The Free Press

all new powers, by at once alliance with, and treason against, the old: witness Harmsworth and the politicians.

apitalist papers a certain character which c

iews, and these newspapers came to be called "The Official Press." It was a crude method, and has been long abandoned even by the simpler

he whole of our great Capitalist papers to-day in England. This gives them so distinct a character, of parliamentary falseh

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 wh

irst what the forces are which govern the nation, and next, whether those forces-that Government or regime-could be better ser

ich it desires suggested, suggested? And is there any public question which would weaken the

me portion of the regime, never deals with matters vital to its prestige. On the contrary, it deliberately side-track

against the excess of lawyers in Government. Its

astounding instance of that misdemeanour by the connections of a very prominent professional politician e

l power in the affairs of this country, and yet says n

acy, 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

have ceased to obtain, or even to expect,

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 ha

racters 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

ery evil, that is, affecting the State, and proceeding from the will of man-not

ess" in our top-heavy plutocracy there has arisen a certain force for which I have a diff

note as yet a little too much power, though I do believe its power to be risin

h, but I read this Free Press French and English, Colonial and American r

t 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

nded the "Eye-Witness" in the same chapter of ideas (by which I do not mean at all with similar objects of pro

st denunciation of evil to t

ffers, and to conclude with my conviction that it is, in spite of its disabilities, not only a growing force, but a salutary