THE TIMES (LIMITED).

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 26

THE TIMES (LIMITED).

♦ LONDON, January 7. The Times publishes a statement to the effect that negotiations are progressing for the formation of a Times limited liability company under the chairmanship $ Mr A. F. Walter and Mr 0. A. Pearyson as managing directors... They will the business management, but $he editorial character of the paper regnains unchanged, and it will be conducted lines independent of party politics. Mr Pearson, in the course of a letter to .Jhe newspapers, denies that the Tariff ftteform League is connected with The .Times organisation. He also declares that She Standard will continue as a distinct Publication.

the original owner has been acted upon, supreme power being placed in the hands of the managing director for the time being. Not unnaturally, however, recentdevelopments in the policy of the paper and the management of the business have not been viewed with the same favouring eye by all the proprietors, and something like a revolt against the autocracy arose. The result was a Chancery suit, Sibley v. Walter, brought last year with the object of converting the business into a jointstock company. An agreement was ultimately come to fey the parties for the formation of a company in accordance with a memorandum submitted to the court.'* This memorandum provided for the administration of the company by two of the plaintiffs and Messrs Walter, and made provision for the management of the concern to be in the hands of the governing director, with a board "of directors whose powers were strictly defined. It was stated at that time that it was not contemplated to sell to any outside body, but merely to eetttle the interests of -the persons in the partnership, and give them an i equivalent in the joint-stock company.

January 9. j The Times capital is to be increased jby £200,000. The new shareholders in- j I dud© Lord Brassey (formerly Governor of j I Victoria), Lord Rothschild (head of the \ English branch of the Rothschild family), Lord Strathcona (High Commissioner for Canada), Viscount Iveagh (a member of the Guinness family, of brewery fame), and Sir Alexander Henderson (chairman of the Great Central Railway, and a member o! the Tariff Commission). The Times was started nearly 120 years ago (1788) as a daily newepaper by the first j John Walter, and it waa provided in the j will of its founder that those who for the ' time controlled it should have absolute i power. There are now some hundreds of ' proprietors who have inherited shares in I the great undertaking, and up to the pre- i i sent the tradition so wisely laid down by I