Legend
< Street-Preaching Analysed (continued from page 10-79) >
...
A Quibble Brushed Away
Sir,—It is a trumpery matter in itself; but as a question of common sense, law, and logic, let me expose the statement that the British National Association of Spiritualists do not pay for reports of the proceedings of the Council. The proposition was not that the report in question was an official report, but that it was paid for. Now how docs the matter stand upon admitted facts? The Association has contracted to make certain payments to a newspaper in consideration, inter alia, of the insertion of “authorised reports, signed by the President.” It is said that this condition has been waived, or not insisted on, in consequence of the satisfactory character of the non-official reports. In other words, these reports are accepted in substitution of those which the Association would have a right to require under the agreement, and as a fulfilment of the agreement. The object of the agreement is to secure approved reports—their official preparation and signature arc merely guarantees. If the newspaper were to discontinue its own report the Council would at once insist on supplying one under the terms of the contract. They only do not do so now because they consider they have got their money’s worth. That money is therefore paid, not simply for the advertisements, but also for the report. If it is the case that the journal in question could be depended on to supply fair reports without payment, why, then, so much of the consideration money as represents the value of such reports is just so much of the funds of the Association wasted in what is, in effect no doubt, a gratuity to a newspaper. They have not the less bought the right to a report, and have got one which they say satisfies them. By that admission (if fixed with it) they would be bound in any court in the country were they to attempt to resist payment on the pica now set up. All this is as plain as that two and two make four. It may be “venomous” to say so, but it is certainly not “untruthful.”
To prevent misconception, I wish to add that my intervention in the controversy is confined to the above point—whether the reports are paid for; and that I have no opinion to express as to the propriety of printing Mr. Fitz-Gerald’s observations at the Council meeting upon Mrs. Lowe, though certainly that lady was mistaken in supposing them to amount to an attack on her personal character.
Editor's notes
Sources
-
London Spiritualist, No. 372, October 10, 1879, p. 174