Extracts from the Daily Herald

[The Daily Herald was an important publication, being the only paper in Britain oriented towards the interests of the working class.  It always struggled financially, not having wealthy proprietors.  It started in 1911 by trade unionists; its line was always to support workers and strikers; it was against the war in 1914 and supported conscientious objectors; it welcomed the Russian revolutions of February and October 1917 and campaigned against British anti-soviet military action in 1919.  Ernest Bevin was a director of the paper at one time.  We publish two items, one from 1915 and one from 1928, with an introduction by Eamon Dyas.]

The first item from 1915, is a review in the Daily Herald of a book by Fred Henderson which outlines the way in which the First World War was represented as an opportunity for the labour movement to construct a new enlightened society in its aftermath. 

The second, from 1928, is a measure of how that dream was never realised and is an explanation by the Daily Herald of the way in which the British national newspaper media was in thrall to the capitalist investor. The Daily Herald contrasts this with its own case as a daily newspaper under the ownership of the Labour Party and the TUC. 

In 1930, a mere two years after it was making this boast however, the TUC sold 51% of its shares in the paper to Odhams Press, then owned by Julius Elias (later Viscount Southwood) a labour politician and magazine and newspaper publisher. Within three years, in 1933 the Daily Herald had become the world’s best-selling national daily newspaper with daily certified sales of 2 million. Under the ownership of Odhams the paper adopted a ferocious anti-Stalin position condemning the Nazi-Soviet Pact and in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 Nov. 1939, it stated in an editorial:

“We have not fought against the immorality of power politics at home to acquiesce in these policies abroad because they are adopted by a dictatorship which once seemed as though it might provide a Socialist model for the world. 

Socialism is not only an economic creed, it is a moral philosophy, a belief that between nation and nation as between man and man there should be justice and honourable dealing and a respect for the integrity of the weak no less than the strong.

Stalin’s Russia sets all that aside in international affairs as it earlier set aside all democratic freedom in internal affairs.

It accepts the philosophy of the old imperialism and the new Nazism, of the right of great nations to dictate to small.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is dead. Stalin’s new imperialist Russia takes its place.” (Daily Herald, editorial, 1 Dec, 1939, p..6)

The paper went into decline in the aftermath of the Second World War but there remained a loyal and significant working class readership. In 1961 Odhams sold its shares in the paper to the International Publishing Corporation and the minority shares owned by the TUC were sold at the same time. 

In 1964 the Daily Herald was re-born as The Sun but it failed to revive sufficiently and was sold in 1969 to Rupert Murdoch.

Such was the history of what started out as an independent voice of labour and ended up as the main source of income for one of the most voracious capitalist media moguls in history.

From: The Daily Herald. 27 March 1915, p.12.

THE NEW FAITH 

The New Faith: A Study of Party Politics and the War. By Fred Henderson. Jarrold. Is. net. 

More than once before has Mr. Fred Henderson given us profound and convincing analyses of national dangers or possibilities. Conversant as he is, through years of patient and detailed work in local government, with the actual facts, the sordid, muddled, bewildering conditions which form the economic basis of “civilised society,” he brings to the examination of those facts a clear insight and shining faith. He unites in an astonishing degree the careful knowledge of the practical politician and the inspired fury of the prophet. Consequently, the war has given him a great opportunity—the opportunity of indicating how a new and better state can be fashioned from the fragments of the old: and he has taken his great opportunity greatly. This little paper-covered shilling book is one that literally everyone should read, and would get good reading. Its propaganda value is incalculable. 

Mr. Henderson takes the war for granted. He does not spend a single sentence discussing its diplomatic origins: to him, it was forced upon the British people “by Germany’s violation of the public law of Europe.” Anyway, we are in it: the great thing now is to see that the sacrifices it involves are not wasted. We get no windy abstractions about ”smashing German militarism”:  we get a courageous realisation of the fact that the problem of reconstruction is a mental, a spiritual one – not national, but universal. The war “raises issues compared with which the mere alteration of frontiers on the map of Europe is a trifling game for children.” . . . ‘‘To see in such a war only its ghastly details would drive any man mad. . . . There is no middle judgment possible for us, no complaisant toleration such as indifferent things might rely upon for dismissal. Either we are out to win a new life through all this, we Europeans, or we are loathsome, the very scum murder and degeneracy.”

The war, then, is to illustrate —has indeed already to a great extent illustrated—a change in the public attitude towards the opposing principles of “private-mindedness” and “national service.” “As for the food-storers, I cannot think of any of the old virtues but would crown their conduct with esteem and high distinction. Prudence and foresight in preparing for a rainy day, the essential spirit of thrift, taking the market at its lowest; who could have better lived up to the gospel private-mindedness in all these respects than they did? And yet they were disliked, angrily disliked, to the very border of personal violence!” That is the essence, according to Mr. Henderson’s argument, of the spiritual truth war has shown us: the wickedness and ultimate futility of all those self-regarding principles in which – whether we belonged to the Manchester school or the Birmingham, whether we were ‘”fat men” or workers, whether we boasted ourselves Christians or atheists —we were all inevitably entangled, merely because we belonged a community built up on private ownership of the means of production. We have realised now that private ownership is no sacred inviolable law overriding national needs. The nation comes first. Party politicians, in anticipating that they can resume their stale quarrels on the old lines after the war, are making “appointments to meet again at the bottom of Niagara.” 

Now, this change has doubtless been dimly perceived by most people; it has been half-admitted by the very organs of capitalism. But it is regarded by many others besides party politicians as a temporary change – “for three years or the period the war.”  Mr. Henderson’s special service is to carry the battles of logic into the farthest corners of the opponents’ country, to smash their last defences, to show how in every detail of our communal and individual life have bound our hands and poisoned our activities with “private-mindedness.” The thing is magnificently done, with a fine gusto of exposition and an ironic ease of confutation. “The law of supply and demand is merely fine name for a hoggish disposition on the one side, and on the other side for national folly allowing things essential to the national life to be controlled for private gain.” Pointing to the magnificent selflessness of those hundreds of thousands who have enlisted against their own personal advantage, and taking that as an instance of how the law of supply and demand does notwork, Mr. Henderson goes on to plead passionately for that lesson to be applied in the ensuing years of peace. There must be no more “private-mindedness,” private ownership of essentials, ‘‘social reform” legislation to keep “the poor” quiet by “being good to them.” There must be a clean sweep of the old parties and the old policies, and the new faith of real National Unity must be established.

From: Daily Herald, 2 February 1928 p.p.1-2

YOUR MORNING PAPER

Millionaires and other Press Lords.

Whose Opinions?

The latest London Press deal, involving the fusion of two Liberal morning journals, serves to focus public attention on the true character of those eight daily newspapers which, published in London, enjoy nation-wide circulation and are in a position powerfully to influence public opinion.

The eight are: Daily Chronicle, Daily Express, Daily Herald, Daily Mail, Daily News and Westminster Gazette, Daily Telegraph, Morning Post, and Times.

Below is an analysis of their several directorates and controlling interests. After the name of each director is stated, in brackets, the industry or industries, other than newspapers, in which he is also a company director. Names of directors who have no such external interests are omitted.

This analysis shows how the interests of these newspapers (with one exception) are identified with interests of great capitalist concerns. The one exception is the Daily Herald, which is the property of the organised British Labour Movement.

A £3,000,000 Deal.

The Daily Chronicle. – The Daily Chronicle was sold recently by Mr. Lloyd George, for the sum stated to be nearly £3,000,000, to the Daily Chronicle Investment Corporation, the directors of which include: Lord Reading (banking, insurance, chemicals, electricity); Sir David Yule (banking, insurance, electricity, engineering); Sir T. S. Catto (insurance, coal, oil, tea, shipping); Sir C. C. Barrie (banking, milling, shipping, railways); and the Liberal Chief Whip, Sir R. Hutchison, M.P. (rubber).

Cementing Empire.

The Daily Express. – The Daily Express is controlled by Lord Beaverbrook, a millionaire peer, with big business interests in Canada and elsewhere, the foundation of whose fortunes was laid by activities in the Canadian cement industry. The declared policy of the Daily Express is “to cement British interests throughout the world.”

This newspaper is owned by London Express Newspapers Ltd., the directors of which include: Mr. W. May (multiple grocery stores, electricity); Mr. E. J. Robertson (cinema films); Major-General Sir F. H. Sykes (tramways, London underground railways, chemicals, motors); Lord Wargrave (banking, beer, chemicals, electricity, gas, motors, tramways).

Mr. Szarvasy.

The Daily Mail. – This newspaper is published by Associated Newspapers Ltd., the controlling interest in which is held by the Daily Mail Trust Ltd., of which the directors include: Lord Rothermere, a millionaire peer; Sir Hardman Lever (banking, rubber); Mr. F. H. Sykes [see Daily Express]

Cocoa.

The Daily News and Westminster Gazette. – The new board just formed includes: Lord Cowdray, a millionaire peer associated with S. Pearson and Son, a well-known firm of contractors with worldwide interests; Mr. L. J. Cadbury (cocoa and chocolate); Lord Dalmeny (insurance); Mr. W. T. Layton (insurance); Mr. J B. Morrell (biscuits, cake, chocolate, confectionary, cocoa, printing and stationary, refreshment rooms); Mr. H. Simonis (paint).

Coalowners.

The Daily Telegraph. – This twopenny journal recently changed hands and passed into the ownership of: Sir William Berry (coal, cotton, iron and steel); Sir Gomer Berry (coal, cotton, iron and steel); and Sir E. Iliffe, M.P. (insurance and motors).

Mining Royalties.

The Morning Post is owned by the Morning Post, Ltd., the directors of which include the Duke of Northumberland, a millionaire peer and coalowner, who told the Coal Commission at the end of 1925 that he derived £75,000 a year gross from mining royalties; Sir P. Bates (shipping and banking); Major J. S. Courtauls, M.P. (finance, land development and Rand mining); Mr. C. V. Sale (insurance, oil, metals, shipping); Mr. R. W. Lloyd (bleaching).

“Times” Directors.

The Times is the property of the Times Publishing Co., chairman of which is Major J. J. Astor who went to New York in 1763 and acquired a fortune by trading with the Indians for furs. Major Astor’s father, great-grandson of the foregoing, was naturalized in Britain in 1899 and made a peer in 1916.

The directors of the Times Publishing Co., include: Mr. J. Walter (insurance); Mr. R. Grant, jun. (banking, insurance, coal, electricity, iron and steel – also the American Chamber of Commerce in London of which he is the hon. treasurer); Mr. P. J. Pybus (cement, insurance, electricity, engineering); the Hon. R. H. Brand (banking, insurance, electricity).

Common People.

The Daily Herald. – This, the only Labour daily newspaper, is the property of the organised British Labour Movement, which, through the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party owns the Victoria House Printing Company, which in turn, owns the Daily Herald newspaper.

The Daily Herald directors are Messrs. Ben Turner (chairman), Ernest Bevin (vice-chairman), Clifford Allen, W. M. Citrine, C. T. Cramp, G. Hicks, W. H. Hutchinson, Herbert Morrison, A. A. Purcell, M.P., and R. B. Walker – members of the Trade Union and Labour Movement, appointed by the governing bodies of that Movement.