"Shall we go over the building?" he proposed finally and took me into the machine room downstairs, where three antiquated machines had to be used to turn out thirty thousand copies in an hour. "Only ten thousand are needed," he smiled, thinking the machinery adequate, evidently ignorant of the fact that one Hoe machine would have been twice as efficient as the three at one-half the cost. Then we went up to the fourth floor, where thirty or thirty-five compositors worked to set up some three or four editions daily.
After an hour of wandering about, we returned to the office where we had first met.
"There can be no doubt about your qualifications," Lord Folkestone said, "but do you think you can make the paper pay? It is now losing?. 40,000 a year and Kennard, though rich and a banker, finds that a pull. What hope can you give him?"
I don't know why, but he seemed to me so simple, so sincere, so kindly, that I made up my mind to tell him the whole truth, though it made against me.
"My recommendations, Lord Folkestone," I said, "don't apply to this job at all. I have not the remotest idea how to make a daily paper a success; I've absolutely no experience of such a task. A business man is needed here, not a man of letters, but I've always been successful at whatever I took up, and if you give me the chance I'll make a horse that'll win the Derby or a paper that'll pay. What I ask is one month's experience and then I'll tell you the whole truth. I only beg you in the meantime not to give away my confession of ignorance and inexperience."
"I like you the better for your frankness," he replied cordially, "and you'll have my vote, I can promise you, but Kennard must decide. I've heard that he'll be back tomorrow, so if it suits you, we can meet here tomorrow." And so it was settled.
I found Coleridge Kennard a fussy little person who seemed very anxious to keep the paper strictly Conservative. Because it only cost a ha'penny, people thought it should be radical, but he wanted it to fight communism and all that nonsense: that's why he took it up. But if it couldn't be made to pay, of course he'd have to drop it ultimately. Nobody seemed to know how to make it pay: the advertisements were increasing, but the circulation didn't seem to budge. If instead of selling six or eight thousand a day it sold fifty thousand, the "ads" would come in and it would have to pay. What did I think I could do?
"Give me the paper for one month, Mr. Kennard," I said, "and I'll tell you all about it."
"What conditions?" he asked.
"Your own," I replied. "I shall be perfectly content with whatever you and Lord Folkestone decide. I give you my word I shan't injure the paper." "Very handsome, I must say," said Kennard. "I think we should accept?" He turned in question to Lord Folkestone.
"Surely," Lord Folkestone nodded, "and for the first time I think we have a chance of making the paper a Derby winner."
In this spirit we shook hands and they introduced me to the heads of departments.
The sub-editors seemed sulky and disappointed: the head machinist, a Scot, too independent; the book-keeper, a Mr. Humphrey, the husband of the brilliant writer, "Madge" of Truth, thoroughly kind and eager to help me. I told him before Kennard and Folkestone that I wished to make no changes for the first month; I'd study the field.
As soon as the directors had left, Humphrey gave me the true truth on all points within his knowledge. He thought it nearly impossible to make a cheap Conservative paper pay. There was a manifest contradiction between policy and price; then the machines were worthless and Macdonald not much good and- Clearly my task would be a difficult one. The chief sub-editor, Abbott, put on a nonchalant air. "Had he any ideas as to how the paper could be made successful?" He did what he was told, he said, and that was all. I went home that night with the latest Evening News in my hand and the latest Echo, its Radical rival. The Echo had a policy, a strictly Liberal policy with less than nothing to offer the workman except cheap contempt for his superiors. My Conservative-Socialist policy must beat it out of the field. The news in both papers was simply taken from the morning papers and the agencies and was as bad in one paper as in the other. It was plain that certain news items should be rewritten and made, after the American fashion, into little stories. I hadn't found the way yet, but I would find it. The lethargy in the whole establishment was appalling. It took an hour to make the stereo-plates for the best machine and often the old rattletrap machine would stop running; and when I went down and interviewed Macdonald, he told me he was the only man who could get the old tin-pot machine to work at all.
The previous editor had never entered the machine-room. I spent an hour every day there and soon one workman struck me, six feet in height and splendidly made, with a strong face. Whenever the machine stopped, Tibbett seemed to know at once what was wrong. When I got him a moment alone I asked him to come to see me upstairs after his work. He came, it seemed to me, reluctantly; bit by bit, by praising him and showing confidence in him and not in Macdonald, he spoke plainly. "Macdonald has got Scotchmen to work in order to keep his berth; he's no good himself and they are like him. Twelve men in the machine-room; five could do the work and do it better," Tibbett declared. Ten pounds a week, I said to myself, instead of twenty-five, a good saving. I asked Tibbett if I discharged Macdonald and gave him the job whether he'd do it. He seemed reluctant; the cursed esprit de corps of the working man made him hesitate, but at length he said he'd do his best, but- but-. Finally he gave me the names of the four men he'd keep.
Next morning I called in Macdonald and discharged him and his brother-inlaw together. I gave him a month's salary in lieu of notice, his brother-in-law two weeks, and left the others till the next Saturday.
An hour later there was the devil's own row in the machine-room. The discharged Scots suspected that Tibbett had given the show away and began calling him names. He knocked them down one after the other and they called in the police and had Tibbett arrested for assault and battery. Next day I went to the Police Court and did my best for him, but the stupid magistrate accepted the doctor's statement that the elder Macdonald was seriously injured. His nose, it appeared, was broken, whereas it should only have been put out of joint, and he gave Tibbett a month. His wife was in court and in tears; I cheered her up by telling her I'd have him out in a week, and thanks to Lord Folkestone, who went to the Home Secretary for him, he was let out in the week with a fine of?. 20 instead of the month's imprisonment.
At the end of the week, Tibbett came back and the machines went better than they had ever done. I gave each of his three workmen two pounds weekly and four to Tibbett and a new spirit of utmost endeavour reigned in the machine room. To cut a long story short, I got Tibbett to tell me who was the best man in the casting department-Maltby was his name, the best workman and the most inarticulate man I ever met.
I reduced the expenses there two-thirds, saving another fifteen pounds a week and increasing the efficiency incredibly. At once the time occupied in casting plates for one machine fell from an hour to the best American time of twenty minutes, but Maltby gradually reduced it to twelve minutes with astonishing results, as I shall soon relate.
I began to get lessons on all sides. The war in Egypt was on and one morning, hearing a good deal of noise, I went into the great outer office where the
newsboys had assembled for the first edition. They talked loudly and seemed discontented, so I went in among them and asked one for his opinion.
"There's a bloody bill!" cried the youngster disdainfully. He couldn't have been more than twelve, shoving the Evening News contents bill in my face.
"A bloody bill; how do you expect us to sell papers on that?"
"What's wrong with it?" I asked.