They had secured something, both
financially and morally; what best pleased them, perhaps,
was the extent to which they got their scheme discussed.
Here Lorne had been invaluable; Murchison had done more
with the newspapers, they agreed, than any of them with
Cabinet Ministers. The journalist everywhere is perhaps
more accessible to ideas, more susceptible to enthusiasm,
than his fellows, and Lorne was charged with the object
of his deputation in its most communicable, most captivating
form. At all events, he came to excellent understanding,
whether of agreement or opposition, with the newspapermen
he met--Cruickshank knew a good many of them and these
occasions were more fruitful than the official ones--and
there is no doubt that the guarded approval of certain
leading columns had fewer ifs and buts and other
qualifications in consequence, while the disapproval of
others was marked by a kind of unwilling sympathy and a
freely accorded respect. Lorne found London editors
surprisingly unbiased, London newspapers surprisingly
untrammelled. They seemed to him to suffer from no dictated
views, no interests in the background or special local
circumstances. They had open minds, most of them, and
when a cloud appeared it was seldom more than a prejudice.
It was only his impression, and perhaps it would not
stand cynical inquiry; but he had a grateful conviction
that the English Press occupied in the main a lofty and
impartial ground of opinion, from which it desired only
a view of the facts in their true proportion.
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