Mr. Alexander, the editor of the Liverpool Standard, has had
a quarrel with his Tory patrons, the real proprietors of the paper, though a Mr. Pattison is the nominal proprietor. A correspondence between the editor and Mr. John Gladstone has been published by the Liver- pool Chronicle, though not until it had been handed about on the Liver- pool Exchange. From this correspondence it appears, that Mr. T. B. Horsfall, Messrs. Thomas and William Ewart Gladstone, and the Marquis of Salisbury, are among the principal owners of the Liverpool Standard. Into the particulars of the quarrel it is not worth while to enter: it was a mere affair of the "shop," about which the public cares little. In Liverpool it causes some excitement; because, according to the Liverpool Chronicle, when some of the more godly Tories were charged with patronizing, as proprietors, some personal abuse of the Liverpool Standard, they solemnly denied their proprietorship, now proved against them, " as Christians" as well as gentlemen. The ex- posure also throws new light on the opposition of the Tory Lords to the clauses in the Stamp-duties Bill for registering the names of all newspaper proprietors. The Tory journalists are much enraged at the disclosure of the Liverpool secret, and talk bitterly about the iniquity of publishing a private correspondence: but the letters, as we have ob- served, were in extensive circulation before they appeared in the Liverpool chronicle; and besides, are the publishers of the Raphael correspondence entitled to declaim against the violation of epistolary confidence? We dare say that many Tory noblemen are proprie- tors of the journals of their own party. The Marquis of Salisbury is said to be the chief owner of a very scurrilous paper published in Hertfordshire. It depends upon the character of the newspaper—the mode in which it is conducted—whether a connexion with it is disre- putable or the reverse. The mere fact of ownership is no discredit to anybody.
Previous page
