PLACE OF THE PRESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 158, 5 June 1940, Page 8

PLACE OF THE PRESS.

MAINTENANCE OF FREEDOM. GREAT LONDON DAILIES. "The function of the newspaper, briefly speaking, is to give us the truth in news and to give us honest comment. You may say that the Fress is one of the pillars of Democracy, along with Parliament. The editor oi a newspaper reserves the right, because it is liis paper anyway, to comment in its leading articles, but he also (in nearly all cases) allows you and me, if we have a view to express, to express it m the correspondence columns. I have little patience with people who sneer at the ‘capitalist Press’ merely because it is capitalistic and apparently because these people think it a crime to make a profit.” The foregoing statement wus made by Mr J. O. Young in an address at the Palmerston North Rotary Club’s weekly meeting, on Monday, on “The London Press and Pei'sonalities.” Touching on the need for the maintenance of a free Press, Mr Young said that over half of Europe to-day there was no free Press. It was perverted and controlled, machine-made, and mendacity was its main instrument for influence. We should be particularly careful, in our democratic country, to retain our free Press, attacked as it was to-day and would be, more and more, in the future. There were 10 Sunday newspapers issued in London and one of the leading papers was a Sunday one—the Observer, with Mr J. L. Garvin as editor, said Mr Young, Further, the News of the World, with the greatest; circulation in Great Britain, was a Sunday paper. There were 11 London dailies, eight morning and three evening. Two of the morning journals were what the speaker called "flapper” papers, the Sketch and the Mirror. The degree of circulation governed, to a largo degree, the advertising rates. The London Daily Express claimed to have the largest circulation in Britain, and also the world, with about 2,500,050,,-Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian Scot, was the editor and he was ambitious and aggressive. The Daily Herald, called the Socialist paper, was the next largest in terms of circulation. It was started in 1913 by the Labour Party, but they found this realm a difficult one. Odham’s, Ltd., the publishers, took over the commercial side of the paper and left the editorial columns to the party which started it. The arrangement worked very satisfactorily and to-day the paper had a circulation’ of over 2,100,000 daily. It was one of the greatest achievements hi journalism that this amalgamation of interests worked so well. The Daily Mail and the NewsChronicle were running "neck and neck” at about 1,333,000 copies daily. The late Lord Northcliffe started the former in 1895, seizing the opportunity for a cheaper paper. The second was a combination of the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle. The News had formerly absorbed the Westminster Gazette. The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post had a circulation of 750,000 and had Lord Camrose at its head. The Times had a modest circulation of 200,000, but a great influence. Lord Northcliffe at one time bought the dominant interest in the Times, but Major Astor, brother-in-law of Lord Astor, now controlled it under a trust. - Healthy competition kept the papers lively and they gave the best of service, the speaker continued. He outlined the engagement of well-known personalities as writers, instancing C. B. Fry and Herbert Marshall writing cricket Reports and D. G. Bradman being offered what was reputed to be a guaranteed salary of £3OOO a year to write on cricket. > A vote of thanks was accorded the speaker on the motion of the president (Air J. A. Grant).