How to Lose £40,000 in a Fortnight
By RANDOLPH' S. CHURCHILL
THE jury which awarded £20,000 damages and costs to Mr. Ortiz-Patino struck a decisive blow for English liberty. Rich men like Lord Rothermere, Lord Kemsley and Mr. Cecil Harms- worth King have for too long been trying to augment their excessive arriviste fortunes by in- truding into the private lives of other people, while obfuscating their own by a tacit cartel agree- ment of 'dog don't eat dog' which I have always preferred to describe as 'son-of-a-bitch don't eat son-of-a-bitch,' or, since there is a good deal of petticoat influence in Fleet Street, 'daughter of a dog don't eat daughter of a dog.'
The award by a British jury of £20,000 damages and costs (which latter can scarcely have amounted to less than £10,000) to Mr. Patino is an exemplary vindication of British justice and it may, in the future, deter journalists like Lord Rothermere from trying to get richer, or in Lord Kemsley's case trying to stop getting poorer, than they already are by prying into the private lives of other people.
I have never met any of the Patinos; neither the one who this week took £20,000 off one of Lord Kemsley's newspapers, nor his father, who took £13,000 some years ago off the Daily Mirror. It seems that they own .a mountain of tin in Bolivia and lots of other things as well. As they are foreigners a lot of the gutter press seem to think
that they can be as insolent about them as they are about film stars and the Royal Family.
I have always been amazed that rich men like Lord Rothermere and Lord Kemsley., who aspire to rise in English society, should allow their editors to peddle this sort of stuff. I am sometimes
accosted by their reporters, who seek to inquire into my private life or that of my friends. I always reply that anyone's private life is genuinely private and that they might obtain a far more amusing and interesting story if they were to inquire into the private life of their employer; and that I am always available to help them in such inquiries.
have found this a most effective technique and I recommend it to anyone who finds himself or herself besieged, bewildered and beleaguered by the representatives of any press lord. If in any doubt as to the method of handling these gentry, I suggest that those accosted should ring me up (East Bergholt 363) and I will be more than glad to offer them any advice and protection in my power.
The Evelyn Waugh verdict of £2,000 no less than the Patino verdict of £20,000 makes it abun- dantly plain that British juries dislike the idea of very rich men getting richer by saying things which are not true about people richer or poorer than themselves whom, .it appears, they would not think of attacking if they owned a newspaper.
Some rich people in this country have toyed with the idea of buying a newspaper merely in order to protect themSelves against baseless attacks and filth which newspapers, like those in effect controlled by Lord Kemsley, are prepared to throw against other rich men in the process of ensuring a dividend.
Money talks. I think Lord Kemsley will abate a trifle his intrusions into other people's lives even at the expense of a loss of circulation for the Sunday Graphic. He and his children are far from being the only shareholders of the common stock in Kemsley Newspapers and sooner or later other shareholders are likely to raise a complaint or at least a pother about why their properties are being conducted in such a fashion that they have had to pay out £7,500 to Dr. Revici, whom they called a quack, and £20,000 to Mr. Patino, against whom they levelled charges so baseless and intru- sive 'that I do not care to reproduce them in the Spectator.
Since Lord Kemsley quit partnership with his brilliant brother, the late Lord Camrose, he has seldom put a foot right. He has, however, founded a Kemsley School of Journalism, where no doubt he will deliver the next major lecture himself, entitled 'How to Lose £40,000 in a Fort- night.' In the words of Mr. Evelyn Waugh, who last week took £2,000 off the Daily Expre.sA. 'Goodness, how sad.'
Rudyard KiPling prompted his cousin Baldwin to say, when the latter was attacked by the press lords : 'Power without responsibility is the pre- rogative of the harlot.' This caused the press lords
to run away. Prostitutes on Piccadilly and Bond Street are normally only fined forty shillings, which scarcely discourages them from continuing to peddle their wares. In the past, rich porno- graphers, and intruders into people's private lives, and those who publish statements reckless of the .truth, have also only been mulcted in petty sums for the damage they have caused; it now looks as if British juries are on the warpath against those wealthy malefactors and will impose upon them punitive and even prohibitive damages which will affect their balance sheets. And high time too.
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