7 MAY 1870, Page 3

Mr. Dicey, whose appointment as editor of the Daily News

we mentioned some three months ago, has already ceased to be its editor, under circumstances which he thus concisely describes to us. Speaking of the original negotiation, he says, " I stipulated as a previous condition to all farther consideration of the subject, that I should be entrusted with the complete control of the editorial department. This stipulation was agreed to. The first occasion, however, on which I felt bound, in what I deemed to be the interest of the paper, to exercise my authority, gave rise to such a divergence of opinion between myself and the proprietary that it was deter- mined to sever the connection." That looks like the old story of the wish at once to delegate responsibility and to retain power. We are not quite sure that a proprietor can ex animo relinquish power to an editor ; and virtually no editor can ever act as entirely on his own judgment as if he were proprietor too. We are not sure that there should not be introduced a Bill to facilitate the purchase of newspapers by their actual editors,—with clauses similar to those facilitating the sale of land to tenants in the Irish Land Bill.