494 



Till' Ri-:vii;\v oi' Rhviews. 



iiiiglit have remained a local Colonial politician, and 

 the whole course of European aflairs might have been 

 diverted by a second Crimean War. It is a stagger- 

 ing reflection that the man whose career may be 

 summarised thus started life as an errand boy, 

 received no better education than the average clerk, 

 and at his best, though his whole power was in his 

 pen, wrote a careless and undistinguished style. He 

 had a retentive memory, a power of clear and 

 masterful exposition and summary, a quick and sure 

 step among mazes of complicated facts. Hut these 

 are the indispensable equipments of every efticient 

 journalist. The supremacy of Mr. Stead lay in that 

 positive habit of mind which is akin to faith. He 

 was open to every influence and idea. He meant 

 to be interested in life. He saw a hero in 

 every man with a purpose. He hailed each policy 

 that commended itself to his judgment as the 

 one means of saving the ICnipire, if not mankind. 

 His brain was essentially receptive rather than selec- 

 tive. Its defects no less than its ([ualitics made him 

 a great journalist. 



The truth is only half told of this strange and 



eventful career, when its power and influence is 

 measured. It is to us no small service that he cleft 

 a way for personality in journalism, and achieved for 

 it in the world of affairs an independence from party 

 and wealth comparable with the emancipation of 

 literature from patronage. It was a finer and a 

 greater service that in lifting journalism Lo this 

 dignity he made it at the same time the servant of 

 disinterested aims. His power Over men's minds 

 came first of all from his ability to interest ihem. 

 Hut it had its deeper root in the sincerity which every 

 page of his writing confessed. One instinctively 

 knew that uhen his writing was most vital, when his 

 pleading was most arresting, when his exposition was 

 most masterly, the sympathy of a singularly humane 

 and kindly nature, the passion for justice of a fearless 

 heart, had given force lo his pen. He did his best 

 work when he had no thought before him save how 

 best to serve some woman in distress, some class 

 ground down, some people misunderstood. If he 

 was a great journalist, it was because he was first of 

 all a brave and disinterested man. 



LORD FISHER OF KILVERSTONE 



HoTEi, Excelsior, Naples, May isf, 1912. 



This very moment a telegram reaches me for some 

 public words on Mr. Stead— my steadfast friend of 

 nearly thirty years ! " Out of the abundance of the 

 heart the mouth speaketh." I will write no studied 

 words I These are my thoughts just as they come 

 fresh and unaltered. First and foremost he feared 

 (jod, and he feared none else ! He was indeed a 

 human Dnad-N'ought ! Ne.xt, he had an impreg- 

 nable belief that " Right was Might, " and not the ct/u-r 

 way round! And so, like David, he would march 

 out alone with his sling and stone cocksure always of 

 pluggiiig the Philistine between the eyes ! I've known 

 him going alone to a packed meeting of his detesters 

 and making them all s(iuirm. 



He hated shams and gas-bags and loved to prick a 

 " bubble reputation." Then — no matter who con- 

 tradicts me — he was a great Patriot I 1 know the 

 fierce rancour of animosity which he roused — (a dear 

 friend of mine once wanted to shoot Stead like a mad 

 dog) — but Stead was saturated with this great patriotic 

 belief that "Thk British IvxiriRii Floated on the 

 Priiish Navv, and li Floated on Nothi.m; 

 Else ! " 



So in 1885 he came to me (like Nicodemus) and 

 told me his plans, and got five millions sterling for 

 the Navy, which was then in a parlous state ! (Ask 

 Lord Esher how he ilid it — -he knows !) 



Again, when I was First Sea Lord, he had one of 

 his famous interviews with a great foreign personage, 

 who said to him: "Don't be frighti:ned ! " Stead 

 .uiswered : "Oh, no! For everv shii' vou build 



we'll build two ! " 



Ves, Stead originated the great patriotic ideal, 



Admiral of the Fleet. 



" Two Keels to One ! " \Vhy ? Bec.tuse he knew 

 that a naval disaster was irreparable, irremediable, 

 eternal ! .\ naval " Colenso " cannot be retrieved ! 

 (You can't go round the corner and buy a battleship 

 like a pound of sugar !) 



And isn't it lovely ! There's a letter m big print 

 in the Times from the Front Bench of the House of 

 Commons that this should be Stead's monument : 

 " T'MO Keels to One!" How he must be enjoying it ! 

 (this letter to the Times, I mean), as no doubt all the 

 other " wild men ' are I .And also the " Islanders " ! 

 (I shake hands with all those hundred thousand 

 Islanders.) Stead was possessed with the splendid 

 idea of a fighting end. He told me himself he 

 " should die in his boots " — so he did ! I expect his 

 end was very fine — he was wondrously brave. No 

 doubt he encouraged all around him ! No doubt he 

 made a stirring speech to those glorious bandsmen '. 

 — and loved the hymn they played {because he felt if) 

 —and Adams, the writer of the hymn, will have Ijis 

 joy also. 



Curious that, only just before knowing of the 

 Titanic disaster, I was walking on Nelson's balconv 

 here in Naples at the Palazzo Sessa, from which Ik- 

 looked right down on his beloved flagship that .s.; 

 gloriously carried him to the Nile, and involuntarily 

 I then thought of Stead, because he wrote of Nelson 

 such magnificent and imperishable words ! {His whole 

 article out^hf to be reproduced!) I remember these 

 burning lines (but all he wrote was splendid !) : " If 

 the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed 

 for Nelson's translation, he could scarcely have 

 departed in a brighter blaze of glory." Such were 

 Stead's ideals I He also died in baltls ! "Praia 

 occisiis !" — not a bad epitaph ! 



