With the disappearance of the Morning Post the number of
daily newspapers in London is reduced to six—or eight if two journals of inconsiderable circulation and specialised appeal, the Daily Worker and the Morning Advertiser, are included. In Prague, where I have just been spending a few days, the number, I am told, is little, if anything, short of fifty. In Paris it must be at least half that. It would be worth while giving some intensive study to both the causes and effects of the rationalisation of newspaper production in this country. One chief reason for the difference between London and the other capitals mentioned is, of course, the fact that in Paris and Prague many papers are kept alive and run at a loss either in the interests of political parties or to gratify some rich man's whim ; every one of the six principal London journals is a sound commercial proposition. A multiplicity of papers is no doubt intellectually stimulating to those who have time and inclination to read several of them, but it has the same effect as the multiplicity of political parties in militating against national unity and stability. There is, of course, a just medium, and it may well be con- tended that our own national Press is more limited than is healthy both in numbers and in range. Certainly the distinc- tive note of the Morning Post is seriously missed.
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