possible to settle the question by evidence rather than by opinion , the press , like an individual, seems entitled to the benefit of the doubt. The suppression of the news that is often attributed to personal
hostility , class interest, or premeditated plan , may have been due entirely to accident. Lord Houghton was greatly interested in the conduct of business in the House of Lords and at one time
wrote an important letter on the subject to The Times. It was not inserted, but neither was it “ suppressed ,” — the editor was in Paris
when the letter had been received, his mail was not opened during his absence , and no explanation could be made prior to his return .11 Press notices may be desired because the persons interested in a subject may deem them all-important, and yet they may be omitted without obvious or sinister reason . The Queen of Holland
wrote Lord Houghton , September 26 , 1869: “ Our (Statistical] Congress has passed unobserved and unnoticed. Can you ac count why the Times has not deigned to mention it? Have we undergone the bad will of Mr. Delane? Why? And in what
manner? Pray tell me if you can discover it.” 12 The Life of Lord Houghton does not disclose why the notice did not appear , but other letters from the Queen of Holland indicate an oversensitive
ness to the remissness of correspondents. The different hours at which papers go to press often explains the absence of news of an important event in one paper while another paper may give it half a column. The difference in time explains why an eventmay receive a few lines in an Eastern paper and adequate notice in a Western paper . The press may tell the truth , but it may not necessarily tell
all the truth about everything. Newspapers have the privilege of selection as do private individuals in private conversation and need not be charged with wilfully suppressing news if various
subjects honestly seem to them inconsequential. A newspaper may not report a meeting of socialists, or ofMormons, or of equal suffragists, not because it wishes to supress the news, but because 11 T . W . Reid , The Life, Letters and Friendships of Richard Monckton
Milnes, First Lord Houghton , II , 204. 12 Ib ., II,
