In Ireland perhaps the most secure newspaper property is the Irish Times of Dublin but it cannot be regarded as a national paper in the same sense as is the Scotsman. Politics in that country have made so deep a cleavage that they have thrown the bulk of the wealth of Ireland into the hands of that party which the majority of the population do not deem to be national. The title of the paper was an old one, revived in 1859, but the paper only started its modern successful career after its purchase in 1873 by Sir John Arnott. Since that time it has consistently supported the Union but with moderation. It was heartily in favour of the Butt scheme of conciliation. The out and out defender of the landed gentry and the party of “ascendency” is the Dublin Daily Express (1551). On the Nationalist side are the famous Freeman’s Journal, a very old foundation dating from 1763 and the Independent. In Belfast are the old-established Belfast Newsletter (1737) and the Belfast Northern Whig (1824). In Cork there is the Cork Examiner (1840).
Of papers of the Empire very little is known in the Mother country beyond the mere names. One of the oldest established is the Montreal Gazette (1765) and the newer Montreal Herald and Star, both very well written and edited. Perhaps the most influential newspaper in the Dominion is the Toronto Globe, which represents the Liberal party but to some extent supports the policy of Protection. The chief Australian papers are the Sydney Morning Herald (1831) and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Melbourne Argus (1846) and the Melbourne Age (1854). A rather unique journalistic effort in Australia is the Sydney Bulletin, a paper often capable of bitter and effective satire reminding one of Simplicissimus but not always able to keep up to the high level of brilliancy and wit, which it has elected to take as its standard. In South Africa there are the well-known Cape Times (1876) and the Johannesburg Star. The oldest established paper in India is the Calcutta Englishman and elsewhere the Bombay Gazette, the Madras Mail, the Pioneer at Allahabad and the Civil and Military Gazette at Lahore.
CHAPTER IX
CONTINENTAL AND AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS
Any review of the continental press is even more difficult than in the case of our own kith and kin. There are added difficulties of race and language and of prejudices, which cannot be excluded. With regard to the French press a certain amount of reverence is due, because in this branch of activity they were the pioneers of Europe. Without going into history we may note the rise and struggles of one or two papers still important. Of these the Journal des Débats was founded, as its name would suggest, with the beginning of popular government in 1789 by Baudouin, and afterwards bought by Bertin, who carried it to a circulation of 32,000 under Napoleon, a surprising figure for those times. But about 1805 Fouché, under orders, began to make its life unhappy and Napoleon left on record his neat and clear cut views as to what he required from newspapers. “No news unfavourable to the government is to be published until it has become too well-known to be worth publishing.” The paper changed its name to the Journal de l’Empire and resumed its old title in 1815. There were other historic journals, which played their part in the last century, such as La Presse founded by Emile de Girardin in the Orleanist interests in 1836; Le Siècle by Dutacq also in 1836, which achieved great popularity; Le Figaro (1854) whose most prominent entrepreneur was Villemessant. The latter introduced into its management for the first time the principle, since well-known under the name of “the squeezed orange,” by which young men of talent were overworked at high salaries, until they were worn out and discarded. Others have followed the same method since, under the mistaken impression that they were original. Villemessant also found the means to finance the celebrated Henri Rochefort in starting La Lanterne in 1878, which was quickly suppressed.
At the present moment there are more daily papers in Paris than perhaps anywhere else except Berlin; unfortunately most of them are too poor to be independent of outside support, so that they tend to belong to private groups of politicians. Curiously enough the “heavy” dailies are evening papers like Le Temps and the Journal des Débats, which are moderately Republican. Of the same colour are the five morning papers, the Figaro, Journal, Le Siècle, edited by M. de Lanessan, Petit Parisien and Petit Journal. Three news organs are Le Matin, L’Eclair and the Echo de Paris. There are four Radical Socialist papers, L’Aurore, La Lanterne, L’Humanité (edited by M. Jaurès) and Le Bloc, guided by M. Clémenceau. There are three so-called Nationalist papers, the offspring of Boulangism, La Patrie, the organ of M. Millivoye, La Cocarde and L’Intransigeant, formerly edited by M. Rochefort, and now by M. L. Bailby. Also three in number are the Conservative papers, Le Gaulois, controlled by Arthur Meyer, Le Soleil and La Croix, which supports the clericals. Except the Figaro, the price of all the morning papers in 1902 was five centimes. There are a few well-established provincial papers, besides a host of small ones. Such are La Gironde of Bordeaux, La Dépêche of Toulouse, Le Lyon Republicain, L’Echo du Nord, of Lille, and Le Journal de Rouen.
In Italy the press suffers very much from poverty and there are very few papers, which can be called independent. The strongest are in Milan, Il Secolo (1866) and La Corriere della Sera (1876) which has made itself independent and a real power. In Rome the chief papers are the Tribuna, Liberal, the Messaggero, popular and L’Osservatore Romano, a clerical or “black” paper.
In Austria there is one paper of European reputation with very intimate relations both with Jewish financial circles and with high diplomacy, the Neue Freie Presse. Besides this there are in Vienna the semi-official Fremdenblatt, the clerical Reichspost, the Neues Wiener Tageblatt and Die Zeit, a Liberal paper with large circulation. In Hungary the best known daily paper is the Pesther Lloyd.
In Germany there are one or two papers in the provinces which exceed in merit and influence the papers of the capital. For instance the Frankfurter Zeitung, Kölnische Zeitung and Hamburgische Nachrichten have wide circulations extending even over the borders of Germany. They give an ample supply of general news, not always up to date. The two former are moderate Liberal papers while the latter is pan-German and decidedly anti-British. In Munich there is the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten and a widely known satirical weekly, called Simplicissimus, which directs its shafts chiefly against the clerical party. With all its wit it is sometimes scurrilous and often indecent.
Berlin has a large number of papers of every shade of opinion. The largest circulation belongs to the Berliner Tageblatt, a moderate Liberal organ and to the Lokal Auzeiger, a neutral business organ with a good connection in advertising. The Kreuz-Zeitung now called the Neue Preuszische Zeitung, is Conservative and clerical; Der Tag, high-toned and literary; the Vossische Zeitung, Liberal with a small circulation and influential business connection; the Morgen Post is a cheap democratic paper with large circulation; the Vorwärts is Socialist; and the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is a semi-official government organ. The Berliner Neueste Nachrichten is a paper published in the Krupp interests. News is not well handled in the Berlin press and a high value is not placed upon accuracy. They have some curious features, for instance, in using Gothic type for the literary part of the paper and Roman script for the advertisements and commercial news. As the size of the sheet is small they increase their papers by adding numerous supplements, each devoted to some particular subject. The Sunday issue of a Berlin paper is like a miniature library of books on all subjects. I do not know which is the more surprising to an English reader, to purchase one of these weekly encyclopædias in Germany or to get buried in a huge American Sunday paper with stories, news and illustrations all spread hugger-mugger over sixty or seventy gigantic pages with nothing to guide him through the intricacies of either.