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diff --git a/18018.txt b/18018.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a4fccf --- /dev/null +++ b/18018.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2717 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Free Press, by Hilaire Belloc + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Free Press + + +Author: Hilaire Belloc + + + +Release Date: March 19, 2006 [eBook #18018] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FREE PRESS*** + + +E-text prepared by Thierry Alberto, Richard J. Shiffer, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +THE FREE PRESS + +by + +HILAIRE BELLOC + + + + + + + +London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. +Ruskin House 40 Museum Street W.C 1 +First published in 1918 +(All rights reserved) + + + + + +DEDICATION + + KINGS LAND, + SHIPLEY, HORSHAM. + _October 14, 1917._ + +MY DEAR ORAGE, + +I dedicate this little essay to you not only because "The New Age" +(which is your paper) published it in its original form, but much more +because you were, I think, the pioneer, in its modern form at any +rate, of the Free Press in this country. I well remember the days when +one used to write to "The New Age" simply because one knew it to be +the only paper in which the truth with regard to our corrupt politics, +or indeed with regard to any powerful evil, could be told. That is now +some years ago; but even to-day there is only one other paper in +London of which this is true, and that is the "New Witness." Your +paper and that at present edited by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton are the +fullest examples of the Free Press we have. + +It is significant, I think, that these two papers differ entirely in +the philosophies which underlie their conduct and in the social ends +at which they aim. In other words, they differ entirely in religion +which is the ultimate spring of all political action. There is perhaps +no single problem of any importance in private or in public morals +which the one would not attempt to solve in a fashion different from, +and usually antagonistic to, the other. Yet we discover these two +papers with their limited circulation, their lack of advertisement +subsidy, their restriction to a comparatively small circle, possessing +a power which is not only increasing but has long been quite out of +proportion to their numerical status. + +Things happen because of words printed in "The New Age" and the "New +Witness." That is less and less true of what I have called the +official press. The phenomenon is worth analysing. Its intellectual +interest alone will arrest the attention of any future historian. Here +is a force numerically quite small, lacking the one great obvious +power of our time (which is the power to bribe), rigidly boycotted--so +much so that it is hardly known outside the circle of its immediate +adherents and quite unknown abroad. Yet this force is doing work--is +creating--at a moment when almost everything else is marking time; and +the work it is doing grows more and more apparent. + +The reason is, of course, the principle which was a commonplace with +antiquity, though it was almost forgotten in the last modern +generation, that truth has a power of its own. Mere indignation +against organized falsehood, mere revolt against it, is creative. + +It is the thesis of this little essay, as you will see, that the Free +Press will succeed in its main object which is the making of the truth +known. + +There was a moment, I confess, when I would not have written so +hopefully. + +Some years ago, especially after I had founded the "Eye-Witness," I +was, in the tedium of the effort, half convinced that success could +not be obtained. It is a mood which accompanies exile. To produce that +mood is the very object of the boycott to which the Free Press is +subjected. + +But I have lived, in the last five years, to see that this mood was +false. It is now clear that steady work in the exposure of what is +evil, whatever forces are brought to bear against that exposure, bears +fruit. That is the reason I have written the few pages printed here: +To convince men that even to-day one can do something in the way of +political reform, and that even to-day there is room for something of +free speech. + +I say at the close of these pages that I do not believe the new spirit +we have produced will lead to any system of self-government, economic +or political. I think the decay has gone too far for that. In this I +may be wrong; it is but an opinion with regard to the future. On the +other matter I have experience and immediate example before me, and I +am certain that the battle for free political discussion is now won. +Mere knowledge of our public evils, economic and political, will +henceforward spread; and though we must suffer the external +consequences of so prolonged a regime of lying, the lies are now known +to be lies. True expression, though it should bear no immediate and +practical fruit, is at least now guaranteed a measure of freedom, and +the coming evils which the State must still endure will at least not +be endured in silence. Therefore it was worth while fighting. + + Very sincerely yours, + H. BELLOC. + + + + + The Free Press + + I PROPOSE to discuss in what follows the evil of the great + modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and + misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble + hands; its correction by the formation of small independent + organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last. + + + + +I + + +About two hundred years ago a number of things began to appear in +Europe which were the fruit of the Renaissance and of the Reformation +combined: Two warring twins. + +These things appeared first of all in England, because England was the +only province of Europe wherein the old Latin tradition ran side by +side with the novel effects of protestantism. But for England the +great schism and heresy of the sixteenth century, already dissolving +to-day, would long ago have died. It would have been confined for +some few generations to those outer Northern parts of the Continent +which had never really digested but had only received in some +mechanical fashion the strong meat of Rome. It would have ceased with, +or shortly after, the Thirty Years War. + +It was the defection of the English Crown, the immense booty rapidly +obtained by a few adventurers, like the Cecils and Russells, and a +still smaller number of old families, like the Howards, which put +England, with all its profound traditions and with all its organic +inheritance of the great European thing, upon the side of the Northern +Germanies. It was inevitable, therefore, that in England the fruits +should first appear, for here only was there deep soil. + +That fruit upon which our modern observation has been most fixed was +_Capitalism_. + +Capitalism proceeded from England and from the English Reformation; +but it was not fully alive until the early eighteenth century. In the +nineteenth it matured. + +Another cognate fruit was what to-day we call _Finance_, that is, the +domination of the State by private Capitalists who, taking advantage +of the necessities of the State, fix an increasing mortgage upon the +State and work perpetually for fluidity, anonymity, and +irresponsibility in their arrangements. It was in England, again, that +this began and vigorously began with what I think was the first true +"National Debt"; a product contemporary in its origins with industrial +Capitalism. + +Another was that curious and certainly ephemeral vagary of the human +mind which has appeared before now in human history, which is called +"Sophistry," and which consists in making up "systems" to explain the +world; in contrast with Philosophy which aims at the answering of +questions, the solution of problems and the final establishment of the +truth. + +But most interesting of all just now, though but a minor fruit, is the +thing called "The Press." It also began to arise contemporaneously +with Capitalism and Finance: it has grown with them and served them. +It came to the height of its power at the same modern moment as did +they. + +Let us consider what exactly it means: then we shall the better +understand what its development has been. + + + + +II + + +"The Press" means (for the purpose of such an examination) the +dissemination by frequently and regularly printed sheets (commonly +daily sheets) of (1) news and (2) suggested ideas. + +These two things are quite distinct in character and should be +regarded separately, though they merge in this: that false ideas are +suggested by false news and especially by news which is false through +suppression. + +First, of News:-- + +News, that is, information with regard to those things which affect us +but which are not within our own immediate view, is necessary to the +life of the State. + +The obvious, the extremely cheap, the _universal_ means of propagating +it, is by word of mouth. + +A man has seen a thing; many men have seen a thing. They testify to +that thing, and others who have heard them repeat their testimony. The +Press thrust into the midst of this natural system (which is still +that upon which all reasonable men act, whenever they can, in matters +most nearly concerning them) two novel features, both of them +exceedingly corrupting. In the first place, it gave to the printed +words a _rapidity of extension_ with which repeated spoken words could +not compete. In the second place, it gave them a _mechanical +similarity_ which was the very opposite to the marks of healthy human +news. + +I would particularly insist upon this last point. It is little +understood and it is vital. + +If we want to know what to think of a fire which has taken place many +miles away, but which affects property of our own, we listen to the +accounts of dozens of men. We rapidly and instinctively differentiate +between these accounts according to the characters of the witnesses. +Equally instinctively, we counter-test these accounts by the inherent +probabilities of the situation. + +An honest and sober man tells us that the roof of the house fell in. +An imaginative fool, who is also a swindler, assures us that he later +saw the roof standing. We remember that the roof was of iron girders +covered with wood, and draw this conclusion: That the framework still +stands, but that the healing fell through in a mass of blazing +rubbish. Our common sense and our knowledge of the situation incline +us rather to the bad than to the good witness, and we are right. But +the Press cannot of its nature give a great number of separate +testimonies. These would take too long to collect, and would be too +expensive to collect. Still less is it able to deliver the weight of +each. It, therefore, presents us, even at its best when the testimony +is not tainted, no more than one crude affirmation. This one relation +is, as I have said, further propagated unanimously and with extreme +rapidity. Instead of an organic impression formed at leisure in the +comparison of many human sources, the reader obtains a mechanical one. +At the same moment myriads of other men receive this same impression. +Their adherence to it corroborates his own. Even therefore when the +disseminator of the news, that is, the owner of the newspaper, has no +special motive for lying, the message is conveyed in a vitiated and +inhuman form. Where he has a motive for lying (as he usually has) his +lie can outdo any merely spoken or written truth. + +If this be true of news and of its vitiation through the Press, it is +still truer of opinions and suggested ideas. + +Opinions, above all, we judge by the personalities of those who +deliver them: by voice, tone, expression, and known character. The +Press eliminates three-quarters of all by which opinion may be judged. +And yet it presents the opinion with the more force. The idea is +presented in a sort of impersonal manner that impresses with peculiar +power because it bears a sort of detachment, as though it came from +some authority too secure and superior to be questioned. It is +suddenly communicated to thousands. It goes unchallenged, unless by +some accident another controller of such machines will contradict it +and can get his contradiction read by the same men as have read the +first statement. + +These general characters were present in the Press even in its +infancy, when each news-sheet still covered but a comparatively small +circle; when distribution was difficult, and when the audience +addressed was also select and in some measure able to criticize +whatever was presented to it. But though present they had no great +force; for the adventure of a newspaper was limited. The older method +of obtaining news was still remembered and used. The regular readers +of anything, paper or book, were few, and those few cared much more +for the quality of what they read than for its amount. Moreover, they +had some means of judging its truth and value. + +In this early phase, moreover, the Press was necessarily highly +diverse. One man could print and sell profitably a thousand copies of +his version of a piece of news, of his opinions, or those of his +clique. There were hundreds of other men who, if they took the pains, +had the means to set out a rival account and a rival opinion. We shall +see how, as Capitalism grew, these safeguards decayed and the bad +characters described were increased to their present enormity. + + + + +III + + +Side by side with the development of Capitalism went a change in the +Press from its primitive condition to a worse. The development of +Capitalism meant that a smaller and a yet smaller number of men +commanded the means of production and of distribution whereby could be +printed and set before a large circle a news-sheet fuller than the old +model. When distribution first changed with the advent of the railways +the difference from the old condition was accentuated, and there arose +perhaps one hundred, perhaps two hundred "organs," as they were +called, which, in this country and the Lowlands of Scotland, told men +what their proprietors chose to tell them, both as to news and as to +opinion. The population was still fairly well spread; there were a +number of local capitals; distribution was not yet so organized as to +permit a paper printed as near as Birmingham, even, to feel the +competition of a paper printed in London only 100 miles away. Papers +printed as far from London, as York, Liverpool or Exeter were the +more independent. + +Further the mass of men, though there was more intelligent reading +(and writing, for that matter) than there is to-day, had not acquired +the habit of daily reading. + +It may be doubted whether even to-day the mass of men (in the sense of +the actual majority of adult citizens) have done so. But what I mean +is that in the time of which I speak (the earlier part, and a portion +of the middle, of the nineteenth century), there was no reading of +papers as a regular habit by those who work with their hands. The +papers were still in the main written for those who had leisure; those +who for the most part had some travel, and those who had a smattering, +at least, of the Humanities. + +The matter appearing in the newspapers was often _written by_ men of +less facilities. But the people who wrote them, wrote them under the +knowledge that their audience was of the sort I describe. To this day +in the healthy remnant of our old State, in the country villages, much +of this tradition survives. The country folk in my own neighbourhood +can read as well as I can; but they prefer to talk among themselves +when they are at leisure, or, at the most, to seize in a few moments +the main items of news about the war; they prefer this, I say, as a +habit of mind, to the poring over square yards of printed matter which +(especially in the Sunday papers) are now food for their fellows in +the town. That is because in the country a man has true neighbours, +whereas the towns are a dust of isolated beings, mentally (and often +physically) starved. + + + + +IV + + +Meanwhile, there had appeared in connection with this new institution, +"The Press," a certain factor of the utmost importance: Capitalist +also in origin, and, therefore, inevitably exhibiting all the +poisonous vices of Capitalism as its effect flourished from more to +more. This factor was _subsidy through advertisement_. + +At first the advertisement was not a subsidy. A man desiring to let a +thing be known could let it be known much more widely and immediately +through a newspaper than in any other fashion. He paid the newspaper +to publish the thing that he wanted known, as that he had a house to +let, or wine to sell. + +But it was clear that this was bound to lead to the paradoxical state +of affairs from which we began to suffer in the later nineteenth +century. A paper had for its revenue not only what people paid in +order to obtain it, but also what people paid in order to get their +wares or needs known through it. It, therefore, could be profitably +produced at a cost greater than its selling price. Advertisement +revenue made it possible for a man to print a paper at a cost of 2d. +and sell it at 1d. + +In the simple and earlier form of advertisement the extent and nature +of the circulation was the only thing considered by the advertiser, +and the man who printed the newspaper got more and more profit as he +extended that circulation by giving more reading matter for a +better-looking paper and still selling it further and further below +cost price. + +When it was discovered how powerful the effect of suggestion upon the +readers of advertisements could be, especially over such an audience +as our modern great towns provide (a chaos, I repeat, of isolated +minds with a lessening personal experience and with a lessening +community of tradition), the value of advertising space rapidly rose. +It became a more and more tempting venture to "start a newspaper," but +at the same time, the development of capitalism made that venture more +and more hazardous. It was more and more of a risky venture to start a +new great paper even of a local sort, for the expense got greater and +greater, and the loss, if you failed, more and more rapid and serious. +Advertisement became more and more the basis of profit, and the giving +in one way and another of more and more for the 1d. or the 1/2d. +became the chief concern of the now wealthy and wholly capitalistic +newspaper proprietor. + +Long before the last third of the nineteenth century a newspaper, if +it was of large circulation, was everywhere a venture or a property +dependent wholly upon its advertisers. It had ceased to consider its +public save as a bait for the advertiser. It lived (_in this phase_) +entirely on its advertisement columns. + + + + +V + + +Let us halt at this phase in the development of the thing to consider +certain other changes which were on the point of appearance, and why +they were on the point of appearance. + +In the first place, if advertisement had come to be the stand-by of a +newspaper, the Capitalist owning the sheet would necessarily consider +his revenue from advertisement before anything else. He was indeed +_compelled_ to do so unless he had enormous revenues from other +sources, and ran his paper as a luxury costing a vast fortune a year. +For in this industry the rule is either very great profits or very +great and rapid losses--losses at the rate of L100,000 at least in a +year where a great daily paper is concerned. + +He was compelled then to respect his advertisers as his paymasters. To +that extent, therefore, his power of giving true news and of printing +sound opinion was limited, even though his own inclinations should +lean towards such news and such opinion. + +An individual newspaper owner might, for instance, have the greatest +possible dislike for the trade in patent medicines. He might object to +the swindling of the poor which is the soul of that trade. He might +himself have suffered acute physical pain through the imprudent +absorption of one of those quack drugs. But he certainly could not +print an article against them, nor even an article describing how they +were made, without losing a great part of his income, directly; and, +perhaps, indirectly, the whole of it, from the annoyance caused to +other advertisers, who would note his independence and fear friction +in their own case. He would prefer to retain his income, persuade his +readers to buy poison, and remain free (personally) from touching the +stuff he recommended for pay. + +As with patent medicines so with any other matter whatsoever that was +advertised. However bad, shoddy, harmful, or even treasonable the +matter might be, the proprietor was always at the choice of publishing +matter which did not affect _him_, and saving his fortune, or refusing +it and jeopardizing his fortune. He chose the former course. + +In the second place, there was an even more serious development. +Advertisement having become the stand-by of the newspaper the large +advertiser (as Capitalism developed and the controls became fewer and +more in touch one with the other) could not but regard his "giving" of +an advertisement as something of a favour. + +There is always this psychological, or, if you will, artistic element +in exchange. + +In pure Economics exchange is exactly balanced by the respective +advantages of the exchangers; just as in pure dynamics you have the +parallelogram of forces. In the immense complexity of the real world +material, friction, and a million other things affect the ideal +parallelogram of forces; and in economics other conscious passions +besides those of mere avarice affect exchange: there are a million +half-conscious and sub-conscious motives at work as well. + +The large advertiser still _mainly_ paid for advertisement according +to circulation, but he also began to be influenced by less direct +intentions. He would not advertise in papers which he thought might by +their publication of opinion ultimately hurt Capitalism as a whole; +still less in those whose opinions might affect his own private +fortune adversely. Stupid (like all people given up to gain), he was +muddle-headed about the distinction between a large circulation and a +circulation small, but appealing to the rich. He would refuse +advertisements of luxuries to a paper read by half the wealthier class +if he had heard in the National Liberal Club, or some such place, that +the paper was "in bad taste." + +Not only was there this negative power in the hands of the advertiser, +that of refusing the favour or patronage of his advertisements, there +was also a positive one, though that only grew up later. + +The advertiser came to see that he could actually dictate policy and +opinion; and that he had also another most powerful and novel weapon +in his hand, which was the _suppression_ of news. + +We must not exaggerate this element. For one thing the power +represented by the great Capitalist Press was a power equal with that +of the great advertisers. For another, there was no clear-cut +distinction between the Capitalism that owned newspapers and the +Capitalism that advertised. The same man who owned "The Daily Times" +was a shareholder in Jones's Soap or Smith's Pills. The man who +gambled and lost on "The Howl" was at the same time gambling and +winning on a bucket-shop advertised in "The Howl." There was no +antagonism of class interest one against the other, and what was more +they were of the same kind and breed. The fellow that got rich quick +in a newspaper speculation--or ended in jail over it--was exactly the +same kind of man as he who bought a peerage out of a "combine" in +music halls or cut his throat when his bluff in Indian silver was +called. The type is the common modern type. Parliament is full of it, +and it runs newspapers only as one of its activities--all of which +need the suggestion of advertisement. + +The newspaper owner and the advertiser, then, were intermixed. But on +the balance the advertising interest being wider spread was the +stronger, and what you got was a sort of imposition, often quite +conscious and direct, of advertising power over the Press; and this +was, as I have said, not only negative (that was long obvious) but, at +last, positive. + +Sometimes there is an open battle between the advertiser and the +proprietor, especially when, as is the case with framers of artificial +monopolies, both combatants are of a low, cunning, and unintelligent +type. Minor friction due to the same cause is constantly taking place. +Sometimes the victory falls to the newspaper proprietor, more often to +the advertiser--never to the public. + +So far, we see the growth of the Press marked by these +characteristics. (1) It falls into the hands of a very few rich men, +and nearly always of men of base origin and capacities. (2) It is, in +their hands, a mere commercial enterprise. (3) It is economically +supported by advertisers who can in part control it, but these are of +the same Capitalist kind, in motive and manner, with the owners of the +papers. Their power does not, therefore, clash in the main with that +of the owners, but the fact that advertisement makes a paper, has +created a standard of printing and paper such that no one--save at a +disastrous loss--can issue regularly to large numbers news and opinion +which the large Capitalist advertisers disapprove. + +There would seem to be for any independent Press no possible economic +basis, because the public has been taught to expect for 1d. what it +costs 3d. to make--the difference being paid by the advertisement +subsidy. + +But there is now a graver corruption at work even than this always +negative and sometimes positive power of the advertiser. + +It is the advent of the great newspaper owner as the true governing +power in the political machinery of the State, superior to the +officials in the State, nominating ministers and dismissing them, +imposing policies, and, in general, usurping sovereignty--all this +secretly and without responsibility. + +It is the chief political event of our time and is the peculiar mark +of this country to-day. Its full development has come on us suddenly +and taken us by surprise in the midst of a terrible war. It was +undreamt of but a few years ago. It is already to-day the capital fact +of our whole political system. A Prime Minister is made or deposed by +the owner of a group of newspapers, not by popular vote or by any +other form of open authority. + +No policy is attempted until it is ascertained that the newspaper +owner is in favour of it. Few are proffered without first consulting +his wishes. Many are directly ordered by him. We are, if we talk in +terms of real things (as men do in their private councils at +Westminster) mainly governed to-day, not even by the professional +politicians, nor even by those who pay them money, but by whatever +owner of a newspaper trust is, for the moment, the most unscrupulous +and the most ambitious. + +How did such a catastrophe come about? That is what we must inquire +into before going further to examine its operation and the possible +remedy. + + + + +VI + + +During all this development of the Press there has been present, +_first_, as a doctrine plausible and arguable; _next_, as a tradition +no longer in touch with reality; _lastly_, as an hypocrisy still +pleading truth, a certain definition of the functions of the Press; a +doctrine which we must thoroughly grasp before proceeding to the +nature of the Press in these our present times. + +This doctrine was that the Press was an _organ of opinion_--that is, +an expression of the public thought and will. + +Why was this doctrine originally what I have called it, "plausible and +arguable"? At first sight it would seem to be neither the one nor the +other. + +A man controlling a newspaper can print any folly or falsehood he +likes. _He_ is the dictator: not his public. _They_ only receive. + +Yes: but he is limited by his public. + +If I am rich enough to set up a big rotary printing press and print in +a million copies of a daily paper the _news_ that the Pope has become +a Methodist, or the _opinion_ that tin-tacks make a very good +breakfast food, my newspaper containing such news and such an opinion +would obviously not touch the general thought and will at all. No +one, outside the small catholic minority, wants to hear about the +Pope; and no one, Catholic or Muslim, will believe that he has become +a Methodist. No one alive will consent to eat tin-tacks. A paper +printing stuff like that is free to do so, the proprietor could +certainly get his employees, or most of them, to write as he told +them. But his paper would stop selling. + +It is perfectly clear that the Press in itself simply represents the +news which its owners desire to print and the opinions which they +desire to propagate; and this argument against the Press has always +been used by those who are opposed to its influence at any moment. + +But there is no smoke without fire, and the element of truth in the +legend that the Press "represents" opinion lies in this, that there is +a _limit_ of outrageous contradiction to known truths beyond which it +cannot go without heavy financial loss through failure of circulation, +which is synonymous with failure of power. When people talked of the +newspaper owners as "representing public opinion" there was a shadow +of reality in such talk, absurd as it seems to us to-day. Though the +doctrine that newspapers are "organs of public opinion" was (like +most nineteenth century so-called "Liberal" doctrines) falsely stated +and hypocritical, it had that element of truth about it--at least, in +the earlier phase of newspaper development. There is even a certain +savour of truth hanging about it to this day. + +Newspapers are only offered for sale; the purchase of them is not (as +yet) compulsorily enforced. A newspaper can, therefore, never succeed +unless it prints news in which people are interested and on the nature +of which they can be taken in. A newspaper can manufacture interest, +but there are certain broad currents in human affairs which neither a +newspaper proprietor nor any other human being can control. If England +is at war no newspaper can boycott war news and live. If London were +devastated by an earthquake no advertising power in the Insurance +Companies nor any private interest of newspaper owners in real estate +could prevent the thing "getting into the newspapers." + +Indeed, until quite lately--say, until about the '80's or so--most +news printed was really news about things which people wanted to +understand. However garbled or truncated or falsified, it at least +dealt with interesting matters which the newspaper proprietors had not +started as a hare of their own, and which the public, as a whole, was +determined to hear something about. Even to-day, apart from the war, +there is a large element of this. + +There was (and is) a further check upon the artificiality of the news +side of the Press; which is that Reality always comes into its own at +last. + +You cannot, beyond a certain limit of time, burke reality. + +In a word, the Press must always largely deal with what are called +"living issues." It can _boycott_ very successfully, and does so, with +complete power. But it cannot artificially create unlimitedly the +objects of "news." + +There is, then, this much truth in the old figment of the Press being +"an organ of opinion," that it must in some degree (and that a large +degree) present real matter for observation and debate. It can and +does select. It can and does garble. But it has to do this always +within certain limitations. + +These limitations have, I think, already been reached; but that is a +matter which I argue more fully later on. + + + + +VII + + +As to opinion, you have the same limitations. + +If opinion can be once launched in spite of, or during the +indifference of, the Press (and it is a big "if"); if there is no +machinery for actually suppressing the mere statement of a doctrine +clearly important to its readers--then the Press is bound sooner or +later to deal with such doctrine: just as it is bound to deal with +really vital news. + +Here, again, we are dealing with something very different indeed from +that title "An organ of opinion" to which the large newspaper has in +the past pretended. But I am arguing for the truth that the Press--in +the sense of the great Capitalist newspapers--cannot be wholly +divorced from opinion. + +We have had three great examples of this in our own time in England. +Two proceeded from the small wealthy class, and one from the mass of +the people. + +The two proceeding from the small wealthy classes were the Fabian +movement and the movement for Women's Suffrage. The one proceeding +from the populace was the sudden, brief (and rapidly suppressed) +insurrection of the working classes against their masters in the +matter of Chinese Labour in South Africa. + +The Fabian movement, which was a drawing-room movement, compelled the +discussion in the Press of Socialism, for and against. Although every +effort was made to boycott the Socialist contention in the Press, the +Fabians were at last strong enough to compel its discussion, and they +have by now canalized the whole thing into the direction of their +"Servile State." I myself am no more than middle-aged, but I can +remember the time when popular newspapers such as "The Star" openly +printed arguments in favour of Collectivism, and though to-day those +arguments are never heard in the Press--largely because the Fabian +Society has itself abandoned Collectivism in favour of forced +labour--yet we may be certain that a Capitalist paper would not have +discussed them at all, still less have supported them, unless it had +been compelled. The newspapers simply _could_ not ignore Socialism at +a time when Socialism still commanded a really strong body of opinion +among the wealthy. + +It was the same with the Suffrage for Women, which cry a clique of +wealthy ladies got up in London. I have never myself quite understood +why these wealthy ladies wanted such an absurdity as the modern +franchise, or why they so blindly hated the Christian institution of +the Family. I suppose it was some perversion. But, anyhow, they +displayed great sincerity, enthusiasm, and devotion, suffering many +things for their cause, and acting in the only way which is at all +practical in our plutocracy--to wit, by making their fellow-rich +exceedingly uncomfortable. You may say that no one newspaper took up +the cause, but, at least, it was not boycotted. It was actively +discussed. + +The little flash in the pan of Chinese Labour was, I think, even more +remarkable. The Press not only had word from the twin Party Machines +(with which it was then allied for the purposes of power) to boycott +the Chinese Labour agitation rigidly, but it was manifestly to the +interest of all the Capitalist Newspaper Proprietors to boycott it, +and boycott it they did--as long as they could. But it was too much +for them. They were swept off their feet. There were great meetings in +the North-country which almost approached the dignity of popular +action, and the Press at last not only took up the question for +discussion, but apparently permitted itself a certain timid support. + +My point is, then, that the idea of the Press as "an organ of public +opinion," that is, "an expression of the general thought and will," is +not _only_ hypocritical, though it is _mainly_ so. There is still +something in the claim. A generation ago there was more, and a couple +of generations ago there was more still. + +Even to-day, if a large paper went right against the national will in +the matter of the present war it would be ruined, and papers which +supported in 1914 the Cabinet intrigue to abandon our Allies at the +beginning of the war have long since been compelled to eat their +words. + +For the strength of a newspaper owner lies in his power to deceive the +public and to withhold or to publish at will hidden things: his power +in this terrifies the professional politicians who hold nominal +authority: in a word, the newspaper owner controls the professional +politician because he can and does blackmail the professional +politician, especially upon his private life. But if he does not +command a large public this power to blackmail does not exist; and he +can only command a large public--that is, a large circulation--by +interesting that public and even by flattering it that it has its +opinions reflected--not created--for it. + +The power of the Press is not a direct and open power. It depends upon +a trick of deception; and no trick of deception works if the trickster +passes a certain degree of cynicism. + +We must, therefore, guard ourselves against the conception that the +great modern Capitalist Press is _merely_ a channel for the +propagation of such news as may suit its proprietors, or of such +opinions as they hold or desire to see held. Such a judgment would be +fanatical, and therefore worthless. + +Our interest is in the _degree_ to which news can be suppressed or +garbled, particular discussion of interest to the common-weal +suppressed, spontaneous opinion boycotted, and artificial opinion +produced. + + + + +VIII + + +I say that our interest lies in the question of degree. It always +does. The philosopher said: "All things are a matter of degree; and +who shall establish degree?" But I think we are agreed--and by "we" I +mean all educated men with some knowledge of the world around us--that +the degree to which the suppression of truth, the propagation of +falsehood, the artificial creation of opinion, and the boycott of +inconvenient doctrine have reached in the great Capitalist Press for +some time past in England, is at least dangerously high. + +There is no one in public life but could give dozens of examples from +his own experience of perfectly sensible letters to the Press, citing +irrefutable testimony upon matters of the first importance, being +refused publicity. Within the guild of the journalists, there is not a +man who could not give you a hundred examples of deliberate +suppression and deliberate falsehood by his employers both as regards +news important to the nation and as regards great bodies of opinion. + +Equally significant with the mere vast numerical accumulation of such +instances is their quality. + +Let me give a few examples. No straightforward, common-sense, _real_ +description of any professional politician--his manners, capacities, +way of speaking, intelligence--ever appears to-day in any of the great +papers. We never have anything within a thousand miles of what men who +meet them _say_. + +We are, indeed, long past the time when the professional politicians +were treated as revered beings of whom an inept ritual description had +to be given. But the substitute has only been a putting of them into +the limelight in another and more grotesque fashion, far less +dignified, and quite equally false. + +We cannot even say that the professional politicians are still made to +"fill the stage." That metaphor is false, because upon a stage the +audience knows that it is all play-acting, and actually _sees_ the +figures. + +Let any man of reasonable competence soberly and simply describe the +scene in the House of Commons when some one of the ordinary +professional politicians is speaking. + +It would not be an exciting description. The truth here would not be a +violent or dangerous truth. Let him but write soberly and with truth. +Let him write it as private letters are daily written in dozens about +such folk, or as private conversation runs among those who know them, +and who have no reason to exaggerate their importance, but see them as +they are. Such a description would never be printed! The few owners of +the Press will not turn off the limelight and make a brief, accurate +statement about these mediocrities, because their power to govern +depends upon keeping in the limelight the men whom they control. + +Once let the public know what sort of mediocrities the politicians are +and they lose power. Once let them lose power and their hidden masters +lose power. + +Take a larger instance: the middle and upper classes are never allowed +by any chance to hear in time the dispute which leads to a strike or a +lock-out. + +Here is an example of news which is of the utmost possible importance +to the commonwealth, and to each of us individually. To understand +_why_ a vast domestic dispute has arisen is the very first necessity +for a sound civic judgment. But we never get it. The event +always comes upon us with violence and is always completely +misunderstood--because the Press has boycotted the men's claims. + +I talked to dozens of people in my own station of life--that is, of +the professional middle classes--about the great building lock-out +which coincided with the outbreak of the War. _I did not find a single +one who knew that it was a lock-out at all!_ The few who did at least +know the difference between a strike and a lock-out, _all_ thought it +was a strike! + +Let no one say that the disgusting falsehoods spread by the Press in +this respect were of no effect The men themselves gave in, and their +perfectly just demands were defeated, mainly because middle-class +opinion _and a great deal of proletarian opinion as well_ had been led +to believe that the builders' cessation of labour was a _strike_ due +to their own initiative against existing conditions, and thought the +operation of such an initiative immoral in time of war. They did not +know the plain truth that the provocation was the masters', and that +the men were turned out of employment, that is deprived of access to +the Capitalist stores of food and all other necessaries, wantonly and +avariciously by the masters. The Press would not print that enormous +truth. + +I will give another general example. + +The whole of England was concerned during the second year of the War +with the first rise in the price of food. There was no man so rich but +he had noticed it in his household books, and for nine families out of +ten it was the one pre-occupation of the moment. I do not say the +great newspapers did not deal with it, but _how_ did they deal with +it? With a mass advocacy in favour of this professional politician or +that; with a mass of unco-ordinated advices; and, above all, with a +mass of nonsense about the immense earnings of the proletariat. The +whole thing was really and deliberately side-tracked for months until, +by the mere force of things, it compelled attention. Each of us is a +witness to this. We have all seen it. Every single reader of these +lines knows that my indictment is true. Not a journalist of the +hundreds who were writing the falsehood or the rubbish at the +dictation of his employer but had felt the strain upon the little +weekly cheque which was his _own_ wage. Yet this enormous national +thing was at first not dealt with at all in the Press, and, when dealt +with, was falsified out of recognition. + +I could give any number of other, and, perhaps, minor instances as the +times go (but still enormous instances as older morals went) of the +same thing. They have shown the incapacity and falsehood of the great +capitalist newspapers during these few months of white-hot crisis in +the fate of England. + +This is not a querulous complaint against evils that are human and +necessary, and therefore always present. I detest such waste of +energy, and I agree with all my heart in the statement recently made +by the Editor of "The New Age" that in moments such as these, when any +waste is inexcusable, sterile complaint is the _worst_ of waste. But +my complaint here is not sterile. It is fruitful. This Capitalist +Press has come at last to warp all judgment. The tiny oligarchy which +controls it is irresponsible and feels itself immune. It has come to +believe that it can suppress any truth and suggest any falsehood. It +governs, and governs abominably: and it is governing thus in the midst +of a war for life. + + + + +IX + + +I say that the few newspaper controllers govern; and govern +abominably. I am right. But they only do so, as do all new powers, by +at once alliance with, and treason against, the old: witness +Harmsworth and the politicians. The new governing Press is an +oligarchy which still works "in with" the just-less-new parliamentary +oligarchy. + +This connection has developed in the great Capitalist papers a certain +character which can be best described by the term "Official." + +Under certain forms of arbitrary government in Continental Europe +ministers once made use of picked and rare newspapers to express their +views, and these newspapers came to be called "The Official Press." It +was a crude method, and has been long abandoned even by the simpler +despotic forms of government. Nothing of that kind exists now, of +course, in the deeper corruption of modern Europe--least of all in +England. + +What has grown up here is a Press organization of support and favour +to the system of professional politics which colours the whole of our +great Capitalist papers to-day in England. This gives them so distinct +a character, of parliamentary falsehood, and that falsehood is so +clearly dictated by their connection with executive power that they +merit the title "Official." + +The regime under which we are now living is that of a Plutocracy which +has gradually replaced the old Aristocratic tradition of England. +This Plutocracy--a few wealthy interests--in part controls, in part is +expressed by, is in part identical with the professional politicians, +and it has in the existing Capitalist Press an ally similar to that +"Official Press" which continental nations knew in the past. But there +is this great difference, that the "Official Press" of Continental +experiments never consisted in more than a few chosen organs the +character of which was well known, and the attitude of which +contrasted sharply with the rest. But _our_ "official Press" (for it +is no less) covers the whole field. It has in the region of the great +newspapers no competitor; indeed, it has no competitors at all, save +that small Free Press, of which I shall speak in a moment, and which +is its sole antagonist. + +If any one doubts that this adjective "official" can properly be +applied to our Capitalist Press to-day, let him ask himself first what +the forces are which govern the nation, and next, whether those +forces--that Government or regime--could be better served even under a +system of permanent censorship than it is in the great dailies of +London and the principal provincial capitals. + +Is not everything which the regime desires to be suppressed, +suppressed? Is not everything which it desires suggested, suggested? +And is there any public question which would weaken the regime, and +the discussion of which is ever allowed to appear in the great +Capitalist journals? + +There has not been such a case for at least twenty years. The current +simulacrum of criticism apparently attacking some portion of the +regime, never deals with matters vital to its prestige. On the +contrary, it deliberately side-tracks any vital discussion that +sincere conviction may have forced upon the public, and spoils the +scent with false issues. + +One paper, not a little while ago, was clamouring against the excess +of lawyers in Government. Its remedy was an opposition to be headed by +a lawyer. + +Another was very serious upon secret trading with the enemy. It +suppressed for months all reference to the astounding instance of that +misdemeanour by the connections of a very prominent professional +politician early in the war, and refused to comment on the single +reference made to this crime in the House of Commons! + +Another clamours for the elimination of enemy financial power in the +affairs of this country, and yet says not a word upon the auditing of +the secret Party Funds! + +I say that the big daily papers have now not only those other +qualities dangerous to the State which I have described, but that they +have become essentially "official," that is, insincere and corrupt in +their interested support of that plutocratic complex which, in the +decay of aristocracy, governs England. They are as official in this +sense as were ever the Court organs of ephemeral Continental +experiments. All the vices, all the unreality, and all the peril that +goes with the existence of an official Press is stamped upon the great +dailies of our time. They are not independent where Power is +concerned. They do not really criticize. They serve a clique whom they +should expose, and denounce and betray the generality--that is the +State--for whose sake the salaried public servants should be +perpetually watched with suspicion and sharply kept in control. + +The result is that the mass of Englishmen have ceased to obtain, or +even to expect, information upon the way they are governed. + +They are beginning to feel a certain uneasiness. They know that their +old power of observation over public servants has slipped from them. +They suspect that the known gross corruption of Public life, and +particularly of the House of Commons, is entrenched behind a +conspiracy of silence on the part of those very few who have the power +to inform them. But, as yet, they have not passed the stage of such +suspicion. They have not advanced nearly as far as the discovery of +the great newspaper owners and their system. They are still, for the +most part, duped. + +This transitional state of affairs (for I hope to show that it is only +transitional) is a very great evil. It warps and depletes public +information. It prevents the just criticism of public servants. Above +all, it gives immense and _irresponsible_ power to a handful of +wealthy men--and especially to the one most wealthy and unscrupulous +among them--whose wealth is an accident of speculation, whose origins +are repulsive, and whose characters have, as a rule, the weakness and +baseness developed by this sort of adventures. There are, among such +gutter-snipes, thousands whose luck ends in the native gutter, half a +dozen whose luck lands them into millions, one or two at most who, on +the top of such a career go crazy with the ambition of the parvenu and +propose to direct the State. Even when gambling adventurers of this +sort are known and responsible (as they are in professional politics) +their power is a grave danger. Possessing as the newspaper owners do +every power of concealment and, at the same time, no shred of +responsibility to any organ of the State, they are a deadly peril. The +chief of these men are more powerful to-day than any Minister. Nay, +they do, as I have said (and it is now notorious), make and unmake +Ministers, and they may yet in our worst hour decide the national +fate. + + * * * * * + +Now to every human evil of a political sort that has appeared in +history (to every evil, that is, affecting the State, and proceeding +from the will of man--not from ungovernable natural forces outside +man) there comes a term and a reaction. + +Here I touch the core of my matter. Side by side with what I have +called "the Official Press" in our top-heavy plutocracy there has +arisen a certain force for which I have a difficulty in finding a +name, but which I will call for lack of a better name "the Free +Press." + +I might call it the "independent" Press were it not that such a word +would connote as yet a little too much power, though I do believe its +power to be rising, and though I am confident that it will in the near +future change our affairs. + +I am not acquainted with any other modern language than French and +English, but I read this Free Press French and English, Colonial and +American regularly and it seems to me the chief intellectual +phenomenon of our time. + +In France and in England, and for all I know elsewhere, there has +arisen in protest against the complete corruption and falsehood of +the great Capitalist papers a crop of new organs which _are_ in the +strictest sense of the word "organs of Opinion." I need not detain +English readers with the effect of this upon the Continent. It is +already sufficiently noteworthy in England alone, and we shall do well +to note it carefully. + +"The New Age" was, I think, the pioneer in the matter. It still +maintains a pre-eminent position. I myself founded the "Eye-Witness" +in the same chapter of ideas (by which I do not mean at all with +similar objects of propaganda). Ireland has produced more than one +organ of the sort, Scotland one or two. Their number will increase. + +With this I pass from the just denunciation of evil to the exposition +of what is good. + +I propose to examine the nature of that movement which I call "The +Free Press," to analyse the disabilities under which it suffers, and +to conclude with my conviction that it is, in spite of its +disabilities, not only a growing force, but a salutary one, and, in a +certain measure, a conquering one. It is to this argument that I +shall now ask my readers to direct themselves. + + + + +X + + +The rise of what I have called "The Free Press" was due to a reaction +against what I have called "The Official Press." But this reaction was +not single in motive. + +Three distinct moral motives lay behind it and converged upon it. We +shall do well to separate and recognize each, because each has had +it's effect upon the Free Press as a whole, and that Free Press bears +the marks of all three most strongly to-day. + +The first motive apparent, coming much earlier than either of the +other two, was the motive of (A) _Propaganda_. The second motive was +(B) _Indignation against the concealment of Truth_, and the third +motive was (C) _Indignation against irresponsible power_: the sense of +oppression which an immoral irresponsibility in power breeds among +those who are unhappily subject to it. + +Let us take each of these in their order. + + + + +XI + +A + + +The motive of Propaganda (which began to work much the earliest of the +three) concerned Religions, and also certain racial enthusiasms or +political doctrines which, by their sincerity and readiness for +sacrifice, had half the force of Religions. + +Men found that the great papers (in their final phase) refused to talk +about anything really important in Religion. They dared do nothing but +repeat very discreetly the vaguest ethical platitudes. They hardly +dared do even that. They took for granted a sort of invertebrate +common opinion. They consented to be slightly coloured by the +dominating religion of the country in which each paper happened to be +printed--and there was an end of it. + +Great bodies of men who cared intensely for a definite creed found +that expression for it was lacking, even if this creed (as in France) +were that of a very large majority in the State. The "organs of +opinion" professed a genteel ignorance of that idea which was most +widespread, most intense, and most formative. Nor could it be +otherwise with a Capitalist enterprise whose directing motive was not +conversion or even expression, but mere gain. There was nothing to +distinguish a large daily paper owned by a Jew from one owned by an +Agnostic or a Catholic. Necessity of expression compelled the creation +of a Free Press in connection with this one motive of religion. + +Men came across very little of this in England, because England was +for long virtually homogeneous in religion, and that religion was not +enthusiastic during the years in which the Free Press arose. But such +a Free Press in defence of religion (the pioneer of all the Free +Press) arose in Ireland and in France and elsewhere. It had at first +no quarrel with the big official Capitalist Press. It took for granted +the anodyne and meaningless remarks on Religion which appeared in the +sawdust in the Official Press, but it asserted the necessity of +specially emphasizing its particular point of view in its own columns: +for religion affects all life. + +This same motive of Propaganda later launched other papers in defence +of enthusiasms other than strictly religious enthusiasms, and the most +important of these was the enthusiasm for Collectivism--Socialism. + +A generation ago and more, great numbers of men were persuaded that a +solution for the whole complex of social injustice was to be found in +what they called "nationalizing the means of production, distribution, +and exchange." That is, of course, in plain English, putting land, +houses, and machinery, and stores of food and clothing into the hands +of the politicians for control in use and for distribution in +consumption. + +This creed was held with passionate conviction by men of the highest +ability in every country of Europe; and a Socialist Press began to +arise, which was everywhere free, and soon in active opposition to the +Official Press. Again (of a religious temper in their segregation, +conviction and enthusiasm) there began to appear (when the oppressor +was mild), the small papers defending the rights of oppressed +nationalities. + +Religion, then, and cognate enthusiasms were the first breeders of the +Free Press. + +It is exceedingly important to recognize this, because it has stamped +the whole movement with a particular character to which I shall later +refer when I come to its disabilities. + +The motive of Propaganda, I repeat, was not at first conscious of +anything iniquitous in the great Press or Official Press side by side +with which it existed. Veuillot, in founding his splendidly fighting +newspaper, which had so prodigious an effect in France, felt no +particular animosity against the "Debats," for instance; his +particular Catholic enthusiasm recognized itself as exceptional, and +was content to accept the humble or, at any rate, inferior position, +which admitted eccentricity connotes. "Later," these founders of the +Free Press seemed to say, "we may convert the mass to our views, but, +for the moment, we are admittedly a clique: an exceptional body with +the penalties attaching to such." They said this although the whole +life of France is at least as Catholic as the life of Great Britain is +Plutocratic, or the life of Switzerland Democratic. And they said it +because they arose _after_ the Capitalist press (neutral in religion +as in every vital thing) had captured the whole field. + +The first Propagandists, then, did not stand up to the Official Press +as equals. They crept in as inferiors, or rather as open ex-centrics. +For Victorian England and Third Empire France falsely proclaimed the +"representative" quality of the Official Press. + +To the honour of the Socialist movement the Socialist Free Press was +the first to stand up as an equal against the giants. + +I remember how in my boyhood I was shocked and a little dazed to see +references in Socialist sheets such as "Justice" to papers like the +"Daily Telegraph," or the "Times," with the epithet "Capitalist" put +after them in brackets. I thought, then, it was the giving of an +abnormal epithet to a normal thing; but I now know that these small +Socialist free papers were talking the plainest common sense when they +specifically emphasized as _Capitalist_ the falsehoods and +suppressions of their great contemporaries. From the Socialist point +of view the leading fact about the insincerity of the great official +papers is that this insincerity is Capitalist; just as from a Catholic +point of view the leading fact about it was, and is, that it is +anti-Catholic. + +Though, however, certain of the Socialist Free Papers thus boldly took +up a standpoint of moral equality with the others, their attitude was +exceptional. Most editors or owners of, most writers upon, the Free +Press, in its first beginnings, took the then almost universal point +of view that the great papers were innocuous enough and fairly +represented general opinion, and were, therefore, not things to be +specifically combated. + +The great Dailies were thought grey; not wicked--only general and +vague. The Free Press in its beginnings did not attack as an enemy. It +only timidly claimed to be heard. It _regarded itself_ as a +"speciality." It was humble. And there went with it a mass of +ex-centric stuff. + +If one passes in review all the Free Press journals which owed their +existence in England and France alone to this motive of Propaganda, +one finds many "side shows," as it were, beside the main motives of +local or race patriotism, Religion, or Socialist conviction. You +have, for instance, up and down Europe, the very powerful and +exceedingly well-written anti-Semitic papers, of which Drumont's +"Libre Parole" was long the chief. You have the Single-tax papers. You +have the Teetotal papers--and, really, it is a wonder that you have +not yet also had the Iconoclasts and the Diabolists producing papers. +The Rationalist and the Atheist propaganda I reckon among the +religious. + +We may take it, then, that Propaganda was, in order of time, the first +motive of the Free Press and the first cause of its production. + +Now from this fact arises a consideration of great importance to our +subject. This Propagandist origin of the Free Press stamped it from +its outset with a character it still bears, and will continue to bear, +until it has had that effect in correcting, and, perhaps, destroying, +the Official Press, to which I shall later turn. + +I mean that the Free Press has had stamped upon it the character of +_disparate particularism_. + +Wherever I go, my first object, if I wish to find out the truth, is to +get hold of the Free Press in France as in England, and even in +America. But I know that wherever I get hold of such an organ it will +be very strongly coloured with the opinion, or even fanaticism, of +some minority. The Free Press, as a whole, if you add it all up and +cancel out one exaggerated statement against another, does give you a +true view of the state of society in which you live. The Official +Press to-day gives you an absurdly false one everywhere. What a +caricature--and what a base, empty caricature--of England or France or +Italy you get in the "Times," or the "Manchester Guardian," the +"Matin," or the "Tribune"! No one of them is in any sense general--or +really national. + +The Free Press gives you the truth; but only in disjointed sections, +for it is _disparate_ and it is _particularist_: it is marked with +isolation--and it is so marked because its origin lay in various and +most diverse _propaganda_: because it came later than the official +Press of Capitalism, and was, in its origins, but a reaction against +it. + + +B + +The second motive, that of indignation against _falsehood_, came to +work much later than the motive of propaganda. + +Men gradually came to notice that one thing after another of great +public interest, sometimes of vital public interest, was deliberately +suppressed in the principal great official papers, and that positive +falsehoods were increasingly suggested, or stated. + +There was more than this. For long the _owner_ of a newspaper had for +the most part been content to regard it as a revenue-producing thing. +The _editor_ was supreme in matters of culture and opinion. True, the +editor, being revocable and poor, could not pretend to full political +power. But it was a sort of dual arrangement which yet modified the +power of the vulgar owner. + +I myself remember that state of affairs: the editor who was a +gentleman and dined out, the proprietor who was a lord and nervous +when he met a gentleman. It changed in the nineties of the last +century or the late eighties. It had disappeared by the 1900's. + +The editor became (and now is) a mere mouthpiece of the proprietor. +Editors succeed each other rapidly. Of great papers to-day the +editor's name of the moment is hardly known--but not a Cabinet +Minister that could not pass an examination in the life, vices, +vulnerability, fortune, investments and favours of the owner. The +change was rapidly admitted. It came quickly but thoroughly. At +last--like most rapid developments--it exceeded itself. + +Men owning the chief newspapers could be heard boasting of their power +in public, as an admitted thing; and as this power was recognized, and +as it grew with time and experiment, it bred a reaction. + +Why should this or that vulgarian (men began to say) exercise (and +boast of!) the power to keep the people ignorant upon matters vital to +us all? To distort, to lie? The sheer necessity of getting certain +truths told, which these powerful but hidden fellows refused to tell, +was a force working at high potential and almost compelling the +production of Free Papers side by side with the big Official ones. +That is why you nearly always find the Free Press directed by men of +intelligence and cultivation--of exceptional intelligence and +cultivation. And that is where it contrasts most with its opponents. + + +C + +But only a little later than this second motive of indignation against +falsehood and acting with equal force (though upon fewer men) was the +third motive of _freedom_: of indignation against _arbitrary Power_. + +For men who knew the way in which we are governed, and who recognized, +especially during the last twenty years, that the great newspaper was +coming to be more powerful than the open and responsible (though +corrupt) Executive of the country, the position was intolerable. + +It is bad enough to be governed by an aristocracy or a monarch whose +executive power is dependent upon legend in the mass of the people; it +is humiliating enough to be thus governed through a sort of +play-acting instead of enjoying the self-government of free men. + +It is worse far to be governed by a clique of Professional Politicians +bamboozling the multitude with a pretence of "Democracy." + +But it is intolerable that similar power should reside in the hands of +obscure nobodies about whom no illusion could possibly exist, whose +tyranny is not admitted or public at all, who do not even take the +risk of exposing their features, and to whom no responsibility +whatever attaches. + +The knowledge that this was so provided the third, and, perhaps, the +most powerful motive for the creation of a Free Press. + +Unfortunately, it could affect only very few men. With the mass even +of well-educated and observant men the feeling created by the novel +power of the great papers was little more than a vague ill ease. They +had a general conception that the owner of a widely circulated popular +newspaper could, and did, blackmail the professional politician: make +or unmake the professional politician by granting or refusing him the +limelight; dispose of Cabinets; nominate absurd Ministers. + +But the particular, vivid, concrete instances that specially move men +to action were hidden from them. Only a small number of people were +acquainted with such particular truths. But that small number knew +very well that we were thus in reality governed by men responsible to +no one, and hidden from public blame. The determination to be rid of +such a secret monopoly of power compelled a reaction: and that +reaction was the Free Press. + + + + +XII + + +Such being the motive powers of the Free Press in all countries, but +particularly in France and England, where the evils of the Capitalist +(or Official) Press were at their worst, let us next consider the +disabilities under which this reaction--the Free Press--suffered. + +I think these disabilities lie under four groups. + +(1) In the first place, the free journals suffered from the difficulty +which all true reformers have, that they have to begin by going +against the stream. + +(2) In the second place they suffered from that character of +particularism or "crankiness," which was a necessary result of their +Propagandist character. + +(3) In the third place--and this is most important--they suffered +economically. They were unable to present to their readers all that +their readers expected at the price. This was because they were +refused advertisement subsidy and were boycotted. + +(4) In the fourth place, for reasons that will be apparent in a +moment, they suffered from lack of information. + +To these four main disabilities the Free Papers in _this_ country +added a fifth peculiarly our own; they stood in peril from the +arbitrary power of the Political Lawyers. + +Let us consider first the main four points. When we have examined them +all we shall see against what forces, and in spite of what negative +factors, the Free Press has established itself to-day. + + +1 + +I say that in the first place the Free Press, being a reformer, +suffered from what all reformers suffer from, to wit, that in their +origins they must, by definition, go against the stream. + +The official Capitalist Press round about them had already become a +habit when the Free Papers appeared. Men had for some time made it a +normal thing to read their daily paper; to believe what it told them +to be facts, and even in a great measure to accept its opinion. A new +voice criticizing by implication, or directly blaming or ridiculing a +habit so formed, was necessarily an unpopular voice with the mass of +readers, or, if it was not unpopular, that was only because it was +negligible. + +This first disability, however, under which the Free Press suffered, +and still suffers, would not naturally have been of long duration. The +remaining three were far graver. For the mere inertia or counter +current against which any reformer struggles is soon turned if the +reformer (as was the case here) represented a real reaction, and was +doing or saying things which the people, had they been as well +informed as himself, would have agreed with. With the further +disabilities of (2) particularism, (3) poverty, (4) insufficiency (to +which I add, in this country, restraint by the political lawyers), it +was otherwise. + + +2 + +The Particularism of the Free Papers was a grave and permanent +weakness which still endures. Any instructed man to-day who really +wants to find out what is going on reads the Free Press; but he is +compelled, as I have said, to read the whole of it and piece together +the sections if he wishes to discover his true whereabouts. Each +particular organ gives him an individual impression, which is +ex-centric, often highly ex-centric, to the general impression. + +When I want to know, for instance, what is happening in France, I read +the Jewish Socialist paper, the "Humanite"; the most violent French +Revolutionary papers I can get, such as "La Guerre Sociale"; the +Royalist "Action Francaise"; the anti-Semitic "Libre Parole," and so +forth. + +If I want to find out what is really happening with regard to +Ireland, I not only buy the various small Irish free papers (and they +are numerous), but also "The New Age" and the "New Witness": and so +on, all through the questions that are of real and vital interest. But +I only get my picture as a composite. The very same truth will be +emphasized by different Free Papers for totally different motives. + +Take the Marconi case. The big official papers first boycotted it for +months, and then told a pack of silly lies in support of the +politicians. The Free Press gave one the truth but its various organs +gave the truth for very different reasons and with very different +impressions. To some of the Irish papers Marconi was a comic episode, +"just what one expects of Westminster"; others dreaded it for fear it +should lower the value of the Irish-owned Marconi shares. "The New +Age" looked at it from quite another point of view than that of the +"New Witness," and the specifically Socialist Free Press pointed it +out as no more than an example of what happens under Capitalist +Government. + +A Mahommedan paper would no doubt have called it a result of the +Nazarene religion, and a Thug paper an awful example of what happens +when your politicians are not Thugs. + +My point is, then, that the Free Press thus starting from so many +different particular standpoints has not yet produced a general organ; +by which I mean that it has not produced an organ such as would +command the agreement of a very great body of men, should that very +great body of men be instructed on the real way in which we are +governed. + +Drumont was very useful for telling one innumerable particular +fragments of truth, which the Official Press refuse to mention--such +as the way in which the Rothschilds cheated the French Government over +the death duties in Paris some years ago. Indeed, he alone ultimately +compelled those wealthy men to disgorge, and it was a fine piece of +work. But when he went on to argue that cheating the revenue was a +purely Jewish vice he could never get the mass of people to agree with +him, for it was nonsense. + +Charles Maurras is one of the most powerful writers living, and when +he points out in the "Action Francaise" that the French Supreme Court +committed an illegal action at the close of the Dreyfus case, he is +doing useful work, for he is telling the truth on a matter of vital +public importance. But when he goes on to say that such a thing would +not have occurred under a nominal Monarchy, he is talking nonsense. +Any one with the slightest experience of what the Courts of Law can be +under a nominal Monarchy shrugs his shoulders and says that Maurras's +action may have excellent results, but that his proposed remedy of +setting up one of these modern Kingships in. France in the place of +the very corrupt Parliament is not convincing. + +The "New Republic" in New York vigorously defends Brandeis because +Brandeis is a Jew, and the "New Republic" (which I read regularly, and +which is invaluable to-day as an independent instructor on a small +rich minority of American opinion) is Jewish in tone. The defence of +Brandeis interests me and instructs me. But when the "New Republic" +prints pacifist propaganda by Brailsford, or applauds Lane under the +alias of "Norman Angell," it is--in my view--eccentric and even +contemptible. "New Ireland" helps me to understand the quarrel of the +younger men in Ireland with the Irish Parliamentary party--but I must, +and do, read the "Freeman" as well. + +In a word, the Free Press all over the world, as far as I can read it, +suffers from this note of particularity, and, therefore, of isolation +and strain. It is not of general appeal. + +In connection with this disability you get the fact that the Free +Press has come to depend upon individuals, and thus fails to be as yet +an institution. It is difficult, to see how any of the papers I have +named would long survive a loss of their present editorship. There +might possibly be one successor; there certainly would not be two; and +the result is that the effect of these organs is sporadic and +irregular. + +In the same connection you have the disability of a restricted +audience. + +There are some men (and I count myself one) who will read anything, +however much they differ from its tone and standpoint, in order to +obtain more knowledge. I am not sure that it is a healthy habit. At +any rate it is an unusual one. Most men will only read that which, +while informing them, takes for granted a philosophy more or less +sympathetic with their own. The Free Press, therefore, so long as it +springs from many and varied minorities, not only suffers everywhere +from an audience restricted in the case of each organ, but from +preaching to the converted. It does get hold of a certain outside +public which increases slowly, but it captures no great area of public +attention at any one time. + + +3 + +The third group of disabilities, as I have said, attaches to the +economic weakness of the Free Press. + +The Free Press is rigorously boycotted by the great advertisers, +partly, perhaps, because its small circulation renders them +contemptuous (because nearly all of them are of the true wooden-headed +"business" type that go in herds and never see for themselves where +their goods will find the best market); but much more from frank +enmity against the existence of any Free Press at all. + +Stupidity, for instance, would account for the great advertisers not +advertising articles of luxury in a paper with only a three thousand a +week circulation, even if that paper were read from cover to cover by +all the rich people in England; but it would not account for absence +_in the Free Press alone_ of advertisements appearing in every other +kind of paper, and in many organs of far smaller circulation than the +Free Press papers have. + +The boycott is deliberate, and is persistently maintained. The effect +is that the Free Press cannot give in space and quality of paper, +excellence of distribution, and the rest, what the Official Press can +give; for it lacks advertisement subsidy. This is a very grave +economic handicap indeed. + +In part the Free Press is indirectly supported by a subsidy from its +own writers. Men whose writing commands high payment will contribute +to the Free Press sometimes for small fees, usually for nothing; but, +at any rate, always well below their market prices. But contribution +of that kind is always precarious, and, if I may use the word, jerky. +Meanwhile, it does not fill a paper. It is true that the level of +writing in the Free Press is very much higher than in the Official +Press. To compare the Notes in "The New Age," for instance, with the +Notes in the "Spectator" is to discern a contrast like that between +one's chosen conversation with equals, and one's forced conversation +with commercial travellers in a rail-way carriage. To read Shaw or +Wells or Gilbert or Cecil Chesterton or Quiller Couch or any one of +twenty others in the "New Witness" is to be in another world from the +sludge and grind of the official weekly. But the boycott is rigid and +therefore the supply is intermittent. It is not only a boycott of +advertisement: it is a boycott of quotation. Most of the governing +class know the Free Press. The vast lower middle class does not yet +know that it exists. + +The occasional articles in the Free Press have the same mark of high +value, but it is not regular: and, meanwhile, hardly one of the Free +Papers pays its way. + +The difficulty of distribution, which I have mentioned, comes under +the same heading, and is another grave handicap. + +If a man finds a difficulty in getting some paper to which he is not a +regular subscriber, but which he desires to purchase more or less +regularly, it drops out of his habits. I myself, who am an assiduous +reader of all such matter, have sometimes lost touch with one Free +Paper or another for months, on account of a couple of weeks' +difficulty in getting my copy, I believe this impediment of habit to +apply to most of the Free Papers. + + +4 + +Fourthly, but also partly economic, there is the impediment the Free +Press suffers of imperfect information. It will print truths which the +Great Papers studiously conceal, but daily and widespread information +on general matters it has great difficulty in obtaining. + +Information is obtained either at great expense through private +agents, or else by favour through official channels, that is, from +the professional politicians. The Official Press makes and unmakes the +politicians. Therefore, the politician is careful to keep it informed +of truths that are valuable to him, as well as to make it the organ of +falsehoods equally valuable. + +Most of the official papers, for instance, were informed of the Indian +Silver scandal by the culprits themselves in a fashion which +forestalled attack. Those who led the attack groped in the dark. + +For we must remember that the professional politicians all stand in +together when a financial swindle is being carried out. There is no +"opposition" in these things. Since it is the very business of the +Free Press to expose the falsehood or inanity of the Official +Capitalist Press, one may truly say that a great part of the energies +of the Free Press is wasted in this "groping in the dark" to which it +is condemned. At the same time, the Economic difficulty prevents the +Free Press from paying for information difficult to be obtained, and +under these twin disabilities it remains heavily handicapped. + + +THE POLITICAL LAWYERS + +We must consider separately, for it is not universal but peculiar to +our own society, the heavy disability under which the Free Press +suffers in this country from the now unchecked power of the political +lawyers. + +I have no need to emphasize the power of a Guild when it is once +formed, and has behind it strong corporate traditions. It is the +principal thesis of "The New Age," in which this essay first appeared, +that national guilds, applied to the whole field of society, would be +the saving of it through their inherent strength and vitality. + +Such guilds as we still have among us (possessed of a Charter giving +them a monopoly, and, therefore, making them in "The New Age" phrase +"black-leg proof") are confined, of course, to the privileged +wealthier classes. The two great ones with which we are all familiar +are those of the Doctors and of the Lawyers. + +What their power is we saw in the sentencing to one of the most +terrible punishments known to all civilized Europe--twelve months +hard labour--of a man who had exercised his supposed right to give +medical advice to a patient who had freely consulted him. The patient +happened to die, as she might have died in the hands of a regular +Guild doctor. It has been known for patients to die under the hands of +regular Guild doctors. But the mishap taking place in the hands of +some one who was _not_ of the Guild, although the advice had been +freely sought and honestly given, the person who infringed the +monopoly of the Guild suffered this savage piece of revenge. + +But even the Guild of the Doctors is not so powerful as that of the +Lawyers, _qua_ guild alone. Its administrative power makes it far more +powerful. The well-to-do are not compelled to employ a doctor, but all +are compelled to employ a lawyer at every turn, and that at a cost +quite unknown anywhere else in Europe. But this power of the legal +guild, _qua_ guild, in modern England is supplemented by further +administrative and arbitrary powers attached to a selected number of +its members. + +Now the Lawyers' Guild has latterly become (to its own hurt as it will +find) hardly distinguishable from the complex of professional +politics. + +One need not be in Parliament many days to discover that most laws are +made and all revised by members of this Guild. Parliament is, as a +drafting body, virtually a Committee of Lawyers who are indifferent to +the figment of representation which still clings to the House of +Commons. + +It should be added that this part of their work is honestly done, that +the greatest labour is devoted to it, and that it is only consciously +tyrannical or fraudulent when the Legal Guild feels _itself_ to be in +danger. + +But far more important than the legislative power of the Legal Guild +(which is now the chief framer of statutory law as it has long been +the _salutary_ source of common law) is its executive or governing +power. + +Whether after exposing a political scandal you shall or shall not be +subject to the risk of ruin or loss of liberty, and all the +exceptionally cruel scheme of modern imprisonment, depends negatively +upon the Legal Guild. That is, so long as the lawyers support the +politicians you have no redress, and only in case of independent +action by the lawyers against the politicians, with whom they have +come to be so closely identified, have you any opportunity for +discussion and free trial. The old idea of the lawyer on the Bench +protecting the subject against the arbitrary power of the executive, +of the judge independent of the government, has nearly disappeared. + +You may, of course, commit any crime with impunity if the professional +politicians among the lawyers refuse to prosecute. But that is only a +negative evil. More serious is the positive side of the affair: that +you may conversely be put at the _risk_ of any penalty if they desire +to put you at that risk; for the modern secret police being ubiquitous +and privileged, their opponent can be decoyed into peril at the will +of those who govern, even where the politicians dare not prosecute him +for exposing corruption. + +Once the citizen has been put at this peril--that is, brought into +court before the lawyers--whether it shall lead to his actual ruin or +no is again in the hands of members of the legal guild; the judge +_may_ (it has happened), withstand the politicians (by whom he was +made, to whom he often belongs, and upon whom his general position +to-day depends). He _may_ stand out, or--as nearly always now--he will +identify himself with the political system and act as its mouthpiece. + +It is the prevalence of this last attitude which so powerfully affects +the position of the Free Press in this country. + +When the judge lends himself to the politicians we all know what +follows. + +The instrument used is that of an accusation of libel, and, in cases +where it is desired to establish terror, of criminal libel. + +The defence of the man so accused must either be undertaken by a +Member of the Legal Guild--in which case the advocate's own future +depends upon his supporting the interests of the politicians and so +betraying his client--or, if some eccentric undertakes his own +defence, the whole power of the Guild will be turned against him under +forms of liberty which are no longer even hypocritical. A special +juryman, for instance, that should stand out against the political +verdict desired would be a marked man. But the point is not worth +making, for, as a fact, no juryman ever has stood out lately when a +political verdict was ordered. + +Even in the case of so glaring an abuse, with which the whole country +is now familiar, we must not exaggerate. It would still be impossible +for the politicians, for instance, to get a verdict during war in +favour of an overt act of treason. But after all, argument of this +sort applies to any tyranny, and the power the politicians have and +exercise of refusing to prosecute, however clear an act of treason or +other grossly unpopular act might be, is equivalent to a power of +acquittal. + +The lawyers decide in the last resort on the freedom of speech and +writing among their fellow-citizens, and as their Guild is now +unhappily intertwined with the whole machinery of Executive +Government, we have in modern England an executive controlling the +expression of opinion. It is absolute in a degree unknown, I think, in +past society. + +Now, it is evident that, of all forms of civic activity, writing upon +the Free Press most directly challenges this arbitrary power. There is +not an editor responsible for the management of any Free Paper who +will not tell you that a thousand times he has had to consider whether +it were possible to tell a particular truth, however important that +truth might be to the commonwealth. And the fear which restrains him +is the fear of destruction which the combination of the professional +politician, and lawyer holds in its hand. There is not one such editor +who could not bear witness to the numerous occasions on which he had, +however courageous he might be, to forgo the telling of a truth which +was of vital value, because its publication would involve the +destruction of the paper he precariously controlled. + +There is no need to labour all this. The loss of freedom we have +gradually suffered is quite familiar to all of us, and it is among the +worst of all the mortal symptoms with which our society is affected. + + + + +XIII + + +Why do I say, then, that in spite of such formidable obstacles, both +in its own character and in the resistance it must overcome, the Free +Press will probably increase in power, and may, in the long run, +transform public opinion? + +It is with the argument in favour of this judgment that I will +conclude. + +My reasons for forming this judgment are based not only upon the +observation of others but upon my own experience. + +I started the "Eye-Witness" (succeeded by the "New Witness" under the +editorship of Mr. Cecil Chesterton, who took it over from me some +years ago, and now under the editorship of his brother, Mr. Gilbert +Chesterton) with the special object of providing a new organ of free +expression. + +I knew from intimate personal experience exactly how formidable all +these obstacles were. + +I knew how my own paper could not but appear particular and personal, +and could not but suffer from that eccentricity to general opinion of +which I have spoken. I had a half-tragic and half-comic experience of +the economic difficulty; of the difficulty of obtaining information; +of the difficulty in distribution, and all the rest of it. The editor +of "The New Age" could provide an exactly similar record. I had +experience, and after me Mr. Cecil Chesterton had experience, of the +threats levelled by the professional politicians and their modern +lawyers against the free expression of truth, and I have no doubt that +the editor of "The New Age" could provide similar testimony. As for +the Free Press in Ireland, we all know how _that_ is dealt with. It is +simply suppressed at the will of the police. + +In the face of such experience, and in spite of it, I am yet of the +deliberate opinion that the Free Press will succeed. + +Now let me give my reasons for this audacious conclusion. + + + + +XIV + + +The first thing to note is that the Free Press is not read +perfunctorily, but with close attention. The audience it has, if +small, is an audience which never misses its pronouncements whether it +agrees or disagrees with them, and which is absorbed in its opinions, +its statement of fact and its arguments. Look narrowly at History and +you will find that all great _reforms_ have started thus: not through +a widespread control acting downwards, but through spontaneous energy, +local and intensive, acting upwards. + +You cannot say this of the Official Press, for the simple reason that +the Official Press is only of real political interest on rare and +brief occasions. It is read of course, by a thousand times more people +than those who read the Free Press. But its readers are not gripped by +it. They are not, save upon the rare occasions of a particular "scoop" +or "boom," _informed_ by it, in the old sense of that pregnant word, +_informed_:--they are not possessed, filled, changed, moulded to new +action. + +One of the proofs of this--a curious, a comic, but a most conclusive +proof--is the dependence of the great daily papers on the headline. +Ninety-nine people out of a hundred retain this and nothing more, +because the matter below is but a flaccid expansion of the headline. + +Now the Headline suggests, of course, a fact (or falsehood) with +momentary power. So does the Poster. But the mere fact of dependence +on such methods is a proof of the inherent weakness underlying it. + +You have, then, at the outset a difference of _quality_ in the reading +and in the effect of the reading which it is of capital importance to +my argument that the reader should note. The Free Press is really read +and digested. The Official Press is not. Its scream is heard, but it +provides no food for the mind. One does not contrast the exiguity of a +pint of nitric acid in an engraver's studio with the hundreds of +gallons of water in the cisterns of his house. No amount of water +would bite into the copper. Only the acid does that: and a little of +the acid is enough. + + + + +XV + + +Next let it be noted that the Free Press powerfully affects, even when +they disagree with it, and most of all when they hate it, the small +class through whom in the modern world ideas spread. + +There never was a time in European history when the mass of people +thought so little for themselves, and depended so much (for the +ultimate form of their society) upon the conclusions and vocabulary of +a restricted leisured body. + +That is a diseased state of affairs. It gives all their power to tiny +cliques of well-to-do people. But incidentally it helps the Free +Press. + +It is a restricted leisured body to which the Free Press appeals. So +strict has been the boycott--and still is, though a little +weakening--that the editors of, and writers upon, the Free Papers +probably underestimate their own effect even now. They are never +mentioned in the great daily journals. It is a point of honour with +the Official Press to turn a phrase upside down, or, if they must +quote, to quote in the most roundabout fashion, rather than print in +plain black and white the three words "The New Age" or "The New +Witness." + +But there are a number of tests which show how deeply the effect of a +Free Paper of limited circulation bites in. Here is one apparently +superficial test, but a test to which I attach great importance +because it is a revelation of how minds work. Certain phrases peculiar +to the Free Journals find their way into the writing of all the rest. +I could give a number of instances. I will give one: the word +"profiteer." It was first used in the columns of "The New Age," if I +am not mistaken. It has gained ground everywhere. This does not mean +that the mass of the employees upon daily papers understand what they +are talking about when they use the word "profiteer," any more than +they understand what they are talking about when they use the words +"servile state." They commonly debase the word "profiteer" to mean +some one who gets an exceptional profit, just as they use my own +"Eye-Witness" phrase, "The Servile State," to mean strict regulation +of all civic life--an idea twenty miles away from the proper +signification of the term. But my point is that the Free Press must +have had already a profound effect for its mere vocabulary to have +sunk in thus, and to have spread so widely in the face of the rigid +boycott to which it is subjected. + + + + +XVI + + +Much more important than this clearly applicable test of vocabulary is +the more general and less measurable test of programmes and news. The +programme of National Guilds, for instance--"Guild Socialism" as "The +New Age," its advocate in this country, has called it--is followed +everywhere, and is everywhere considered. Journalists employed by +Harmsworth, for instance, use the idea for all it is worth, and they +use it more and more, although it is as much as their place is worth +to mention "The New Age" in connection with it--as yet. And it is the +same, I think, with all the efforts the Free Press has made in the +past. The propaganda of Socialism (which, as an idea, was so +enormously successful until a few years ago) was, on its journalistic +side, almost entirely conducted by Free Papers, most of them of small +circulation, and all of them boycotted, even as to their names, by the +Official Press. The same is true of my own effort and Mr. Chesterton's +on the "New Witness." The paper was rigidly boycotted and never +quoted. But every one to-day talks, as I have just said, of "The +Servile State," of the "Professional Politician," of the "Secret Party +Funds," of the Aliases under which men hide, of the Purchase of +Honours, Policies and places in the Government, etc., etc. + +More than this: one gets to hear of significant manoeuvres, conducted +secretly, of course, but showing vividly the weight and effect of the +Free Press. One hears of orders given by a politician which prove his +fear of the Free Press: of approaches made by this or that Capitalist +to obtain control of a free journal: sometimes of a policy initiated, +an official document drawn up, a memorandum filed, which proceeded +directly from the advice, suggestion, or argument of a Free Paper +which no one but its own readers is allowed to hear of, and of whose +very existence the suburbs would be sceptical. + +Latterly I have noticed something still more significant. The action +of the Free Press takes effect sometimes _at once_. It was obvious in +the case of the Spanish Jew Vigo, the German agent. On account of his +financial connections all the Official Press had orders to call him +French under a false name. One paragraph in the "New Witness" broke +down that lie before the week was out. + + + + +XVII + + +Next consider this powerful factor in the business. _The truth +confirms itself._ + +Half a million people read of a professional politician, for instance, +that his oratory has an "electric effect," or that he is "full of +personal magnetism," or that he "can sway an audience to tears or +laughter at will." A Free Paper telling the truth about him says that +he is a dull speaker, full of commonplaces, elderly, smelling strongly +of the Chapel, and giving the impression that he is tired out; +flogging up sham enthusiasm with stale phrases which the reporters +have already learnt to put into shorthand with one conventional +outline years ago.[1] + +Well, the false, the ludicrously false picture designed to put this +politician in the limelight (as against favours to be rendered), no +doubt remains the general impression with most of those 500,000 +people. The simple and rather tawdry truth may be but doubtfully +accepted by a few hundreds only. + +But sooner or later a certain small proportion of the 500,000 actually +_hear_ the politician in question. They hear him speak. They receive a +primary and true impression. + +If they had not read anything suggesting the truth, it is quite upon +the cards that the false suggestion would still have weight with +them, in spite of the evidence of their senses. Men are so built that +uncontradicted falsehood sufficiently repeated does have that curious +power of illusion. A man having heard the speech delivered by the old +gentleman, if there were nothing but the Official Press to inform +opinion, might go away saying to himself: "I was not very much +impressed, but no doubt that was due to my own weariness. I cannot but +believe that the general reputation he bears is well founded. He must +be a great orator, for I have always heard him called one." + +But a man who has even once seen it stated that this politician was +_exactly what he was_ will vividly remember that description (which at +first hearing he probably thought false); physical experience has +confirmed the true statement and made it live. These statements of +truth, even when they are quite unimportant, more, of course, when +they illuminate matters of great civic moment, have a cumulative +effect. + +I am confident, for instance, that at the present time the mass of +middle-class people are not only acquainted with, but convinced of, +the truth, that, long before the war, the House of Commons had become +a fraud; that its debates did not turn upon matters which really +divided opinion, and that even its paltry debating points, the +pretence of a true opposition was a falsehood. + +This salutary truth had been arrived at, of course, by many other +channels. The scandalous arrangement between the Front Benches which +forced the Insurance Act down our throats was an eye-opener for the +great masses of the people. So was the cynical action of the +politicians in the matter of Chinese Labour after the Election of +1906. So was the puerile stage play indulged in over things like the +Welsh Disestablishment Bill and the Education Bills. + +But among the forces which opened people's eyes about the House of +Commons, the Free Press played a very great part, though it was never +mentioned in the big Official papers, and though not one man in many +hundreds of the public ever heard of it. The few who read it were +startled into acceptance by the exact correspondence between its +statement and observed fact. + +The man who tells the truth when his colleagues around him are lying, +always enjoys a certain restricted power of prophecy. If there were a +general conspiracy to maintain the falsehood that all peers were over +six foot high, a man desiring to correct this falsehood would be +perfectly safe if he were to say: "I do not know whether the _next_ +peer you meet will be over six foot or not, but I am pretty safe in +prophesying that you will find, among the next dozen three or four +peers less than six foot high." + +If there were a general conspiracy to pretend that people with incomes +above the income-tax level never cheated one in a bargain, one could +not say "on such-and-such a day you will be cheated in a bargain by +such-and-such a person, whose income will be above the income-tax +level," but one could say; "Note the people who swindle you in the +next five years, and I will prophesy that some of the number will be +people paying income-tax." + +This power of prophecy, which is an adjunct of truth telling, I have +noticed to affect people very profoundly. + +A worthy provincial might have been shocked ten years ago to hear that +places in the Upper House of Parliament were regularly bought and +sold. He might have indignantly denied it The Free Press said: "In +some short while you will have a glaring instance of a man who is +incompetent and obscure but very rich, appearing as a legislator with +permanent hereditary power, transferable to his son after his death. I +don't know which the next one will be, but there is bound to be a case +of the sort quite soon for the thing goes on continually. You will be +puzzled to explain it. The explanation is that the rich man has given +a large sum of money to the needy professional politician, Selah." + +Our worthy provincial may have heard but an echo of this truth, for it +would have had, ten years ago, but few readers. He may not have seen a +syllable of it in his daily paper. But things happen. He sees first a +great soldier, then a well-advertised politician, not a rich man, but +very widely talked about, made peers. The events are normal in each +case, and he is not moved. But sooner or later there comes a case in +which he has local knowledge. He says to himself: "Why on earth is +So-and-so made a peer (or a front bench man, or what not)? Why, in the +name of goodness, is this very rich but unknown, and to my knowledge +incompetent, man suddenly put into such a position?" Then he remembers +what he was told, begins to ask questions, and finds out, of course, +that money passed; perhaps, if he is lucky, he finds out which +professional politician pouched the money--and even how much he took! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] A friend of mine in the Press Gallery used to represent "I have +yet to learn that the Government" by a little twirl, and "What did the +right honourable gentleman do, Mr. Speaker? He had the audacity" by +two spiral dots. + + + + +XVIII + + +The effect of the Free Press from all these causes may be compared to +the cumulative effect of one of the great offensives of the present +war. Each individual blow is neither dramatic nor extensive in effect; +there is little movement or none. The map is disappointing. But each +blow tells, and _when the end comes_ every one will see suddenly what +the cumulative effect was. + +There is not a single thing which the Free Papers have earnestly said +during the last few years which has not been borne out by events--and +sometimes borne out with astonishing rapidity and identity of detail. + +It would, perhaps, be superstitious to believe that strong and +courageous truth-telling calls down from Heaven, new, unexpected, and +vivid examples to support it. But, really, the events of the last few +years would almost incline one to that superstition. The Free Press +has hardly to point out some political truth which the Official Press +has refused to publish, when the stars in their courses seem to fight +for that truth. It is thrust into the public gaze by some abnormal +accident immediately after! Hardly had Mr. Chesterton and I begun to +publish articles on the state of affairs at Westminster when the +Marconi men very kindly obliged us. + + + + +XIX. + + +But there is a last factor in this progressive advance of the free +Press towards success which I think the most important of all. It is +the factor of time in the process of human generations. + +It is an old tag that the paradox of one age is the commonplace of the +next, and that tag is true. It is true, because young men are doubly +formed. First, by the reality and freshness of their own experience, +and next, by the authority of their elders. + +You see the thing in the reputation of poets. For instance, when A is +20, B 40, and C 60, a new poet appears, and is, perhaps, thought an +eccentric. "A" cannot help recognizing the new note and admiring it, +but he is a little ashamed of what may turn out to be an immature +opinion, and he holds his tongue, "B" is too busy in middle life and +already too hardened to feel the force of the new note and the +authority he has over "A" renders "A" still more doubtful of his own +judgment. "C" is frankly contemptuous of the new note. He has sunk +into the groove of old age. + +Now let twenty years pass, and things will have changed in this +fashion. "C" is dead. "B" has grown old, and is of less effect as an +authority. "A" is himself in middle age, and is sure of his own taste +and not prepared to take that of elders. He has already long expressed +his admiration for the new poet, who is, indeed, not a "new poet" any +longer, but, perhaps, already an established classic. + +We are all witnesses to this phenomenon in the realm of literature. I +believe that the same thing goes on with even more force in the realm +of political ideas. + +Can any one conceive the men who were just leaving the University five +or six years ago returning from the war and still taking the House of +Commons seriously? I cannot conceive it. As undergraduates they would +already have heard of its breakdown; as young men they knew that the +expression of this truth was annoying to their elders, and they always +felt when they expressed it--perhaps they enjoyed feeling--that there +was something impertinent and odd, and possibly exaggerated in their +attitude. But when they are men between 30 and 40 they will take so +simple a truth for granted. There will be no elders for them to fear, +and they will be in no doubt upon judgments maturely formed. Unless +something like a revolution occurs in the habits and personal +constitution of the House of Commons it will by that time be a joke +and let us hope already a partly innocuous joke. + +With this increasing and cumulative effect of truth-telling, even when +that truth is marred or distorted by enthusiasm, all the disabilities +under which it has suffered will coincidently weaken. The strongest +force of all against people's hearing the truth--the arbitrary power +still used by the political lawyers to suppress Free writing--will, I +think, weaken. + +The Courts, after all, depend largely upon the mass of opinion. Twenty +years ago, for instance, an accusation of bribery brought against some +professional politician would have been thought a monstrosity, and, +however true, would nearly always have given the political lawyers, +his colleagues, occasion for violent repression. To-day the thing has +become so much a commonplace that all appeals to the old illusion +would fall flat. The presiding lawyer could not put on an air of +shocked incredulity at hearing that such-and-such a Minister had been +mixed up in such-and-such a financial scandal. We take such things +for granted nowadays. + + + + +XX + + +What I do doubt in the approaching and already apparent success of the +Free Press is its power to effect democratic reform. + +It will succeed at last in getting the truth told pretty openly and +pretty thoroughly. It will break down the barrier between the little +governing clique in which the truth is cynically admitted and the bulk +of educated men and women who cannot get the truth by word of mouth +but depend upon the printed word. We shall, I believe, even within the +lifetime of those who have taken part in the struggle; have all the +great problems of our time, particularly the Economic problems, +honestly debated. But what I do not see is the avenue whereby the +great mass of the people can now be restored to an interest in the way +in which they are governed, or even in the re-establishment of their +own economic independence. + +So far as I can gather from the life around me, the popular appetite +for freedom and even for criticism has disappeared. The wage-earner +demands sufficient and regular subsistence, including a system of +pensions, and, as part of his definition of subsistence and +sufficiency, a due portion of leisure. That he demands a property in +the means of production, I can see no sign whatever. It may come; but +all the evidence is the other way. And as for a general public +indignation against corrupt government, there is (below the few in the +know who either share the swag or shrug their shoulders) no sign that +it will be strong enough to have any effect. + +All we can hope to do is, for the moment, negative: in my view, at +least. We can undermine the power of the Capitalist Press. We can +expose it as we have exposed the Politicians. It is very powerful but +very vulnerable--as are all human things that repose on a lie. We may +expect, in a delay perhaps as brief as that which was required to +pillory, and, therefore, to hamstring the miserable falsehood and +ineptitude called the Party System (that is, in some ten years or +less), to reduce the Official Press to the same plight. In some ways +the danger of failure is less, for our opponent is certainly less +well-organized. But beyond that--beyond these limits--we shall not +attain. We shall enlighten, and by enlightening, destroy. We shall not +provoke public action, for the methods and instincts of corporate +civic action have disappeared. + +Such a conclusion might seem to imply that the deliberate and +continued labour of truth-telling without reward, and always in some +peril, is useless; and that those who have for now so many years given +their best work freely for the establishment of a Free Press have +toiled in vain, I intend no such implication: I intend its very +opposite. + +I shall myself continue in the future, as I have in the past, to write +and publish in that Press without regard to the Boycott in publicity +and in advertisement subsidy which is intended to destroy it and to +make all our effort of no effect. I shall continue to do so, although +I know that in "The New Age" or the "New Witness" I have but one +reader, where in the "Weekly Dispatch" or the "Times" I should have a +thousand. + +I shall do so, and the others who continue in like service will do so, +_first_, because, though the work is so far negative only, there is +(and we all instinctively feel it), a _Vis Medicatrix Naturae_: merely +in weakening an evil you may soon be, you ultimately will surely be, +creating a good: _secondly_, because self-respect and honour demand +it. No man who has the truth to tell and the power to tell it can long +remain hiding it from fear or even from despair without ignominy. To +release the truth against whatever odds, even if so doing can no +longer help the Commonwealth, is a necessity for the soul. + +We have also this last consolation, that those who leave us and attach +themselves from fear or greed to the stronger party of dissemblers +gradually lose thereby their chance of fame in letters. Sound writing +cannot survive in the air of mechanical hypocrisy. They with their +enormous modern audiences are the hacks doomed to oblivion. We, under +the modern silence, are the inheritors of those who built up the +political greatness of England upon a foundation of free speech, and +of the prose which it begets. Those who prefer to sell themselves or +to be cowed gain, as a rule, not even that ephemeral security for +which they betrayed their fellows; meanwhile, they leave to us the +only solid and permanent form of political power, which is the gift of +mastery through persuasion. + + + + + + _Printed in Great Britain by_ + UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON + + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + THE PATH TO ROME + + Popular Edition, with all the + Original Illustrations, 3/6 net. + +"Quite the most sumptuous embodiment of universal gaiety and erratic +wisdom that has been written for many years past."--THE WORLD. + +"Rioting, full-bodied words; in sentences that buck and jump and +sprawl, that roar with laughter and good temper; that, on occasion, +drop into sentiment and pity, and take on the mystery of things."--THE +ACADEMY. + +"If the flush and beauty of health in this volume are not speedily +propagated among the race, books are not worth reading."--DAILY +CHRONICLE. + + LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. + + + + Authority, Liberty and Function + in the Light of the War + BY RAMIRO DE MAEZTU +_Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net Postage 5d._ + + +"One of the most stimulating and interesting essays in political +science that the war has produced."--_Land and Water._ + + + + Practical Pacifism and Its + Adversaries: "Is it Peace, Jehu?" + BY DR. 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