In a recent book called Fleet Street and Downing Street, by Mr. Kennedy Jones, who was one of the driving forces behind that enormous engine of publicity known as “ the Northcliffe Press,” there are some candid remarks about the status and influence of modern journalism. In a series of chapters he argues that journalism has become more of a business than a profession, and, in one chapter, he states bluntly that at no previous time has the reading public been so suspicious of the “ news “ presented to it by English newspapers as it is to-day owing to the suppression, exaggeration or falsification of news for political reasons. I think both statements are true, at the present time, and as a journalist proud of my “ profession,” and of what I refuse to call my “ business,” I think both are lamentable.

It is a curious thing that during the past twenty-five years which have seen the evolution of the New Journalism, represented by the Northcliffe Press, with many other imitators and rivals, two opposing tendencies have been at work. The first is the gradual loss of political prestige, owing to the capture of the papers’ policy by financial and wire-pulling groups, and the second is the social elevation of the journalist himself, especially in the lower ranks of the newspaper world. Both these changes have been brought about by the same pioneers, and I prophecy that there will soon be a struggle between the professional journalist and the business groups that control his work and life.

The substance of most books of modem verse is the succession of scattered emotions remaining to those who have no philosophy of life, who cannot see the wood for the trees, who suffer the ache of an inner vacuity, who clutch at the passing straw of any transient emotion because that wandering wisp is the only tangible thing in the disorder of their attention. But an ache for something which is not there, a confession of something wanting, a search for some centre on which to repose : none of these is a substitute for a positive quality. It is the absence of a personality which these reveal; they are symptoms, not revelations. The lack which earnestness, striving, purpose (ugly words for ugly vices) betray in life and in prose, this scatter-brained emotionalism betrays in poetry. The first cannot speak, nor the second sing. This explains why we read most contemporary books of verse with impatience, and why, if we read many of them, all sense of standard seems to depart from us.

Here I have tried to make the effort which most readers will hardly be at pains to make for themselves, the effort to diagnose the disorder of which most modern verse is the reflection. Since this dis-ease, with the disillusion which accompanies it, is now endemic, we should recognize its nature and then fortify ourselves by a study of those writers, classical and modern, who in different degrees belong to the true order of poetry.

Until the recent publication of Mr. Westlake’s interesting volume upon The Parish Gilds of Medieval England students were apt to devote far too exclusive attention to Gilds of the kind I propose to deal with in this article. There were two main reasons for this preference : firstly, there was much more copious material available concerning the Trade and Craft Gilds ; secondly, they were of a nature that appeals more readily to modern “ practical “ Englishmen. Yet it must not be forgotten that the early and normal Gilds in England were Religious Gilds, Confraternities having primarily a religious purpose, and only as a by-product any sort of social or industrial services.f The Trading and Industrial Gilds were later developments, existing side by side with, and in imitation of, the Religious Gilds. They fall into two clearly marked classes—the Gilds-merchant and the Craft Gilds.

A.—The Gilds-merchant. The Gilda Mercatoria, or Merchant-Gild, which is the earlier kind, seems in its origin to have been composed, not only of those who carried on trade from town to town and in foreign countries, but also of all the craftsmen of any sort in each town. We hear of it by name first in the end of the eleventh century. But it is very probable that some at least of the Cnighten-Gilds, of which we hear in Saxon times, were, or developed into, Merchant-Gilds. Certainly that at Canterbury was described indifferently as the Gild of Cnights at Canterbury or the Ceapmann-Gild, and Dr. Gross has shown that the word “cnight” was often used in charters as a synonym of “townsman.”

In sundry European countries, but more especially in Britain, because Britain is the most completely Capitalist of all, there has arisen a practical demand for the “ Nationalization “ of certain great industries.

This demand is certain to be pressed in the case of several industries—notably railways and mines—to an issue ; and the effort will probably be a victory for those who demand Nationalization. For these have the power of forcing the victory, and their opponents have no effective defence in action. It behoves us, therefore, to examine the origin, motive, object, and— what is most important of all—probable result of this policy.

English Catholics are not generally credited with much interest in the Old Testament. Their preference for the Imitation of Christ, say, as spiritual reading is easily intelligible. At the same time one would think that, considered merely as the early history of that unique nation, the Jews, the Old Testament would have a certain claim on the interest of educated people. But it also happens that the history of that nation is equally, for several thousand years, the history of Revelation.

At first sight it is perhaps surprising that in presence of the revelation of the Son of God the religious history of Israel should still keep some element of value. The inevitable tendency to scrap, as far as Christians were concerned, the story of that nation naturally crystallized in a very determined effort. It was made, about the middle of the second century, by that acute heretic, Marcion. Marcion’s theory, says Professor Burkitt in one of his stimulating lectures on The Gospel History and its Transmission “ is a theory of catastrophe : a new God comes down from nowhere, and proclaims true religion for the first time. And closely allied with Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament history as being in any sense the history of true religion was his denial of the reality of our Lord’s body as being in any sense true flesh and blood.” It is a matter of faith that the Old Testament contains true revelation. “ The Church was determined to maintain its claim to be the true heir of the promises of the Old Testament, the promises made of old to the fathers.