Duke Paper

Duke Paper

Down from Northumbria came last week a duke, like the dukes of old, to trouble the Parliament at London. He purchased the Morning Post, oldest of existing London daily papers.

Alan Ian Percy, of the House of Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland, notorious for quoting Nesta Webster, well-known anti-Socialist authoress, was a fighting soldier in Sudan and South Africa and a London soldier in the World War. In 1922, he was reported financially embarrassed, sold much land, rented his mansion on the Thames. But the coal business (Newcastle, etc.) picked up, and the Duke is again rich.

Politically the Duke is first and foremost a rabid anti-Socialist and "Torier" than the Morning Post--a paper once described as "written by cads to be read by snobs." He bought the Post from the Countess of Bathurst, who inherited it in 1908 and ran it until now. Under her, the Morning Post became famous for the impartiality of its news and for the poisonous sting of its editorials. It was rumored that a lawyer was employed to keep its editorials from libel. The paper has always been "the friend of the labouring man and the enemy of Labour." At Liberals it jeers.

With a circulation of only 80,000, it makes pots of money. The Duke is expected to maintain both financial and editorial policies in full tradition. The Daily News (London) remarked ironically:"We are sure it will continue to expound the impossible with its old brilliancy."

Associated with him in the purchase are the owners of the Yorkshire Post, a daily in the north country, less snobbish but no less Tory.

When Ramsay MacDonald desires to know the worst, he will read both papers, and being an intellectual liberal, will remember Voltaire's phrase: "I wholly disapprove of what you say, and will defend to the death your right to say it."