Northumberland has marked the passing of a great figure behind the right wing of the Conservative Party in England. Tt would be untrue to say that the! Duke controlled or strongly influenced the party policy as a whole, but in his steadfast, championship of the privileges of his order and his virtual proprietorship of the "Morning Post," he constituted a powerful personality on which a large section of Conservative opinion greatly relied. In a sense too, he was, perhaps, the last of the Dukes who took a lively interest in English polities. The future of the "Morning Post", now that he is dead, will be a matter of some interest. It is the oldest existing London daily paper, as it dates from 1772, or 18 years before John Walter virtually tarted "The Times" under the title of "The London Daily Universal Register Printed Logographically.
It recently went through various vicissitudes owing to the competition of the new type of newspaper, and, largely owing to the influence of the Duke of Northumberland and to the fortunate sale of its property in the Strand, it took on a new and more vigorous lease of life together with a more modern dress.
To-day it is a penny with a twopenny appeal successfully pressed home on a growing circle of readers, and its independence is a valuable asset to the British Press at a time when Fleet Street is highly perturbed by—th veverberations of the strug; between the three newspaper peers at the head respectively of the Rothermere, Camrose (Berry), and' Beaverbrosic groups.
There are, of course, some who call the "Morning Post" die-hard, and the late Duke of North: cumberland was not reluctant to take that epithet himself. But for the expression of the best type of British journalism the paper preserves a well-deserved reputation, and—politics apart—it is to be hoped that whoever receives the mantle of the late duke will be able to ensure continuance of those tra
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.