| editor

“ If we are to be content with commenting on what is merely old history, why not do away with journalism altogether and ask all journalists to better spend their time in debating, e.g., whether Cromwell was justified in getting Charles I beheaded? ”

“ Do not newspapers sometimes even criticise the judgments of subordinate courts before an appeal has been preferred? Are not even High Court judgments published before a Privy Council appeal has been decided?
The Syndicate is a sort of Committee of the Senate. Are the reports, decisions or recommendations of select committees of legislative bodies, or of other committees, never supplied to the Press and published before the final decisions thereupon of the larger bodies have been reached? ”

“ As our contributors have not been dragooned into saying exactly what the editor desires, there is naturally some diversity in their opinions. We encourage such variety and diversity. And that for good reasons. When two statements are diametrically opposed to each other, it is usual to use the words “antipodes” or “the two poles” to-indicate such opposition and yet it is the same earth which contains the antipodes and the poles. Therefore, not being supermen, we believe that even those who flatly contradict us may be wholly or at least partly right. ”

“ Whenever anybody, masked or unmasked, is engaged in a controversy with the editor of this Review or its contributors, it has been generally seen that he has had access to the records of the University, even to the marks obtained by particular candidates, which are usually supplied to the candidates only on receipt of the prescribed fee. Ajax’s own article shows that he has had access to University records and files, which is irregular unless he is the Registrar or sore other authorised University official. ”

“ Henry Stephen, the editor of “The Calcutta Review”, responsible for his (‘Ajax”’s) views. The reader may take that to be our justification for taking up the challenge of a masked man.
Even tiros in journalism know that though the editor of a journal is legally responsible for whatever appears in it, the views of his contributors are not necessarily identical with his own opinions. But “Ajax” disingeniously quotes from The Modern Review several passages in his article without indicating who the writers are. ”

“ The editor of the Modern Review has never levelled a sweeping charge of inefficiency at the teachers of the Calcutta University in general, but has held and still holds that some of them are incompetent and some few are lacking in literary honesty. ”

“ But some Indian-edited papers also published that report while it was still being discussed, and these have generally supported the University’s demands editorially. How did these friendly organs get it? They did not say that they liked their extracts from The Statesman. And this recent occasion is not the only one on which University documents have found their way to some newspapers “prematurely”. It would be too transparent a trick to consider every such newspaper named as unfriendly. ”