The "Speaker"
repercussions on this side of St. George's Channel. The time was therefore considered suitable for launching a sixpenny weekly to record and discuss matters affecting the proprietorship and tenure and management of the land. It was started in 1881, as Land, a title which at any rate had the merit of brevity. A non-party organ, with a temperate bias in favour of things as they were, it was admirably written and excellently produced. Mr. Hamer, as has been mentioned, exercised a general supervision over the paper, and threw himself into the work with enthusiasm; he had an efficient collaborator in Mr. Penderel-Brodhurst, able pens were engaged in the service of the paper, and its only defect was that the public did not want it. So, after making a brave show for three years, it unostentatiously dropped out of the race.
The Speaker, the famous Liberal weekly review, was established in 1890 by Sir Wemyss Reid. Though published by Cassell's, it was not, as has been mentioned in an earlier chapter, one of their ventures, for the proprietor was the late Sir John Brunner. No money was spared to make of it a success. The Foreword in the first number was written by James Payn, Mr. Gladstone contributed to this and to several later issues, and the editor now, or later, had able editorial coadjutors in J. S. Mann, "Q," Barry O'Brien, and G. H. Perris. Many brilliant pens, such as those of Lord Acton, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Augustine Birrell, James Bryce, Principal Fairbairn, Dr. Wm. Barry, Herbert Paul, J. A. Spender, Sidney Webb, A. B. Walkley, H. W. Massingham, J. M. Barrie, L. F. Austin, Richard Le Gallienne, and Barry Pain, were at his command. The paper, however, lacked unity and never carried weight, although every number contained much delightful reading. It remained under Sir Wemyss Reid's editorial control until 1899; Sir John Brunner then sold it, and neither its first editor nor the House of Cassell had any further concern with it. Enough to say that after a gallant struggle, in which its format was changed, it went the way of so many other
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