ALLEGED LOSS ON THE TIMES FROM ITS GREAT SALE.

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It will thus be seen that, instead of a loss, there is a profit upon the whole transaction of 1037. as compared with printing only one copy of the Times. If we wish to ascertain what the gross aggregate income from the paper amounts to, we must add the sum received for advertisements, which, after payment of the duty, amounts on the average to about 3001. each publication. When no supplement is given, the profit on the circulation is much larger. The cost of 39,000 stamps," or stamped sheets, in that case is only 3747.; and as the price to the newsmen is always 8s. 9d. per quire, whether with or without supplement, the profit on those days must be 2987. 15s., leaving an ample margin for any loss which may be sustained by the publication of double supplements. Assuming, then, that the loss in the latter case is made up by the extra profit when there is no supplement at all, the gross aggregate income of the Times, from circulation and advertisements, must be 4037. a-day, or 24187. a-week. As everything is done upon the most liberal scale at Printing-house Square, we may calculate that 8007. sterling per week are expended in the shape of wages, salaries, rent, taxes, interest on capital, &c. Deducting that sum from the gross income, there will still remain a nett profit of 84,1367. per annum, affording a much more liberal dividend to the proprietary than any one would have estimated from the evidence given by Mr. Morris. As to his statement, that the limit has been reached at which a single supplement can be pub'lished without a loss,' a very simple calculation will show its utter absurdity. If a circulation of 39,000 yields a profit of 1037., one of double that number, which could easily be attained 'within a couple of years,' according to Mr. Morris, would clearly give a profit of 2067. Or, taking it the reverse way, if 39,000 gives a profit of 1037., half that number would have yielded only 51. 10s., so that instead of being better off with a smaller circulation, as Mr. Morris wished the committee to believe, they would clearly have been losers to the above extent. He talks about the value of the advertisements in the supplement being only 2007., and then goes on to say that you could 'publish as many papers as would cost 2001. to manufacture in 'paper, stamps, and printing, and if you go beyond that, you 'publish at a loss.' As if there could possibly be any loss in a transaction where you buy paper, including stamps, at 147. 10s. per thousand, and, after passing it through the printingmachine at a very trifling cost (all the heavy expenditure having been previously incurred), are enabled to sell it for 177. 10s. per thousand. If Mr. Morris had stated in plain terms that the gross profit derived from the ordinary circulation of the

Times, after payment of paper and stamps,' is 2981. 158. per diem, and that when a single supplement is given the gross profit from the same source is reduced to 1037., the committee would have understood him at once. But, in that case, what would have become of his reiterated statement, in reply to Mr. Cobden, that the publication of a supplement did not merely cause a diminution of profit, but inflicted an absolute loss'?

The extension of the railway system, the improved means of transmitting foreign intelligence, and various other subsidiary causes, have had a damaging effect upon the circulation of the evening papers, most of them having declined considerably since the reduction of the newspaper stamp duty. In 1837, the first year after the reduction, the evening press consisted of the following journals:—the Courier, quasi-Tory, and unprincipled, with an average circulation of 1400; the Globe, Palmerstonian, and rather unpopular, on account of its dry political economy of the Colonel Torrens school, nearly 3000 daily; the Standard, ultra-Tory, but nevertheless much higher on the list, having reached an average of 4300; the Sun, Whig-Radical, pluming itself on its late editions, with full but inaccurate reports of parliamentary and other intelligence, little more than 2000; and last of all, the Radical True Sun, which in spite of the host of clever writers engaged on it, had a circulation of only 1250 in 1837, the last year of its existence. The Courier, after many a desperate struggle to keep alive, expired in 1842, a warning to all unprincipled journals of what their fate must ultimately be. Under Daniel Stuart, who contrived to make it the ministerial organ during the war, it ranked among the first newspapers in point of circulation; higher, indeed, at one time, than even the Times of that day. In 1814, it was said to be worth 12,000l. per annum, but it declined very much soon after the war. Hazlitt described it in 1823 as a paper of shifts and expedients, of bare 'assertions and thoughtless impudence, which denies facts on 'the word of a minister, and dogmatizes by authority.' No one could regret the death of such a disreputable organ. At present there are only four evening newspapers published in London, whose daily circulation is as follows-Sun, 2666; Express, 2493; Globe, 1869; and Standard, 1571. The aggregate circulation of the evening press, instead of advancing with the population and intelligence since 1837, has actually fallen from 12,000 to 8599, or little more than one-half of what it was forty years ago. The whole of the evening newspapers put together do not circulate as many copies daily as are contained in a single impression of the Manchester Guardian or the Leeds Mercury. This would not be the case were the same pains bestowed on the editing

6

LONDON EVENING PAPERS-MORNING PAPERS.

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and sub-editing on the London evening papers as there is on the provincial journals we have named. Were the stamp duty abolished, we should probably witness a very great improvement in the evening press, as it would then be worth while to publish a paper not much less than the Globe or Standard, containing a clever abridgment of all the news of the day, at twopence, which, with a halfpenny for postage, would still leave it 50 per cent. below the present exorbitant price of the evening papers; a sufficient cause of itself for their very limited circulation.

As regards the morning papers, exclusive of the Times, we agree with Mr. F. K. Hunt, that the removal of the stamp duty would greatly improve their circulation, but we question whether it would tend so much to improve their position in other respects, unless accompanied by the abolition of the duty on advertisements. Were that iniquitous and oppressive impost abolished, the virtual monopoly which the Times now possesses would be checked, if not considerably broken up by the necessity which would then arise for other newspapers, with space sufficient for the enormous increase of advertisements which may reasonably be anticipated under a moderate tariff. With such an impetus to advertising, the Daily News, Chronicle. Herald, Post, and Advertiser might all expect to enjoy a good share of good share of patronage from the ten thousand tradesmen who are continually striving to find out some new method of letting the public know how to spend their money to the best advantage. Many new papers would doubtless be started immediately after the change, but an oldestablished, well-organized journal has always a great advantage over new competitors. As Mr. Hunt remarks in his evidence before the committee, You could not get up the organization of 'the Daily News, for instance, under any circumstances, without the loss of some two or three years." During that period, a paper managed with so much spirit and talent as are displayed in the Daily News might easily distance any new rival. As regards the Morning Chronicle, having spoken of it formerly as suffering from illiberal management on the part of its proprietary, we must candidly admit that no such charge can be brought against its present owners. For several years past, everything possible has been done to render it a worthy competitor of the Times, but one. Were the zeal which it now displays so conspicuously in favour of Anglo-Catholicism converted into political fervour in support of popular rights, the liberal expenditure which the new proprietary has made upon the concern, during the last few years, would not only be returned with interest, but a position in the morning press might speedily be achieved not much inferior to what the Chronicle occupied thirty years ago.

Of all the witnesses examined by the committee, Mr. Russell, editor of the Scotsman, a newspaper which has long stood at the head of the Scottish press, was the most decided in his opposition to the proposed abolition of the stamp duty, but he candidly admitted that his knowledge of the subject was chiefly confined to Scotland. When asked whether he was aware that there are fifty or sixty publications in London which publish a part of their impression on stamped, and the remainder on unstamped paper, he said he had only heard of it lately, from which we infer that he cannot be familiar with the practical difficulties which the Stamp-office authorities must encounter if they attempt to maintain the law in its present state. So far as the Scotsman is concerned, he thinks that the proposed change would be a benefit rather than an injury. It would kill off the weak large-town papers'a consummation most devoutly to be wished in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which are overrun with them-while it would improve the stronger large-town papers and cause a crop of papers to spring up in the thinner peopled districts." The latter result would, in our opinion, be a public benefit rather than an evil, much as Mr. Russell appears to be alarmed on the subject. He thinks it would be a misfortune that there should be local papers of a more petty character than exist at present.' So far as local news are concerned, the small towns and villages are very well served, in his opinion, by the present system. The large-town papers employ a correspondent in each district throughout the neighbouring counties, who furnishes all the news that are deemed of sufficient importance within a given range. If every little town and village had a newspaper of its own, these petty organs of public opinion would, of course, devote a larger space to local news and topics of interest, which, according to Mr. Russell, would be a great misfortune, as it would tend to local and personal gossip.' When asked, whether it might not possibly be an advantage for the inhabitants of the smaller towns to have a paper which would give a larger amount of local news, which are interesting to them, than a paper like the Scotsman has space to give, he still answers in the confident editorial tone that it would be a disadvantage that local news and local sub'jects should be more fully dealt with than they are at present, as they would be then: it is rather overdone now, and it would 'be regrettable that papers should become more petty in their 'range and tone.' Now it seems to us, after considerable experience in the matter, that this very increase of local papers, which Mr. Russell dreads so much, will tend more than anything else to improve the character of the newspaper press, while it must greatly diminish one of the most irksome tasks of those engaged in newspaper editorial labours.

EFFECT OF A GREATER DISTRIBUTION OF JOURNALISM.

159

Among all the disagreeable and thankless duties which the editor of a widely-circulated provincial newspaper must undertake, there is nothing to compare with the distracting toil and trouble which arises from the modern innovation of attempting to give what is very erroneously styled 'a judicious summary of all the interesting intelligence in each district.' The Colonial Secretary, snugly seated at his desk in Downing-street, where he must manage in the best possible manner the affairs of some forty or fifty various British settlements, in opposite quarters of the globe, has a hard enough task, no doubt, but it is not half so harassing as that of an editor who tries to satisfy the insatiable thirst for news of half a hundred constituencies, within the limited space of a single newspaper. In Edinburgh or Glasgow, the task is comparatively easy, because the surrounding country is not so thickly studded with towns and villages, all swarming with an active, intelligent population, and all alike requiring a full and accurate register of whatever events may be deemed interesting in each locality. It is in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire that the evil of which we speak is felt most severely. Take the Leeds Mercury, the Manchester Guardian, or the Manchester Examiner, for example: all first class papers, of the largest size allowed by law, and all giving four-page supplements once a week. In spite of their immense size, there is not one of those journals which can give a faithful weekly record of all that is worthy of note in the forty or fifty towns and villages by which they are surrounded, and through which those papers circulate. An attempt, indeed, is made to give as many Town Council Meetings, Board of Guardian Proceedings,' Temperance Demonstrations, and Meetings of Rate-payers,' with a due mixture of change-ringings, friendly anniversaries, elections of churchwardens, elections of town councillors, elections of guardians, offences, accidents, and crimes,-as can be crammed, by rapid abridgment, into a certain number of columns. after all has been done in this way that the most skilful and industrial editor, aided by the most indefatigable sub-editor, can accomplish, or that any reasonable newspaper reader in any of the smaller towns could possibly require, there still remains a great number of equally important events, which are necessarily left unnoticed altogether by the mammoth journal, for sheer want of space, or given in a form so much abridged as to render them of little or no value. The people of Oldham are perhaps waiting with intense anxiety for a long and amusing account of the 'Extraordinary Scene' at the last meeting of the board of poor-law guardians; or those of Ashton are looking forward with equal interest to Saturday's paper, for a report of the animated debate in the town council on the proposed increase of two policemen

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