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The Abuse of the Press
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Daily News, were instructed, in the former case, by the newly-appointed editor of the Johannesburg Star, in the latter case by the editor of the Cape Times. The two chief cable companies also drew most of the Capetown intelligence from the Cape Times and the Argus Company, while one of them was fed with Transvaal intelligence by a prominent member of the Executive of the South African League at Johannesburg.

The press unanimity in Great Britain is thus traced to certain newspaper offices in Capetown and Johannesburg. Now, if these half dozen newspapers had been independent and reliable organs, the news they supplied, and the forcible policy they imposed upon the British press and the British public might have reasonably carried weight. But they were neither independent nor reliable; they are members of a bought and kept press. The Cape Argus, bought some years ago by Messrs. Rhodes, Barnato, and Eckstein, is now the nucleus of a Company, owning some half dozen papers in South Africa, and among them the Star of Johannesburg, whose editor instructed the readers of the London Times in the necessity of war. Since the capture of the Orange Free State, the Company has strengthened its