never do any good." Well, it will be at least something to prevent its doing harm: but I go further and declare that it may be an active agent, if used within wise limits, for doing good.
The Representation of Public Opinion.
But where is the force to come from which shall compel the State to act in the interest of the many? It can only be derived from public opinion. I think you will sustain me in saying that there is now a considerable amount of public opinion which is favourable to the alteration of the land system, and to the removal of many artificial oppressive conditions. It is impossible to hold a meeting in any great town without discovering that there is much active public opinion favourable to the initiative of the State in many measures of reform. But there exists no channel for the expression of this opinion. It is not represented in the powerful organs of the press, and it is not represented in Parliament.
The powerful organs of the press are, I take it, the London Daily Papers. Their object is to obtain the largest circulation among the people who can afford a daily paper, that is among the upper and middle classes. They are, first of all, huge advertising sheets—an advisement being far more precious to them than the opinion of a hundred thousand workmen: indeed, this opinion they will rarely condescend to publish, lest it should disturb the average mind of the daily newspaper public: it will pay a high class organ far better to misrepresent this opinion than to give it honest utterance. All radical speech is systematically suppressed in them[1]. Independent thought has no sale. The very conditions of successful high class journalism depend upon a strict compliance with fashion and with commonplace: not the fashion and commonplace of a
- ↑ A case has lately occurred which opportunely illustrates the character of high-class journalism. A friend of mine sent one of our leading Liberal organs a brief account of a disgraceful attempt by the Church authorities at Blandford to silence the speakers at an agricultural labourers' meeting by pealing the. Church bells overhead; this communication passed to the editor's waste-paper basket. Within a couple of days of this a noble peer favoured the same journal with a communication upon the more interesting subject of the turf. This last letter was immediately accorded the honor of large type and a prominent position. There can be no doubt but what the Editor acted in these instances sagaciously as far as the interest of his journal was concerned. Lord A.'s letter was a capital advertisement for subscribers to the high-class daily journal, while my friend Mr. C.'s letter would have only introduced a distasteful subject, and could not possibly have attracted profitable attention. If I refer to this, it is not in order to reflect upon the Editor, whose first duty is towards his paper, but for the purpose of showing that high-class journals are more likely to be high-class organs than national organs.
