War in Fleet Street

Newspaper circulation warfare is an old story to Britain. Ever since the War big London dailies have been bombarding each other with gifts to readers: free insurance, free merchandise, millions of pounds sterling. This year, however, Fleet Street has been the scene of a fight which, for sustained fury, is such as London has never seen before. It involves the four biggest dailies: the Mail, the Express, the Herald and the News-Chronicle. Following a brief gesture toward peace the fight entered a new and fiercer phase fortnight ago. Last week shareholders of the Express, aware that the war was costing their newspaper the staggering sum of -L-20,000 per week, asked each other what they should do at the shareholders' meeting next week: Declare the customary dividend on common stock, or devote all earnings to a war chest for a finish fight?

Combatants. The Mail is the late, great Northcliffe's paper, published since his death by his burly, beefy brother Viscount Rothermere and the latter's son, Esmond Harmsworth. The Mail ("For King & Empire") is stodgy, conservative, has its front page filled with advertising, second & third pages full of financial news. For eleven years it held the largest circulation in the world, well over 1,500,000. Longtime runner-up to the Mail is impish Lord Beaverbrook's Express (until this year, 49% owned by Rothermere). The crusading Express is jazzy, sensational, easily readable, packed with shrill headlines and vivid pictures from front page to back. Its circulation for the past few years has pressed within 200,000 of the Mail's. The News-Chronicle, a liberal sheet controlled by the Cadbury (chocolate) family and sport-loving Lord Cowdray, customarily ran third. In 1930 the Daily Herald ran a miserable fourth with 350,000. Then along came Odhams Press Ltd., publishers of John Bull, Passing Show and many another successful periodical, and took over the Herald.

Underdog. Large among Odhams' assets on entering the newspaper business were two men. One was a grey, square Scot named John Dunbar, dour and extraordinarily shrewd. The other was a swart, stumpy Jew named Julius Salter Elias. Dunbar was made managing editor of the Herald, Elias the chairman and managing director. Rich Publisher Elias, no newsman, is one of the ablest businessmen on Fleet Street. He put John Bull on its feet following the downfall of its former publisher, the late, notorious Horatio Bottomley. Ambitious, he openly seeks a title, and he will get none so long as Scot MacDonald is Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has never forgiven him for publishing in John Bull a facsimile of MacDonald's birth certificate, showing him to be illegitimate.

Publisher Elias and Editor Dunbar fashioned a newspaper precisely to the taste of MacDonald, Philip Snowden and countless middle-readers like them. Moreover, they were quick to learn the tricks of circulation come-ons such as lotteries, crossword puzzle contests with cash prizes. In one year the Laborite Herald jumped from 350,000 to over a million. Last year, it passed the News-Chronicle with more than 1,400,000. The battle was so expensive to all concerned that the Newspaper Proprietors Association called a truce. Free gifts were outlawed. Expenditures on canvassing were limited. Fleet Street settled down to a supercharged neutrality, with Mail, Express and Herald circulations bunched between 1,735,000 and 1,650,000. The peace lasted 15 months.

Outbreak, Last May the bloodthirsty Herald hurled a bombshell. In violation of all treaties it offered readers a complete set of Dickens (worth $20) for eleven, shillings plus coupons from the Herald. Flabbergasted, the other publishers called a meeting of N. P. A. Blandly Publisher Elias told them no "gift" was involved since his paper could supply the 16 volumes of Dickens and still make a profit. Not even bothering to argue, the other publishers clapped on their bowlers, marched from the meeting. The war was on.

In the next few months Fleet Street newspapers "sold" some 5,000,000 volumes of Dickens, in a mad scramble for new readers. Dickens was only a starter. Washing machines came next. Then sets" of china, electric irons, cricket bats & balls, cameras. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, sets of "modern classics." Fountain pens, fancy pencils, stockings, underwear, wrist watches, pillow cases, pyjamas. Lord Beaverbrook outfitted his canvassers with samples of boots, coats, pants and shoes, sent them west to show Welsh miners how they might clothe a whole family by reading the Express for eight weeks.

Victory? In July the smoke of battle lifted enough to permit a survey of positions won and lost. Bull-dogged little Lord Beaverbrook, having forged into the lead, triumphantly shouted that his Express had 2,054,000 daily for the month of June--hugest daily circulation ever recorded! The Herald, which started it all, had clawed past the Mail to a mark of 2,000,000. The Mail in third place had 1,850,000, the News-Chronicle 1,315,000.

But it was difficult even for a winning publisher to be genuinely jubilant. Everyone knew that the war was costing all combatants -L-2,500,000 a year--nearly double their combined earnings. Worse, everyone knew that the new circulation, so dearly bought, meant nothing; that bribed readers could not be depended on to stick; that many were subscribing to more papers than they could possibly read. Advertisers knew all this too.

Few weeks ago Esmond Harmsworth (of the Mail) cabled Lord Beaverbrook, then returning from Africa, that the battle of gifts had broken all bounds of sanity; the Mail would welcome peace negotiations. Lord Beaverbrook promptly cabled one of his Express managers to represent him. The conferences started hopefully. The Herald proposed a modification of the free gift schemes, the Express and Mail assented. But not Sir Walter Layton of the News-Chronicle, tag-ender of the fight. He would accept no truce that did not end the gift business completely. The war went on again. Next day the Mail offered twelve volumes of Ff. G. Wells.

Thundered the Financial News:

"If the directors of any other industry embarked on such suicidal warfare, newspapers would take the lead in organizing opposition. Alas, the costly watchdogs of the public are gnawing at each other's throats and ruining their masters."

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