Moberly Bell of " The Times "

The Life and Letters of C. F. Moberly Bell. By his daughter E. H. C. Moberly Bell. (The Richards Press. 15s.) MOBERLY BELL'S life is largely a history of the Times during forty eventful years, and his daughter has provided us with a

book of great interest which will be invaluable to all students of British journalism in the closing years of the last century and in the first decade of the new.

Miss Bell has carried out her task admirably. She gives a straightforward account of her father without embroidery, and in the chapters dealing with Bell's relations with Lord Northcliffe, probably the most difficult part of his career, she is Very fair and does not allow her love for her father to make

her unduly critical of Lord Northcliffe. We can cordially endorse the words of Sir Valentine Chirol in the introduction : " It was well worth doing and she has done- it well."

Moberly Bell's childhood was not a happy one. The son of an English merchant in Alexandria, at the age of five he lost his mother, who died of poisoning. The boy was sent to the widow of a relative in England in financial difficulties, who lived in Brixton and kept a hOstel for students, whom she regarded merely as a means of making money. But Mr. Bell never allowed his unhappy childhood to embitter him s there was no drop of gall in the whole of his nature. At eighteen he accepted a clerkship in a Brit; h firm in Egypt, and there most

of his life was spent till Mr. Arthur Walter summoned him to London to join the staff of the Times twenty-five years later. In

1874 he met his future wife, Miss Chataway, whom he shortly after married. For thirty-five years she was the -principal inspiration of his life, his confidante and helper. • Students of the epoch-making events in Egypt in the 'eighties will find much to interest them. Many extracts are given from Bell's letters which show him as an astute observer of current happenings, and subsequent events showed how right he was when he expressed his grave apprehension con- cerning Gordon's mission to Khartoum. It was in September,

1884, when Mr. Bell was preparing to go as a correspondent on the Relief Expedition. to Khartoum, when he met with the

accident which upset all his plans and rendered him lame for the rest of his life. The accident was a disaster, for his habits necessarily became sedentary, and as his weight increased a greater strain was put on his sound leg, which often ached intolerably and made hint fess inclined to take exercise. He had, therefore, for the last thirty-five years of his life no open- air hobby. He was never so happy as when he lived in London, and he used to say that " London was the best place to live in for ten months of the year and the only place for the other two."

Bell's first connexion with the Times was in 1865. These were the days before the Suez Canal was constructed and

when newspapers and packets were sent by long sea from India to England. It occurred to Mr. Bell that if these packets were sent to him in Alexandria he could dispatch them

by steamer from that port so that they would reach London three weeks before the delivery of the mail coming round the Cape. The manager of the Times accepted his suggestion and thus Bell began his life of service to Printing House Square.

The chief lesson of his life was his attachment to the Times and the entirely disinterested way in which, all through his career, he placed the interests of the paper before all else.

This disinterestedness impressed all who came in contact with him, and even when his relations with Lord Northcliffe were strained Lord Northcliffe always regarded this side of his nature with appreciation. The good name of the Times was the lodestar of his life.

He soon became the regular correspondent of the Times in Egypt, and by degrees came to be regarded as one of the greatest authorities on the extremely tangled Egyptian situation. When he came to London in 1885 he met many of the Times staff, among them M. de Blowitz, and came to know the Walters well.

In 1888 and 1889 came the Parnell case, and Mr. Arthur Walter used to write to Bell at length concerning his hopes and fears. When MacDonald, the manager of the Times, died Mr. Arthur Walter looked round him for someone to help ,him to bear the burdens :which-wore getting too much for him, and he finally telegraphedto Bell intiting him to'conse to Printing House Square. .1.11 March, 1890, therefore, Bell took up residence in the Times building, and there he remained for the rest of his life. The Times was his work, his one absorbing interest, his hobby, and to it he gave all his days and his nights when required. No other interest existed for him. He thus defined the aims of the Times : " The desire to place before

their readers each aspect of every question that any person of any authority may choose to present in their columns either in his own name or anonymously, combined with their own judgment thereon, expressed fearlessly, without regard to either party or self-interest. There is no Government within the last fifty years that we have not strongly supported in some measures and strongly opposed in others."

Miss Bell's Life and Mr. Harcourt Kitchin's biography, which was published two years ago, are essential to the study of those depressing years at Printing House Square subsequent to the Parnell trial. Here we can follow step by step the events

which culminated in the control of the Times nearly passing into the hands of those who owned the Encyclopaedia Brilan- nica. The " publications " department of the Times provided

the paper with an income of 1150,000 in eleven years, and it was thanks to this revenue that the paper was able to weather these lean years of decreased sales and decreasing advertising

revenue. Many old readers of the Times greatly resented some of the enterprising methods which were used to increase

the sales of the " publications." A crisis was reached in 1908

and a reconstruction became inevitable. Mr. Arthur Pearson (as he then was) bad his eyes on Printing House Square, and his chance came that -year. In the Obierver of January 5th

Moberly Bell read to his amazement a paragraph which Mr.

Arthur Walter had inserted in the paper stating that the Times was to be turned into a limited company and that Mr. Arthur

Pearson was the proposed managing director: Lord Northcliffe

used frequently to refer to this epiSode as an instance of the danger of " counting yotir chickens hefore they are hatched." Mr. Pearson.when dining out one .evening had talked about his future plans for the Times, not realizing sufficiently that

it was one thing to have made an arrangement with the chief

proprietors of the Times to purchase control, but it was another thing to overcome allthe legal 'obstacles in the case

of a private company with a large number of scattered share- holders. One of the guests at this dinner came round to Lord Northcliffe and told him of his rival's plans. This was the

first intimation Lord Northcliffe had had that the Times was

for sale. It was then that Lord Northcliffe showed his genius. He got into touch with Bell, and there used to he midnight

meetings in unlikely places with his emissaries to throw people off the scent. At one critical period during the negotia- tions Lord Northcliffe went to Paris so as to disarm suspicion.

We do not propose to go in detail into the ever-increasing friction between Moberly Bell and his new chief. There were faults on both sides. The terms on which Lord North- cliffe undertook to provide the purchase price were impossible of carrying out, as anyone acquainted with his dynamic

energy would have known. Bell supported Lord Northcliffe in his attempt to purchase the Times, stipulating, however, that the Editor and his assistants should be retained and that " the new proprietor should in no way interfere with the policy of the paper, but should confine his attention to the business side." For a couple of years things went fairly well with the old staff, but then the storm clouds began to gather. In the summer of 1909, eighteen months after the purchase of the Times, the present writer accompanied Lord Northcliffe on a trip through Canada and the United Statei. Mr. Bell was one of the party of five. The experience was not a pleasant one, because by then relations between the two men were strained. Once disagreement came it was inevitable that sooner or later the new proprietor would get his way—as he did.

Mr. Bell's death came as he would have wished it--in harness. On a cold April day in 1911 he went to the office in good spirits, and as he was writing a letter his secretary heard him sigh. She thought he had fainted, -but it was the end. Typically enough, he wa3 writing a letter. All through his life Mr. Bell was a great letter writer and he could never bring himself to make proper use of the typewriter. If you wrote to Mr. Bell about some minor detail you would.probably get a hand-written letter in reply. Lord Northcliffe never quite forgave Mr. Bell for his refusal to delegate responsibility and for his fondness for letter. writing. There is not a sltill page iii