A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK L ORD KEMSLEY, it is announced, has acquired,
through one of his syndicates, two Blackburn papers. The fact would not be of so much interest if Lord Kemsley did not control so many papers as it is. In London he has the Sunday Times, the Daily Sketch and the Sunday Graphic. That, it may be said, is nothing excessive.
But he is also chairman of Allied Northern Newspapers, Ltd., Associated Scottish Newspapers, Ltd., Newcastle Chronicle, Ltd., North-Eastern Newspapers, Ltd., Sheffield Newspapers, Ltd., Western Mail and Echo, Ltd. Between them his companies control the three London papers I have mentioned and in addition the Daily Dispatch, the Evening Chronicle, Sunday Chronicle and Sunday Referee, Empire News, Weekly Telegraph (all these pub-
lished at Manchester); Aberdeen Press and Journal and Evening Express; Newcastle Journal and North Mail, Evening Chronicle and Sunday Sun; Middlesbrough Evening Gazette; Western Mail and South Wales News, South Wales Echo and Evening Express; Glas-
gow Daily Record, Evening News and Sunday Mail; Sheffield Telegraph and Independent and Star. There is, of course, nothing in any way illegitimate in this ; it is the same kind of business ex- pansion as has created concerns like I.C.I. and Levers in other fields. How far it is desirable for newspapers, which exist to instruct and guide the public, to be treated as mere articles of commerce is another matter. At any rate, it is worth noting that the so-called " trustification" of the Press, which has for some time been in abey- ance so far as the London newspapers are concerned, is going steadily ahead in the provinces.
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