strong description. It was competition, keenly maintained, in nearly all that is excellent in journalism, or even in literature. Yet the serious fact is, it seems, that war-correspondents were a downright nuisance to the generals—nuisance and embarrassment too, they say; and are in future to be more or less uniformed and strictly regulated.

Whether the soundness and the influence of the newspaper press