THE NEWSPAPER.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 320, 24 December 1929, Page 8

THE NEWSPAPER.

-LORD HEWART’S VIEWS. • Praise From Chief Justice. Some thoughts on the newspaper and on literature were offered by Lord Hewart, Lord Chief Justice, speaking at a dinner to celebrate the housewarming of the New Athenaeum, London. In the course of his speech Lord iewart said: It is rather a fashion to gird ,at newspapers. The occasional poet is busy with “ the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie ” that adorn the lucubrations of the press. The after-dinner speaker, most unfortunate of men, has done his worst, which is also his best, with the theme. But the person who sneers at the press asks first for the newspaper when he comes down, if he does come down to breakfast, and later in the day, if he suffers from insomnia in the afternoon, none is more urgent for the paper that boasts fair name of evening. In a country that enjoys, or has or is supposed, to have, representative institutions the newspaper is a necessity. It is not any the worse for that. But do we always think as gratefully, or indeed, as justly, as we might of the amazing ability, diligence, care, and learning, the wit, the humour, the skill, and the versatility, the dutifulness, the courage, the conscientiousness, and the sheer hard work that go to the making of the Dest kind of newspaper ? Let it be granted, if you please, that the production of newspapers is mixed up with the art of making money. So, too, are all the practical arts. So is medicine, for example; so is surgery so is accountancy, so is engineering, so even is law. With such a being as man in such a world as the present, these things perhaps are not to be avoided. But when we take in our hands a really first-rate English daily newspaper, do we always reflect upon the recurrent miracle of the leading arso aptly chosen and to-day so .fejjpgliljjjgttmed, the rapid harvest of k|tfj§g|P o t how much brilliancy in ppßitfcjPfetul university, how severe a BH&ieasy./ana unceasingsupplyj do we ■Upp t/>‘ think in what circumstances ipUi by whom those topics are chosen, hvith what anxious care the writers are engaged, and with what unsparing labour the work is producer? Or, when we look at the telegrams and reports from all quarters of the world the work of the foreign department, the work of the reviewing staff, the work of the sub-editors, the work of the reporters, and not least the work of the law reporters, together with an infinity of work besides, are we not sometimes a little inclined to take everything for granted, to think that somehow the newspaper automatically produces itself, and to forget that every issue of that journal which means so much to us, pre-supposes and depends upon the daily initiative, the daily industry, and the deliberate organisation and correlation of the daily industry, of a vast unseen hand of highly, skilled and conscientious J artists? ’ To conceal the art is, no doubt a work of art. But there are occasions, and perhaps this may be one of them, when a debt which is not always visible, and is never claimed may at least be gratefully acknow-

ledged. His lordship then turned from newspapers to books, and said (in part): Human life, to be sure, with all its agreeable tasks and all its consolations, which are many, is full of disappointment. You may find treachery where you expected loyality, hardness where you vainly hoped for gratitude, and stark insensibility where there might have been some little consideration. But the companionship of books remains. It never fails, and it never ceases. It may be our heritage and our delight in the wellknown words, “ all the day long this troublous life, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life isjover, and our work done.”