So, for the moment, I will not praise Manchester. I will go even farther than that. I will agree with you that it rains there every day, that it is the ugliest city in Britain, that it is cocksure and conceited, that its politics are damnable, that its free trade principles are loathsome, and that its public men are aitchless and gross. I will, I say, agree to all this. You may say anything disagreeable you like about Manchester, and I shall not care. Nevertheless, if I could not live in London, Manchester is the city to which I would go. I have stayed in Athens, and Athens is a marvellous city; I know my Paris, and Paris is not without fascination; I have been to Cairo, and the bazaars of Cairo seemed to me so wonderful that I held my breath as I passed through them; I know Antwerp and some of the half-dead cities of Belgium, and in Bruges I have felt as decadent as any nasty Belgian poet. But these places are not Manchester. They are [154] ]not so glorious as Manchester, not so vital, not so romantic, not so adventurous.... But already I have broken my word: I have begun to praise Manchester in my second paragraph. Let me begin a third.
It might be thought that the centre of Manchester’s intellectual life is the University, but this is not so. Nor is it the Cathedral, nor the big technical schools, nor yet the Gaiety Theatre. These things count, but none of them precisely radiates intellectual energy. You do not (unless you wish to be disappointed) go to the Bishop for ideas, or to the man of business for culture, nor to Miss Horniman for a wide and generous view of life. For these things, and for many other things besides, you go to The Manchester Guardian. In The Daily Mail Year Book, against the entry Manchester Guardian, you will find these words: “The best newspaper in the world.” Now, you would imagine that if The Daily Mail really believed that, The Daily Mail would strain every nerve to be as like The Manchester Guardian as possible. But Lord Northcliffe knows better than that. He knows, we all know, that the best newspaper in the world is not going to be the best seller in the world. The word “best,” when applied to a newspaper, does not signify a newspaper that shrieks louder than any other newspaper, that has the greatest number of “stunts,” that lays reputations low in the dust, that holds Cabinet Ministers in the hollow of its hand. It signifies, among other things, a paper whose editor will not sacrifice a single ideal in order to increase his circulation, who has the power of infusing his staff with his own enthusiasms, and who regards the arts as a necessary part of a decent human existence.
The Daily Mail once upon a time compelled the whole of the British Isles to start growing sweet-peas. That is one kind of power. That is the kind of power that The Manchester Guardian does not possess.
Yet, I ask you, is there a more irritating newspaper [155] ]in the whole of Christendom than The Manchester Guardian? How many times have we not all thrown it down in disgust and vowed never to read it again, only to buy it faithfully next morning? It would sometimes appear that every crank in England is busily engaged in airing his crazy views in its correspondence columns. It would sometimes appear that the three greatest highbrows in the country had laid their heads together to write the leading article. It would sometimes appear that conscientious objectors were really the only generous, manly and heroic people left in this mad world.
. . . . . . . .
Let me tell you a true story of a man who for years has been, and still is, on the staff of The Manchester Guardian. I tell this strange story, partly because it is strange, and partly because it illustrates so finely the kind of reverence that so many citizens of Manchester have for the best paper in the world.
Some thirty years ago a male child was born to a worthy and not unprosperous man in Manchester. Now this man had one faith, one gospel, one ambition. His faith was of the Liberal persuasion. (Why, may I ask in passing, do people refer to Jews as men and women of the Jewish “persuasion”? Can a man, indeed, be persuaded to Jewry?) But to resume. His faith, as I said, was Liberal, his gospel The Manchester Guardian, his ambition to have some close connection with that paper. Being unfitted by the nature of his own talents to join the staff, he resolved that in the fullness of time that distinction should belong to his son. So he wrote to the editor, thus:
Sir,—I have the honour to inform you that last night my wife gave birth to a son. It is my ambition that, when his intellect is ripe and his powers mature, he shall be chosen by you as a member of your staff. His education, [156] ]his whole upbringing, shall be directed to that end. I shall report to you his progress from time to time.
I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant,
—— ——.
I have not this letter before me; indeed, I have never seen it. But I am assured it was couched in those or similar terms.