"THE TIMES" JOURNAL AND MR. JOHN WALTER.
HOUSE OF COMMONS—UNREPORTED SPEECH OF AN UNKNOWN MEMBER, ON TUESDAY NIGHT.
I else with a hope of being able to put an end to all dispute between the honourable Member for Kilkenny and the honourable Member for Knaresborough. Their present difference turns upon a question of fact. We are really discussing whether or not the honourable Mem- ber for Berkshire be a director of the Times newspaper. I, for one, am quite satisfied that he has no longer any connexion with that journal. The grounds of my belief on this point will, I feel sure, be convincing to the House. During all the time when the honourable Member for Berkshire was notoriously connected with the Times,— when himself would have been the last to deny the fact,—that paper was a mere motley-getting concern, so conducted as to secure the greatest possible number a sevenpences. The greatest circulafon was the constant aim of its directors; and so skilfully was this object pur- sued, that the Times was really "the leading journal " in point of money-getting. In those days, though only with a view to the seven- peeves, the Times always took the popular side. But what is the case now ? The Times is become a Tory journal,—a mere mouthpiece of the small and hated minority: and what follows ?—the sale of the Times has greatly diminished, and is falling off from day to v At the present rate of declension, the Times will soon be a third or day. journal. The money grubbing spirit of the old Times is gone. A vast property is being sacrificed, with the generous object of ad- vocating a falling cause. The Times is no longer a mere affair of the shop. I therefore conclude, Sir, that it has changed hands. I con- clude that the 7rves has been purchased by wealthy Tories, who are willing to make a great sacrifice of money for party purposes. Then why not Fay so? Because, obviously, if the bargain were known, it would become useless to the buyers. In the case which I suppose, it must have been part of the bargain, that the honourable Member for Berkshire should continue to pass as a director of the Times ; and this view of the subject is quite consistent with the honourable gentle- man's money-getting propensities. The Tory buyers of the Times would have paid much for absolutely nothing, if they had not pur- chased, along with the copyright and direction, an appearance of direc- tion by the old proprietor. Thus the unwillingness of the honourable Member to deny his connexion with the Times, is most satisfactorily accounted for. Finally, it may he said, in objection to this view of the subject, that the honourable Member has changed with the Times —that he was a Reformer when the Times advocated Reform, and is a Tory now that the Times is a mere organ of the small Tory party_ and, therefore, that he may still he the director of the Times. I an- swer, that when the Tories bought the Times for party uses, it behoved them to stipulate that the honourable Member should seem to change his politics. If he had remained a Reformer after the sale, the fact of the sale would have been perfectly obvious, and the object of the pur- chasers would have been completely frustrated A seeming change in the politics of the honourable Member was indispensable to making at appear that the Times had not changed hands—was a necessary pail of that bargain which accounts for every thing,—for the change in the politics of the Times, for the declension in the sale of the Times, for the appearance of connexion between the honourable Member and the Times, for bus unwilliagness to deny that such a connexion exists, and for theapparent change in the honourable Member's politics. This eSplanation, by showing that the honourable Member for Berkshire ought not to be held responsible ler as hat has I een printed in the Times since November l5:14, paws an end to t e dispute between the honour- able Members for Kilk-eilnyonul .Enare-borough.
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