The Chronicle this morning explains the mystery of the recent
change in the politics of the Times- " The change has certainly been a most shameless one ; but if it be true that the property in that journal has been sold for a valuable consideration to indivi- duals attached to the Tory party, we most admit that they have the right, as the Duke of Newcastle expressed it, to do as they like with their own.' For the sake of public decency, however, this transfer from one set of proprietors to another ought to have been formally announced, the more especially as the political opinions of the new purchasers are FO diametrically opposed to those which had been previously maintained by that journal. It was a fraud sipon its usual readers to attempt to mislead them into the belief that the altered tone of its polities was the mere result of reflection-the olfspting of convictions Arising out of the circumstances of the period ; instead of being what they really are, the direct consequence of bargain and sale, whereby it was sti- pulated that the Times should be entirely under the control of its Tory pm- prietors.They have succeeded in passing off that newspaper, for a while, in the disguise of a Liberal, converted to their principles by some supposed sense of dangers which never existed ; but the scheme is no longer a secret, and the Times now stands before us stripped of every claim which it once possessed to the support of the people. It has thrown off the mask, and figures unreservedly M the most bitter hater of its former politics-an Anti- Times in every sense of the word-a rank, unqualified Ultra. Tory-a defenthr of municipal corruption -an enemy of the Reform Bill-a bigoted advocate of the Established Church- _ the foul slanderer of the Catholics-the malignant enemy of the Dissenters."
We are not in the habit of noticing transactions of this kind ; gene- rally regarding them as mere private arrangements of property, with which the public has no proper concern. But in the case of the • Times, a fraud has been practised on the public, of which it is proper the public should be apdrized. We are glad that the circumstances lave been made known at last; for now that the real reasons for the spostacy of the Times are evident, its exertions in the cause of its new masters will be comparatively harmless. To prevent mistakes, the late Leading Journal may in future be called the NEw Times. The Chronicle has professed to be very indignant at the course re- cently pursued by the Times; but there must have been a good deal of secret satisfaction mixed up with its patriotic regret, for it is unde- niable that the treachery ot the Times has been the making of the Chronicle-worth twenty thousand pounds to it at the least.
Previous page
