The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, DEC E INIBER 28, 168.

A NEWSPAPER CLIQUE.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

In America, Newspapers are fai better known,
for they are far more generally read than in Eng-
land, where a journal might actually be circulating
in vast numbers through certain districts, yet never
be heard of in others. Even such a paper as
Lloyd's Weekly News may here be found in the kit-
chens of great London mansions, while many of
the people in the drawing-room had not even seen it,
though regularly taken in the same house. Possibly
their eye may have rested momentarily on a co-
lumn of advertisement in the limes, " Read Lloyd's
IVeekly News ! —Horrible Murder—Shocking Suicide
—Extensive Burglary—Execution of a Murderer
Awful Scene at the Drop"--but they know nothing
whatever of the paper, where it circulates, and
what it contains; for although it supplies mental
food for a greater portion of the metropolis than
any other published, yee it is never quoted. In-
deed there is a cliqueism in the Loudni papers
mainly read in America which confines all quota-
tions to itself. The clique consists of the Times,
Standard, Daily News, Telegraph, Star, Post,
and Advertiser, with the • Express and the Pall-
Mall Gazette, as evening papers. These quote
each other, and admit into their exclusive
circle a few weekly reviews, such as the Saturday,
the Spectator, the London, the Economist, and
a few military, sporting, and other class organs.
An American would never learn from them that
there are papers published in London whose circu-
lation on the day of issue equals the whole of these
put together ; that there are provincial papers of
greater weight and circulation than any one of them,
except the Times. It is now pretty well known
that the effect of penny papers has been to break
down the exclusive influence of the metropolitan
journals, and to elevate provincial papers in com-
mercial cities, such as Manchester and Glasgow,
where daily journals are issued, got up in every way
equal, if not superior, to the London penny papers,
though beyond their own boundaries they are seldom
heard of. Ignorance of journals which address a
large section of the people left Americans under
the erroneous impression that England—root and
branch—was hostile to the United States during
the civil war, which has been productive of ED
much harm. True, the Daily News and the Spec-
tator took the side of the North ; but in the intel-
lectual, not in the hearty, unreserved way in which
some organs of the people threw themselves on the
side of freedom. The tendency of political power
bring towards the masses, their newspapers must
rise with them. As these clique newspapers go in the
old narrow road, like cattle treading corn in Asiatic
countries, they keep up the impression abroad that
they are the mouthpiece of England, the more so
as in olden days they really were as far as the go-
verning class went. But this is now wholly changed,
and although the extended franchise must give an
increasing power to the whole press, as the only means
of reaching the vast numbers now enrolled, yet the
tendency will be to raise the provincial organs,
and to reduce the price of established metropolitan
papers. Even the Tones is said to contemplate a
reduction to twopence. The Daily News has come
down to one penny, and finds it to answer well.
Several weeklies have already been reduced, and a
halfpenny evening paper, in strong hands, is despe-
rately stirring to establish a footing in the newspaper
world. The first cause of the fall in pi ice was the re-
duction in duty ou paper; but the chief reason is
the rise of the masses in influence and education.
While editors in England can never look for the fine
times editors enjoy in the United States, with their
power, will rise th it dignity as a profession, and the
reason is simple ' • for, with universal suffrage, the
press becomes the only means of influencing those
who create the Government and direct its policy.
An Editor then who opposes extended suffrage sac-
rifices the interests of his craft to his political prin-
ciples, and therefore his opinions should weigh the
more, as they are in opposition to his interests, at
least as a journalist. It is for this reason that the
Press ranks so high in America and in the English
Colonies, and it may be laid down as an axiom that
the STATUS of the Press and and its influence will be
in direct proportion to the extension of the franchise.
The Times has discussed the connection of the Post
Office with the Newspaper Press, and strongly advo-
cates the American system, at least in as far as its
liberal aid towards spreading information could
be followed, without loss to the revenue. It says
very justly :—" An active Newspaper Press would
he impossible •without railways. The public per-
haps have little idea of the energy and the organiza-
tion which are required in order to place a copy of
their morning journal on their breakfast table. The
task of distributing the daily papers over London
and to the various railway stations constitutes, in
fact, an immense business, requiring a high order
of management." The English Post-office the Times
remarks, " transmits newspapers, but at such rates
and under such conditions that it would seem
the object to perform the least possible amount of
service at the greatest possible expense." Alluding
to the purchase of the telegraphs by Government,
when through its means newspapers must be fur-
nished with the latest news, it adds—" The Post-
office will soon be one of the chief agencies for the
transmission of news ; could it not be rendered also
one of the chief agencies for the transmission of
newspapers ?" American journals count their " ex-
changes" by the hundred, and their telegraph news
by the column, comparing favourably with the Lon-
don clique system in intelligence and variety of
matter. Whoever daily reads the papers we have
mentioned knows that putting aside the leading
articles the one is little more than a fac-sinzile of the
other, the same parapraphs going the rounds of all,
with one picking something from a foreign journal,
and the others taking up the paragraph. The Pall
Mall Gazette writes an " occasional note" which is
as devoid of truth as it is of manners, yet all transfer
it into their columns as if the concentration of
wisdom. The least truthful is the Standard, which
is not content with viewing questions from its own
Tory stand-point, not confining itself merely to ob-
serving one side of the subject through a telescope,
and the other through the glass inverted, but fre-
quently misrepresents,and very often makes America
the subject of the distortion. For iustance,last Tues-
day there was an article on the President's Message,
in which the main facts gleaned were only those
that told against the country :—" The debt in-
creases year by year ; the taxation weighs more and
more ; and the receipts annually diminish. Those
from Customs have steadily fallen off ; the total
expenditure for the year is estimated at three hun-
dred millions of dollars. The naval and military
forces cost one hundred and twenty millions of dol-
lars annually in time of profound peace ;" and
after sneeringly drawing the attention of the Eng-
lish admirers of Republican institutions to all this,
the Standard proceeds :—" What is an important
fact in connection with this indebtedness, well wor
thy of the attention of those who have been pro-
phesying intrepidly how that the Americans would
rapidly reduce their debt is, that in the thirteen
months ending December of this year the amount
due by the.se States to their creditors had increased
by a sum of 46,500,000 dollars." That the facts
relay lose nothing they are stated to come from " one
who cannot but be a competent authority on the
state of the American debt and the prospect of its
payment." Our readers know what the competency
of the President is ; where he got his figures the
Standard knew, or ought to have known ; and we
ask those who desire to learn the reliability of the
Standard on American finance to compare this with
Secretary M'Culloch's Report, the source of these
figures. Who would have supposed that $24,152,000
is chargeable to the Pacific Railroad; that $7,200,000
was for the purchase of Russian America ; and that
$4,406,000 went for bounties ? Nor would it be
imagined that the revenue of $300,000,000 is esti-
mated to give a surplus of $50,000,000 annually
towards the reduction of the debt ; nor would the
reader suppose that the military expenditure was
really a war, not a peace, charge, for it is after, not
during a war, that most of the liabilities have to be
met, while the estimate for coming years for both
the Army and the Navy combined is but two-
thirds of the expenditure for the Army alone
in England. This is only an example of the ha-
bitual misrepresentation ; and can Americans while
it continues be surprised at English ignorance
of their country ? It must not be supposed that
the newspaper clique are a band of brothers, for
they are perpetually snarling at each other, the
most contemptuous, and we may add the most
truthful being the Pall Mall. Lately the Satur-
day has been slashing right and left at the clique
for outraging decency not in the " Girl of the
Period" or the "Fashionable `roman" style, but for
publishing some low filthy case that they had picked
from among the disrepwable trials. " Old Granny,"
as elderly females are apt to be sensitive of their
reputation, was very angry, and ran a tilt at the
review with her umbrella., but that wicked journal
seemed rather to enjoy the old lady's rage, and to
feel little alarmed for the consequences.

MUSICAL ITEMS.—Offenbach is writ'ng a new
operetta which will be called "Le Sant de Leucate.'
Auber's "Le Premier Jour de bonheur" has been favour-
ably received at Cologne. Miss Laura Harris, who is
singing at Naples, is described as " the idol of the public"
there.

MISCELLANEOUS NETVS.