Its articles typically discussed topical cultural, political, and socio-economic issues yet the publication also ran poems, cartoons, and other such material that piqued Chesterton's interest.
[1] The relationship between the Distributist League and G. K.'s Weekly being a very close one, the publication advocated the philosophy of distributism in contrast to both the centre-right and centre-left attitudes of the time regarding socialism and industrialism.
[2] In terms of criticism, the publication has garnered condemnation for alleged anti-Semitic prejudice to be found in the views of Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton as well as of Hilaire Belloc.
The controversy has involved sorting out the distinct differences in the opinions of the three men versus that of others within the publication, as essentially everyone featured had their own nuances to their viewpoints and would disagree among themselves.
Critics have alleged that the writers often featured false stereotypes and made ignorant arguments about British capitalistic society while defenders have viewed the accusations as biased and misleading.
Belloc focused his energies on anti-capitalist and anti-communist articles fighting against what he saw as the collusion of the many British government members with corrupt forces, writing in a brash style.
Some essays from G.K.'s Weekly have appeared in the books The Outline of Sanity, The Well and the Shallows, The End of the Armistice, The Common Man, and The Coloured Lands.
Besides standard works of a publication of its type at the time such as long essays and short news items, he intended to use it as a kind of 'scrapbook' and added a variety of other material such as poems, pieces of fiction, cartoons, and so on.
"[1] The essential continuity under the main editorial figures (those mentioned above, and W. R. Titterton who was Gilbert's sub-editor), is a manifestation of the political and economic doctrine of distributism.
This was mainly the work of Belloc, Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton, and Arthur Penty, and had its origins in an Edwardian-era split of Fabian socialism in London circles, around A. R. Orage and his prominent publication The New Age.
[5] In founding The Eye-Witness, Belloc took a title of a book of essays of his own from a couple of years before, and drew initially on a group of writers more associated with The Speaker.
[9] G. K.'s Weekly provided little financially for Chesterton; it was not a lucrative venture by any means in his mind, but he kept it going as a gesture of respect for Cecil's memory.
[2] During the 1930s, the Soviet Union appeared the biggest enemy to the cause of the distributists, and a move towards monarchism and to support for fascist Italy took place.
[2] Attitudes to Benito Mussolini specifically (whom GKC interviewed, see the Maisie Ward biography)[citation needed] in the 1930s has attracted attention.
[14] The ideological viewpoints advocated in the weekly received a great deal of criticism during the time of publication, leading Gilbert Chesterton to quip that he got "called insane for attempting to return to sanity."
[1] There is a continuing debate about the extent of anti-Semitic prejudice to be found in the views of Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton as well as of Belloc.
Complicating matters is that the discussion involves three people who were very different in character, though having largely similar political views, and allegations been put in the frame of guilt by association in the past.
[16] Chesterbelloc critics include Barnet Litvinoff, author of The Burning Bush: Antisemitism and World History, who has written: "Britain had its replicas of Maurras and Daudet in those adornments of English letters, G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.
Negative fictional characters who are Jewish appear in Belloc's novels from this time, and his writings contain condemnations of industrial capitalism and its dehumanization in which the role of Jews in business and finance is arguably quite emphasized.
[20] In his specific work The Path to Rome, Belloc describes (at least at that time) finding antisemitism against ordinary laypeople puzzling, if not outright distasteful: "At the foot of the street was an inn where I entered to eat, and finding there another man- I take him to have been a shopkeeper- I determined to talk politics, and began as follows: 'Have you any anti-Semitism in your town?'
The work has variously been interpreted over the years, with some critics finding it deeply flawed though with good intentions, tinged with antisemitism, while others viewing it as rather fair for its day.
Whether from mere contrast in type— what I have called "friction"— or from some apparent divergence between his objects and those of his hosts, or through his increasing numbers, he creates (or discovers) a growing animosity.
"[22]Belloc also wrote, "The various nations of Europe have every one of them, in the course of their long histories, passed through successive phases towards the Jew which I have called the tragic cycle.
"[22]On the integration of Jews into British society at the higher levels, he asserted, in the same book, "[T]hose of the great territorial English families in which there was no Jewish blood were the exception.
His approach took on a largely fatalistic slant distinct from many later analyses of Jewish integration, and he arguably heavily relied on the stereotypes and biases of the period.
In 1940s The Catholic and the War, Belloc asserted, "The Third Reich has treated its Jewish subjects with a contempt for justice which even if there had been no other action of the kind in other departments would be a sufficient warranty for determining its elimination from Europe".
[27] Points often made about Chesterton's attitude to Jews relate to well-known writings, both 'in the small' or casual, and in the large when he seriously addressed the question.
In the chapter 'On Zionism', one also finds Chesterton's dim appraisal of the patriotism of Benjamin Disraeli (who had been baptised Anglican at age 13).
He argues in effect that the former Prime Minister, due to his Jewish birth, would naturally have abandoned England (a Christian nation) in extremis: Further discussion comes from comments about Jews being responsible for both the USSR's communism and the US's unbridled capitalism (1929).
John Gross in The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters (1969) commented: Chesterton, however, opposed all forms of persecution of Jews and all violent anti-semitism.