Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/313

 War, 6th ed. vii. ch. ix., where Delane's character is analysed at length). On 7 May 1841 Barnes died, and at the age of twenty-three, a year after leaving Oxford, John Delane succeeded him as editor of the ‘Times.’ That post he retained for thirty-six years, his brother-in-law, George Dasent, acting as his colleague from 1845 to 1870. From this time his career was that of his newspaper. He shrank from publicity, and was careful to preserve the impersonality of an editor. He was not a finished scholar; he was not so brilliant as Barnes; he hardly ever wrote anything except reports and letters, both of which he wrote very well. For some time he was the youngest of the ‘Times’ staff; yet this newspaper, which had become great under his predecessor, became greater still under Delane. ‘The influence of the “Times” newspaper,’ says Mr. Reeve, ‘during the ensuing ten or fifteen years can hardly be exaggerated, and as compared with the present state of the press can hardly be conceived’ (Greville Memoirs, 2nd ser. ii. 3). The period of his editorship was one of great change. He saw thirteen administrations rise and fall; and in the management of his newspaper the repeal of the corn laws, the abolition of the newspaper duty, and the extension of the telegraph system were events of the most capital significance. He felt strongly the responsibility of the great power which he wielded, and although he had to insure the correctness of the whole forty-eight columns of the ‘Times,’ yet, by dint of unsparing industry and energy, he made singularly few mistakes. His general policy was to give active sympathy and support to all liberal movements, but to act rather as a moderator between parties than as a partisan. His foresight was great, and he was very rarely taken by surprise. During 1845 he organised, with Lieutenant Waghorn's aid, a special ‘Times’ express from Alexandria to London. Previously a special messenger had brought the ‘Times’ mail from Marseilles, but the French government, irritated at this enterprise by which the regular Indian mails were met in Paris by the ‘Times’ with the contents of them already printed, interfered with this messenger. By means of a special dromedary express from Suez and special steamer to Trieste the ‘Times’ brought its news forward so fast that in December it beat the regular mail by fourteen days. The French government then gave way, and the old plan was resumed. In 1845 Delane, at an immense cost to the ‘Times’ by loss of advertisements, exposed and stopped the railway mania. On 4 Dec. the ‘Times’ electrified the public by announcing that the cabinet had decided, with the consent of the Duke of Wellington, to summon parliament in January and propose the repeal of the corn laws. The announcement was received with incredulity; the ‘Standard’ publicly, and various ministers privately, especially Lord Wharncliffe, contradicted it, but Delane persevered in his statement. Greville had become as intimate with Delane as he had been with Barnes and first introduced him into political society, where he gradually acquired the esteem of men of all parties and a position which no editor of a paper had before enjoyed. Thus he met all statesmen on equal terms. Lord Palmerston, whom he resembled in temperament, was the statesman he liked best; Lord Aberdeen was the one he most respected. In this position he was able to assist ministers, and they to assist him. In 1843 he had had regular communications with Lord Aberdeen and a sort of alliance with the foreign office, and had been told by him, on returning from Eu, of the agreement as to the Spanish marriages. In 1845 Lord Aberdeen, anxious in the crisis of the Oregon negotiation to mollify American opinion by the news of the impending free admission of American corn, sent for Delane and communicated to him the state of opinion in the cabinet, practically telling him to publish it. This Delane did, and when the news was contradicted Aberdeen told him to insist on its truth. He misled Delane, however, to some extent by omitting to tell him that the ministry had resigned on the day after the first conversation, and that Lord John Russell had failed to form an alternative administration. In 1849 Delane casually heard in the hunting-field from Hood, the arms contractor, that Palmerston had sent arms from Woolwich to the Neapolitan insurgents. It was from the ‘Times’ that Lord John Russell first learned the fact, and thereupon Lord Palmerston was compelled to apologise to the Neapolitan government (Greville Memoirs, 2nd ser. ii. 3,200, 308, 406, iii. 261). During the Crimean war it was the ‘Times’ that determined public opinion in favour of operations for the reduction of Sebastopol. When the ‘Times’ correspondent sent home accounts of the deplorable state of the troops in the Crimea, Delane began an attack upon the government of the most vigorous kind, and published his information in full, though the Russian government received therefrom considerable encouragement and assistance. The Duke of Newcastle wrote to Lord Raglan of the ‘ruffianly “Times.”’ Undoubtedly, however, Delane exposed many official blunders and excited the public indignation which led to their reform.