The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-21 00:00:00

THE "KEPT" PRESS.

A rather amusing and very angry scrimmage has
been begun, and seems likely to go on, between
Mr. Bright and the Times. The sanguinary mem-
ber for Birmingham now regularly goes to war
with a double-barrelled rifle, and, having the other

day emptied both tubes right in the eye of the
Thunderer, that potentate very reasonably took
offence, and is now taking retaliation. One of the
barrels, by far the straightest and strongest shooter,
of Mr. Bright's metaphorical firearm, is his own
tongue, with which formerly he did so much
good to the country, and with which recently he
has been doing so much harm to himself; the other is
a newspaper which he " keeps " for his own uses,
and with which he deals condemnation round the
land on all who venture to differ from or disobey
King John, Whenever one of the barrels goes off the
other immediately follows, to make sure, or from the
delight of mangling as well as killing. Thus, on
Friday night Mr. Bright in the House of Commons
took or rather made occasion to fire off an attack
upon the Times, morally, commercially, and per-
sonally ; and next morning and every mornin g since
the other barrel has been going off, pop, pop, firing
the same charges with more smoke and less power.
Besides this more special or set assault, the same
sort of thing has been going on desultorily for a
long time. Whenever he has got a chance for
months past, Mr. Bright has tried to exhibit the
iniquities of the Times in a blaze of light, and,
however complete the exposure, Mr. Bright's Star
(which, we fear, is not in all respects a fortu-
nate one) was sure to throw additional radi-
ance npon the matter in the morning ; and,
besides all this, a chorus of abuse was kept up
by many of our brethren of what is contumeliously
termed " the penny press," both in and out of Lon-
don, there appearing to prevail in that quarter an
impression that the limes is the natural enemy of
all other newspapers. Probably if this vitupera-
tion had continued to have reference merely to
things political or things in general, the Times
would have kept never minding ; but latterly the
missiles have consisted in great part of fabulous
assertions about matters of business and impertinent
allusions to private persons. Thus annoyed, the
Times has now turned round to put its paw on
some of its assailants—who, however they may
dislike it in the end, seem for the time
quite pleased to have succeeded in exciting
so much attention and displeasure. Perhaps the
fight in itself is of no great public importance;
but its origin and some of its incidents point to some
not insignificant questions affecting the character
of the press—especially to the fact that there has
of late years arisen a newclass of newspapers, tend-
ing very considerably to the degradation of our
" order, and which (if we may be pardoned a some-
what improper allusion) are best described as "kept"
papers. A " kept" newspaper is one which is not,
like ordinary or old fashioned newspapers,established
byprivate persons as a matter of business, advocat-
ing, indeed, a certain set of Principles, ',but com-
mercially dependent on the support of the public
—a "kept" newspaper is set up by some little
political clique to serve their own purposes, and
especially their own antipathies, and commercially
dependent upon and absolutely ruled by that
little clique. Two things are specially to be noted
of this new class of journals—that they have been
resorted to chiefly by what is miscalled the Man-
chester section of Radicals, and that their chief em-
ployment is accusing all other journals of not being
" independent," and assuming that they themselves
are identical with " the, Pr P'e," that people whose
support they have found it necessary specially to
provide for doing without. One of the worst fea-
tures of the political section headed by Mr. Bright
is the extraordinary antipathy which it has for
at least the last ten years displayed towards a
really independent press—an
antipathy clearly
arising from intolerance of spirits. Even Mr. Cob-
den, comparatively mild and judicious,
has re-
peatedly declared in public that newspapers ought
not to discuss but only record, and before
a Parliamentary Committee he
ex-
pressed his preference, above deliberately
the British press, of
the press not
.only of the 'United States, but of
France, Germany, and Spain. Two other conspi-
cuous men of his party testified on a similar occa-
sion that the best or only proper matter for news-
papers is " police reports," " trials at the assizes,"
" a good account of some farmer's
been burnt down ;" and onestackyard having
of them ventured to
add that at least he was willing that " leading
articles should be prohibited." For years Mr.
Bright has scarcely been able to
speak without re-
ferring to the newspaper press in terms of real
hatred and affected contempt. This state of mind
appears to have been induced
by findin that the old
Liberal press of the country _many
ss
—many members of
which had not only been advocates of Liberalism when
Liberalism was unprofitable, but had been advo-
cates of free trade many years before even Messrs.
Cobden and Bright took the field—would not per-
form all the new and strange
behests which the
league leaders began to issue
after the completion
of their great work in 1846. That which had been
their chief ally in the free trade agitation they
found every now and then confronting and with-
standing them in their new
first amazed, then enraged, courses. They were
then abusive—and
ultimately they fell upon
What they thought a
means both of revenge and remedy.
They could
not bend the existing press to their purposes, but
they would set up a rival press Which would do as
it was bid. So not only in London but other places
they set up a new class of
papers which were to
look to them only for orders and for wages.
They
have so far succeeded as to have maintained for
several years a few newspapers which unite in an
unprecedented style the loudest brawling with the
lowest servility. The brawling of the "kept" papers
takes the shape chiefly of declaring that there is no
" independence" extant but in them, and in repeat-
ing with aggravation the
denunciations of their
keepers against all opponents
and unbelievers.
Their servility, besides what is
brawling, consists in not only never differing from
their keepers, but in drenching them with buckets
of flattery on all suitable and unsuitable occasions.
Nothing surely could be more ludicrously mala-
propos than papers of this-class assailing a paper
like the limes for want of " independence" when
the faults of the Times obviously lie entirely in the
opposite direction—in a want of tie to any set of
men or even principles, or even we may say to its
own interests, or to anything but its own notions
or almost whims as they chance to rise. It is im-
possible to name the political party or man with
whom the Times has not often and strongly differed;
it would be equally impossible to show a single
occasion on which the papers at present assailing.
the Times ever ventured to hint the faintest dissent
from any one thing done or any one word said by
Mr. Bright and his coterie. This arrangement may
be a convenient one for the parties (don't say
the guilty parties) ; but such connexions are
never either happy in themselves, nor in favour with
" the people." It would be far better policy of our
" independent" contemporaries if they would occa-
sionally get up a matrimonial-like quarrel with
their gentlemen—it would look more respectable in
the eyes of a suspicious and censorious public.—
Scotsman.