"Every journalist and every man of business whom I consulted was opposed to the change and I finally took my decision to make The Morning Post a penny paper in the face of a unanimous remonstrance by friends and experts of all kinds."
When Borthwick told me this some years had passed since the change had been made. He said:
"In the first year the profits of the paper doubled. In the second they reached £20,000. By the fifth the amount was £30,000."
And so it went on until the annual net income of The Morning Post was £60,000—ten times what it had been at the price of threepence. It continued to be the organ of the classes; not, however, refusing to accept that Tory Democracy of which Lord Randolph Churchill was the inventor, upon which Toryism, Conservatism, and Unionism have ever since thriven. Neither Mayfair nor Belgravia nor the country houses ever tried to do without it. The advertisers continued to advertise. It became, moreover, the organ of the better class of servants; butlers, ladies' maids, footmen, and the multitude of menials who sought places in the best houses.
In other respects also the paper was revolutionized. It became a newspaper. The day of the humdrum was over. It had special news services and capable men to conduct them. Borthwick was a patient man impatient of dulness. He gathered about him good journalists and good writers; not always the same thing. You now began to read the news and letters and leaders from some other motive than a sense of duty. They were readable. The hand of the master left its mark on every column.
Nor did the demands of journalism exhaust Sir Algernon Borthwick's energies. He went into politics and into Parliament, sitting for a vast constituency in South Kensington. Lady Borthwick's help in this political and election business was invaluable. That very accomplished lady brought to bear upon the voters of South Kensington a kind of influence to which they had been unaccustomed, a social influence. Their wives took part in the game, neither having nor desiring votes but able to affect the course of events as much as if the ballot had been theirs, and more. Lady Borthwick had 2500 names on her visiting list, and they were more than names. Each name stood for an individual whom Lady Borthwick knew, and whose value she knew. The beautiful white drawing-room at No. 139 Piccadilly was in those days a little more thronged of an afternoon or evening than it had been, but was never crowded. Some of the best music in London was to be heard there at tea-time. The dinners were carefully studied. Dances and evening parties had a slightly political flavour but were none the less successful. There is, I suppose, no place where more than in London their gentle influences have a more soothing effect upon an electorate.
If any reader reflects on the true nature of the exploit which Borthwick accomplished he will perhaps agree that the man capable of it must have had a high order of genius. If it was not creative in the sense that Lord Northcliffe's is creative, it was perfectly adapted to the circumstances and the time. It has not perhaps been quite adequately recognized. Lord Glenesk was so much a figure in society that when his name was mentioned men who knew only the surface of things saw in him the ornament of a ballroom. He was that, and he was so very much more that this ballroom part of his life is hardly even incidental. He would dance night after night. In the day-time his mind applied itself to some of the stiffest problems of a very difficult profession. He told me one morning he had not been in bed for three nights. The only answer I could make was that I did not know he ever went to bed. But I knew that after sleepless nights he spent days of necessary hard work at the office, and that he brought to each matter he dealt with the freshness of a fresh mind. It was late in life before he began to know the meaning of the word tired.
Take him for all in all, I should name Lord Glenesk as one of the three great men I have known in English journalism. And whether in or out of journalism he had a kindliness, a charm, a sweet authority in the affairs of life which do not belong to all successful men.
By and by there appeared in Lady Borthwick's drawing-rooms a fresh flower of a girl whose presence at her mother's afternoon concerts and then at evening parties was a little in advance of her coming out. Miss Lilias Borthwick is now the Countess Bathurst and I believe has, when she chooses to exercise it, full control over The Morning Post; of which Mr. Fabian Ware is the present editor, a young journalist who has made himself a name in his profession. Lady Bathurst is, like her mother, one of those women who possess better means of making their wishes and character felt than by clamouring for votes. There are cases where womanly charm may be the companion of settled opinions and convictions and clear purposes, to which The Morning Post of to-day is a witness.