LORD NORTHCLIFFE DEAD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2468, 17 August 1922, Page 4

LORD NORTHCLIFFE DEAD.

NOTED NEWSPAPER PROPRIETOR

END OF NOTABLE CAREER. LONDON. Aug. 14. The death is announced of Lord Norlheliffe, aged 57 years. —A. and N.Z. cable. Viscount Northcliffc, the Napoleon of Fleet Street, rose in less than 20 years from a struggling publisher of snippet literature to a seat in the House of Lords. Born in Chapclizod, County Dublin, in 1865, Alfred Charles William Ilarmsworth was the eldest soil of the late Alfred Ilarmsworth, barrister. Ilis first notable venture was the establishment of Answers in 1888, with a capital of £1750, and with himself as editor, literary staff, and publisher. From that small beginning grew the Amalgamated Press, which, before the first decade of the new century was half run, controlled numbers of weekly and monthly periodicals. In 1890 the profits of This concern amounted to £1097, 15 years later they wero £255,000, the dividend paid being 40 per cent. Apart from his position as head of this combination, Lord Norlhcliffo was the principal proprietor of the Daily Mail and several other nourishing dailies. In fact, his wealth accumulated faster than he was able to invest it, and bo once stated that be had £2,000,000 awaiting investment. Tt was his boast that lie secured tho best talent by a scale of remuneration previously uiirknown in journalism, salaries of £2OOO, £3OOO. and £SOOO not being exceptional in Carmelite House. Everyone was paid by results, and the quickness of promotion in Carmelite House was only equalled by the speed with which the unfit wero excluded. lie was wont to claim that this system attracted constantly a tide of talent from which it was not difficult to choose able helpers. Tho Ilarmsworlh papers supported Mr Chamberlain in bis protectionist and preferential policy, in which their proprietor was a firm believer. Tho Daily Mail was the pioneer of the London halfpenny morning papers, and the halving of tho usual price was so successful''a manoeuvre that it. was followed within a few years by several other morning dailies. Another forward move engineered by the journalistic Napoleon was the publication of special editions of the Mail in Manchester, and later in Paris. From 1905, the paper was published in the northern cotton centre and the French capital at the same popular price. A weekly edition for the colonies was also started under the titlo of tho Overseas Mail. In 1908 Lord Northcliffc secured a controlling interest in tho London Times. Tn 1894, Mr Ilarmsworth, as he then was, equipped the Jackson Arctic Expedition. Mr Harmsworth was created a baronet in 1904, early in 1906 he was raised to the peerago as Baron Northcliffc of the Iso of Tbanet, and in 1917 ho was created Viscount Norlhcliffo of St. Peter. lie married, in 1888, Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Robert Milner, of Kidlington, Oxfordshire, but there is no heir to the title.