UC-NRLF 
 
 
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 o 
 

 Clje Jletospapn- ftos as a $otoer 
 in rtje egression anti ^Formation 
 of ^Suiltt ptnton 
 
 THE CHANCELLOR'S ESSAY 
 
 | 
 
 1898 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK TAYLOR, B.A 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE 
 
 " Oh, brave trade !" SHIRLEY, Love Tricks 
 
 B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 & 51, BROAD STREET 
 
 Xonfeon 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII 
 
$eto$papfr ^ress as a $otoer 
 in tije expression anti ^Formation 
 of 
 
 THE CHANCELLOR'S ESSAY 
 1898 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK TAYLOR, B.A 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE 
 
 " Oh, brave trade !" SHIRLEY, Love Tricks 
 
 B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 & 51, BROAD STREET 
 
 Bonbon 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII 
 
To G. M. 
 
 
THE NEWSPAPER PRESS AS A POWER BOTH 
 
 IN THE EXPRESSION AND FORMATION 
 
 OF PUBLIC OPINION. 
 
 " Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt." 
 
 BACON, iVorwm Organum. 
 
 " -TV Kvpitrrdrv wov iavruv ^tvStffQcu xa.1 vtpl rii Kvpturrara ou&tit lick* 
 
 MACI, " 
 
 PLATO, Republic. 
 
 \\\\ the hi-tory of the origin and growth of public 
 
 opinion shall he written, the history of the newspaper will be 
 found to constitute its most important chapter. The diffi- 
 culty of discovering the writer of that chapter seems likely to 
 delay the original undertaking indefinitely. At present every 
 
 h historian of English Journalism laments the incompe- 
 tence of his predecessors, while the public has a fair case 
 all. While they have collected facts, amassed 
 anecdotes, and compiled statistics, they have made no scien- 
 tific attempt to draw conclusions, to estimate values, and to 
 suggest probabilities. They have done their work in the 
 spirit of Herodotus rather than of Thucydides, of Maundeville 
 rather than of Macaulay. The results are delightful, but 
 they are scarcely history. 
 
 This deficiency has borne evil fruit. On the one hand, 
 the practice of sneering at the newspaper press was fashion- 
 able once and is still extant. On the other, there have always 
 been some, and to-day they are the majority, who basely 
 flatter or ignorantly extol it. Vague declamation about its 
 present power and predestined omnipotence is a nauseous 
 commonplace of modern literature. But a judicial and 
 searching enquiry into its real position and prospects has 
 never been instituted. The world is already sufficiently in- 
 formed upon the gossip of Grub Street. What is now re- 
 quired is a writer courageous enough to take something for 
 granted, one who will be master of his material down to the 
 minutest detail, but who will nevertheless presuppose a 
 public in possession of at least the elementary facts. He will 
 write the philosophy of history instead of the diversions of 
 Bohemia. Though his labour may well be of love, it can 
 
 236872 A 2 
 
hardly fail to be arduous. To indicate in outline the nature 
 of his task is the principal object of this essay. 
 
 Such a disquisition, if it is to accomplish anything, must 
 be prefaced by some analysis of public opinion itself. A mul- 
 titude of persons, who employ the phrase continually and 
 often rightly, would nevertheless be puzzled to define it. 
 This laxity of thought begets misuse of terms. For example, 
 public opinion does not of necessity imply the unanimity of 
 a nation, but almost always the opposite. Nor is it only a 
 synonym for the opinion of a majority. It is a comprehensive 
 name for the aggregate of a people's separate opinions upon 
 some given topic. That aggregate may amount to unanimity 
 or to an infinity of difference. As a general rule it consists of 
 two numerically equal or unequal parts, neither of which by 
 itself constitutes public opinion, though both of them together 
 constitute it. 
 
 Objectively, the material of public opinion must be matter 
 of public interest, because no other can secure the consider- 
 ation of all. With the internal affairs of a class, a trade, 
 a profession, or a locality the public has no immediate con- 
 cern. By tacit consent it relegates them to specialists and 
 experts, to those who understand them and are directly in- 
 terested in them. It would be idle to speak of public opinion 
 in connection with rival methods of breeding racehorses, 
 solving quadratics, manoeuvering battleships, or levying the 
 rates of Eatanswill. Nor can that be matter of public opinion 
 which is not open to opinion at all. In other words, public 
 opinion must not be confounded with public knowledge or 
 ignorance. That the earth goes round the sun is to-day 
 a scientifically demonstrable fact, admitting of no opinion 
 whatsoever. The ideas which still very widely obtain to the 
 contrary, are just so much public ignorance. In the Middle 
 Ages, when the question was really an open one, they were 
 entitled to the name, opinion. For opinion is only possible as 
 long as knowledge is impossible. It follows that the de- 
 batable 'land of public and private conduct, of politics and 
 morality, is its principal sphere. 
 
 Obviously, opinion answering to this description was as 
 uncommon in the Middle Ages as it is familiar at the present 
 day. The change cannot reasonably be assigned to any 
 alteration in human nature or to any increase in the number 
 of questions which are of human importance. Its causes 
 must rather be sought in those external obstacles which stood 
 between mediaeval society and a knowledge of affairs, and the 
 gradual removal of which has been contemporaneous with 
 the expansion of public opinion. When the means of com- 
 munication were slow and pain&il, and the art of printing 
 
was still undiscovered, men thought so little because they 
 had so little to think about. Public opinion in regard to the 
 morality of the individual found a rough expression in the 
 existing body of la\v and in that popular chamber which had 
 a hand in the making of law. The only force which could 
 effectually mould it was the Church. The religious revival, 
 consequent upon the advent of the Friars, was a great 
 ;nple of the formation of opinion in the Middle Ages. 
 i examples were rare. In regard to the action of the 
 executive the common standing-ground was of the narrowest. 
 
 politics of mediaeval England may be summed up in t\ 
 ondiscriminating sentiments, a detestation of foreigners, more 
 
 < ially the French, the Scotch, and the Jews, and an 
 
 invincible aversion to paying taxes. War was generally 
 
 popular, taxation was generally unpopular. Such primitive 
 
 which were spontaneous or indigenous rather 
 
 i created, were somewhat crudely represented in the 
 House of Commons or in the habitual practice of revolt. 
 
 To the causes already mentioned, the difficulties in the 
 
 of communication and the diffusion of knowledge, a third 
 must be added, the influence of feudalism. Local and terri- 
 torial feeling, a powerful factor in politics long after the 
 Mi. Idle Ages, was the natural outcome of that system. Men 
 e life of a duchy, a county, or an estate. Their 
 alle- :io higher than a great magnate, their patri- 
 
 otism no furthi-r than the boundaries of his fief. Such a state 
 of mind is more hostile to the growth of public opinion than 
 complete indifference. An apathetic nation is still a nation, 
 D its apathy. But a horde of self-centred 
 units is as incapable of common thought as of combined 
 
 e themselves from dissolution the peoples of 
 ;rope submitted to the government of absolute 
 monarchy. Those who are con to regard this cir- 
 
 cumstance as an evil should remember that the alternative 
 a greater. Absolute monarchy, however unfavourable it 
 may be to public opinion, can never annihilate it. Feudal- 
 ism, when its work was done, was drifting fast into an 
 anarchy that threatened to destroy not only the thought but 
 the very being of the nations. 
 
 iand, which for reasons not proper to enumerate here 
 had sutlered least from the evils of the feudal system, partici- 
 pated most in the advantages of despotic rule. From the 
 strong hands of the last of the Tudors she emerged, a nation, 
 with her internal institutions still intact, and an external 
 Jit which had left its mark on the politics of Europe. 
 Two of the three barriers to the growth of public opinion had 
 
fallen or were falling. The surviving influence of feudalism 
 could never increase, and steadily tended to diminish. The 
 invention and progress of printing made possible an ever 
 widening diffusion of intelligence. Only the difficulty of com- 
 munication remained. But no sooner was the ground thus 
 far cleared of natural obstacles than artificial ones began to 
 be erected. The monarchical, hierarchical, and aristocratic 
 theories of government which prevailed were directly opposed 
 to any considerable extension of the area of public opinion. 
 Especially the ruling classes took fright at the operations of 
 the printer. The censorship and the law of libel were the 
 fetters with which they undertook to bind him. 
 
 For a century and a half after the death of Elizabeth the 
 range of public opinion continued to expand, sometimes 
 slowly, sometimes rapidly, but always surely and always in 
 despite of perpetual attempts to limit it. The press, in the 
 widest sense of the word, was its nursing mother. The book, 
 the pamphlet, and the broadsheet were its principal forms of 
 nutriment. But from the accession of James I. to that of 
 George III. the newspaper proper was never a force to be 
 reckoned with. The accepted meaning of the term, news- 
 paper, is now so well established that the historians should 
 be required to cease applying it to pamphlets of news like the 
 London Gazette or of commentary like Bolingbroke's Examiner. 
 The newspaper proper is a combination. On both sides it is 
 descended directly from the pamphlet. The private corres- 
 pondents of the Middle Ages had been succeeded by the 
 professional writers of news-letters whom Ben Jonson ridi- 
 culed. These in turn gave way to enterprising printers like 
 Butter, who published both intermittent and weekly pam- 
 phlets of intelligence. The pamphlet of commentary had 
 already been rendered famous or infamous by the pens of 
 Tom Nashe and Martin Marprelate. A sudden amalgamation 
 of the two in the Mercuries of the Civil War was the birth of 
 the newspaper proper. 
 
 The Mercuries were so prolific and noisy a race that pos- 
 terity has been deluded into supposing them to have been 
 very influential or very representative. In reality they 
 cannot have been either. It is true that Wood has recorded 
 of the Mercuries of Marchmont Needham how, "flying every 
 week into all parts of the nation 'tis incredible what influence 
 they had upon large numbers of unconsidering people, who 
 have a strange presumption that all must needs be true that 
 is in print." But Needham among Mercury writers was ex- 
 ceptionally able. It is true that the Long Parliament was as 
 anxious to stifle its critics as the Star Chamber had been, 
 and less successful. But the ordinary pamphlet of news, 
 
which was generally a lie, or of comment, which was generally 
 scurrilous, was as much the object of their wrath as the 
 newspaper. And finally it must be remembered that the 
 country was then under martial law. When swords are out 
 and blood is flowing, mere invective tends to be at a discount. 
 As the conflict deepens and passions grow more intense, 
 abusive and mendacious ribaldry, loudly shrieking yet little 
 heard above the clash of arms, is the last thing to detach 
 men from the party of their choice. 
 
 Similar considerations will speedily dispose of the repre- 
 sentative character of the Mercuries. None of them can claim 
 to have represented anything except the unscrupulous fury 
 and intolerance of the least sane partisans. It may be said 
 with confidence, if it is worth saying, that at their worst they 
 proclaimed the wishes of the nation as well or as ill as any 
 assembly at Westminster or Oxford. 
 
 Of the hundred years which succeeded the Restoration it 
 must be repeated, in the words of so high an authority as 
 Mr. Lecky, that " most of the political writing which exer- 
 cised a powerful influence upon opinion had no connection 
 with the newspaper press." Why the amalgamation of news 
 and comment was so long abandoned, will perhaps be never 
 satisfactorily explained. Certainly, with few exceptions the 
 men who wrote the Mercuries had been vulgar and venal, and 
 for years the stigma clung. Moreover, the government of the 
 last Stewarts by its licensing acts and its prosecutions did 
 much to make political writing disreputable. Yet it did 
 something in the opposite direction, when in imitation of 
 Richelieu and Cromwell it set up its official Gazette and 
 retained its official pamphleteers. And when Butler and 
 Dryden, the quaintest wit and the greatest man of letters of 
 the century, descended into the arena with infinite applause, 
 political writing lifted up its head. The lapsing of the 
 Licensing Act in 1695 improved the position. Under Anne, 
 to write for the press was not only respectable but fashion- 
 able. Never, perhaps, has so much talent of the highest 
 order been enlisted in its service. Yet the advantages of 
 combining news with comment still went unrecognised. 
 Periodical packets of intelligence, like the Daily Courant, and 
 periodical essays and reviews, like Defoe's Review and the 
 Spectator, abounded. But not until the burden of the Stamp 
 Duty, which at first was very slackly exacted, pressed heavily 
 upon the backs of the printers, were they driven as a body to 
 tempt the public with the double attractions of the newspaper 
 proper. 
 
 Throughout this period the pamphlet in one shape or 
 another was the principal moulder of public opinion. This 
 
8 
 
 was indeed the golden age of pamphleteering. Dryden, with 
 what may reasonably be regarded as the four finest satires in 
 the language, Defoe, with The true-born Englishman, The shortest 
 Way, and the Hymn to the Pillory, and Swift with The Conduct 
 of the Allies, and The Drapier's Letters, fully established its 
 claim to that title. It is not suggested that the pamphleteer- 
 ing of the age was particularly high-toned. On the contrary, 
 as a general rule it was either brutal or dull, and at the best, 
 in the words of Pepys, " not very witty, but devilish severe." 
 Yet on the whole the pamphlet was the most successful of all 
 the influences which were brought to* bear upon the public 
 opinion of that period. 
 
 There were others. Under Charles II. the revived stage 
 was distinctly a political force. Upon an occasion, which 
 Sir John Coventry had good reason to remember, the play- 
 houses were declared in the House of Commons to have 
 rendered valuable service to the King. But perhaps the 
 most showy triumph was achieved by the Church. The 
 Whigs were ruined by Sacheverell's case. The elections of 
 1710 were carried in the pulpits. A force, which as a rule 
 has honourably held aloof from politics, suddenly threw itself 
 into the conflict, and swept all before it. Deep down in the 
 hearts of Englishmen lay their attachment to the national 
 Church and to the principle of hereditary monarchy. At 
 once expressing and artfully inflaming that attachment, the 
 clergy brought low a Government that had lifted England to 
 a grander eminence in the eyes of Europe than she had 
 occupied under Elizabeth or Cromwell. 
 
 A fairly adequate representation of public opinion was 
 provided by Parliament, where even under Charles II. the 
 Whigs, if they could effect little, could nevertheless protest 
 much, and not without ability. Down to the middle of the 
 1 8th century the nation appears to have been passably con- 
 tented with the expression accorded to its views in the House 
 of Commons. Those who marvel at this acquiescence of the 
 many in the choice of the few, forget that a vote is not the 
 only or of necessity the best method of manifesting one's 
 desires. Next to corruption, there is no more striking feature 
 in early Georgian politics than the growth of mob-violence. 
 The slender electorate, unprotected by the ballot, were 
 continually terrorised by disorderly masses of their unen- 
 franchised countrymen. The bulk of the nation, though it 
 had no suffrage, had a very emphatic voice in the selection of 
 the House of Commons. In a precisely similar fashion, that 
 larger half of the adult population which is still without the 
 vote, has always known how to secure the return of members 
 agreeable to itself. Intimidation may be as undue an influ- 
 
ence as feminine cajolery, but it was intimidation which 
 1 to maintain harmony between public opinion and the 
 House of Commons down to the middle of the i8th century. 
 
 Th ears which elapsed between the accession of 
 
 Geori. :ul the French Revolution were the true birth - 
 
 Mulish newspaper press. The principal forces 
 which down to that time had either fashioned or repres 
 public opinion have now been enumerated, the occasional or 
 it tent pamphlet or book, the regular or periodical 
 Met, <;a/.i ttr or u-view, the House of Commons, the 
 pulpit, the tlu-atre, and the mob. That, so fashioned and 
 so represented, the area of public opinion had been steadily 
 manifest in all literature from Addison to Gold- 
 smith Marly in frequent satires of the appetite for 
 il of opinion. It is manifest also in tin- 
 perennial squabble between the House of Commons and the 
 printers who published its debates. But in 1760 a complica- 
 tion arose, which brought the power of public opinion into 
 : >remost rank of political warfare. In that year the 
 faction fight of the last half century was succeeded 
 
 , constitutional crisis. George III. overthrew the \\ 'hig 
 
 ichy by methods to which neith :s nor Tories 
 
 were entitled to take exception. By packing the Commons 
 
 with thf King*! Friends" he secured for a moment the 
 
 ninance of the monarchical element in the constitution. 
 
 In that same moment the Whigs, hopelessly beaten in Par- 
 
 vit. fell back upon the force of public opinion. In the 
 
 heated atmosphere of the struggle that ensued the modern 
 
 generated. 
 
 "Juniui is typical of the early leader-writers. Much of 
 the comment was in the form of letters and was actually the 
 <*urs. The Public Advertiser, in which the most 
 famous of "Junius'" productions appeared, threw open its 
 columns to good writing upon both sides. "Junius" is 
 il also in his mere literary merit. The quality of 
 journalism at this time was comparatively high. For the 
 rest, an unscrupulous rhetorician, plunging into politics 
 because his private enemies happened to be public men, is 
 not a progenitor to whom modern journalists can look back 
 with reverence or affection. Yet, whatever may be thought 
 of him or his associates, he must be allowed to have given 
 splendid utterance to a volume of opinion, which was not 
 adequately declared in Parliament. Whether he converted 
 anybody who was not previously converted is a harder 
 question. It is always safest to assume that nobody changes 
 his convictions at the bidding of a newspaper. The chief 
 formative action of commentary consists in settling, solidify- 
 
, 
 
 10 
 
 ing, and inflaming sentiments, which are substantially in 
 accord with itself, but which from ignorance, diffidence, or 
 some other cause are still loose and undefined. 
 
 But the newspaper press had numerous formidable com- 
 petitors at this period. In the agitation against Catholic 
 Relief and the agitation against the Slave Trade such novel 
 forces as meetings, petitions, and associations sprang into 
 prominence. Nor were the old ones driven from the field. 
 The Kirk was active against the Catholics, the evangelical 
 clergy laboured assiduously to destroy the Slave Trade. In 
 London the mob gave terrible proofs of its vitality. Nor 
 was the pamphlet in any of its various forms at once 
 eclipsed. It survived, just as the ancient drama of mysteries 
 and moralities survived long after the introduction of more 
 developed types. It was long indeed before the newspaper 
 began to emerge conspicuously from among its rivals. But 
 in estimating their relative values these diverse agencies 
 must not be regarded as mutually exclusive and indepen- 
 dent. Associations operate largely through newspapers and 
 pamphlets. The contagious effects of a great demonstration 
 can only be communicated by the reports of the press. A 
 sermon, if it is to echo far beyond the walls of a church, 
 must be reproduced in the papers. Quite apart from any 
 original efforts of its own, the press is always in a position 
 to increase or to diminish enormously the effects of other 
 forces. 
 
 The French Revolution and the Napoleonic War were 
 highly instrumental in developing the newspaper press. 
 Between the years 1789 and 1815 the daily paper crystallised 
 into its modern form. Epistolary comment was displaced by 
 the regular leading article, and the news increased both in 
 quantity and quality with the naturally increasing public 
 interest in European affairs. A struggle, more glorious than 
 the wars of Anne and three times as prolonged, sufficed to 
 maintain eight morning and seven evening journals in 
 London alone. When peace was declared the newspaper 
 had become a necessity of daily life. 
 
 But it was in Parliament that the will of the nation was 
 most truly expressed. The men who governed the country 
 during these critical years have frequently been held up to 
 the pity or the derision of posterity. Whether they were 
 deserving of either, they at least possessed what the most 
 brilliant of their critics courted in vain, the confidence and 
 support of an overwhelming majority of their countrymen. 
 Even granting that the Tories were as base and incompetent 
 as their enemies assert, that is a weighty reason for con- 
 cluding that they had the nation at their back. It must 
 
II 
 
 have been a very acceptable policy for the sake of which 
 such personal deficiencies were overlooked. 
 
 As a whole, the newspaper press was inclined to 
 Whiggery. When the circumstances of its origin, under 
 the auspices of Wilkes and Junius, are remembered the fact 
 may not appear surprising. Prior to the outbreak of the 
 French Revolution reform was in the air. The Revolution 
 itself in its early stages was watched with sympathy and even 
 with enthusiasm, but as soon as it revealed its atrocious side 
 opinion began to turn against it. When Jacobinism declared 
 war on Europe, rightly or wrongly England accepted the 
 challenge. Rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, but 
 irrevocably and with a mind made up, the nation, animated 
 by Burke and confident in Pitt, accepted the challenge. A 
 small minority sought to turn it from its purpose. They 
 were brushed aside and driven into the wilderness of opposi- 
 tion for forty years. The House of Commons represented 
 the enormous preponderance in public opinion in due propor- 
 tions. The newspaper press with its traditional bias towards 
 a party, which had lost touch with English feeling, gave a 
 somewhat distorted picture of the public mind. 
 
 Some efforts were of course made to bring about an 
 alteration. Pitt was temporarily successful in capturing the 
 provincial press, which hitherto had been almost wholly 
 provincial. The Anti- Jacobin and the Porcupine were able 
 and violent in the cause of war. Fox gave it as his opinion 
 in Parliament that Coleridge's articles in the Morning Chronicle 
 produced the rupture of the Peace of Amiens. It is certain 
 that Coleridge and Cobbett and others of the Tory journalists 
 goaded Napoleon into angry remonstrance with the English 
 Government. But the agitation for reform was never aban- 
 doned, and figured more largely in the papers than in the 
 House of Commons. The letters of "Peter Plymley " were 
 the best of the Whig writings, and they show the pamphlet 
 to have been still a power. That the nation approved of 
 reform admits of no dispute. But it was determined first to 
 strangle revolution. The difference between pious approba- 
 tion of a general policy and an overmastering purpose to 
 accomplish some immediate, particular end was the difference 
 which Parliament represented and the newspaper press 
 obscured. 
 
 But Parliament had one rival. The fame of all the 
 writing and speaking of that age grows pale beside the 
 lustre of Burke's " Reflections." That book was the gospel 
 of the men who turned back the Revolution and overthrew 
 the Empire. The mention of it raises a very baffling ques- 
 tion. What was its exact relation to public opinion ? Or 
 
12 
 
 what indeed is the exact relation of any writing, whether in 
 'book, pamphlet, or newspaper to public opinion ? Every 
 work, issued with missionary intent, is also representative. 
 At its first appearance it represents somebody, if only the 
 author. The more conversions it effects, the more opinion 
 it represents. But direct conversions, as has already been 
 remarked, cannot with any safety be considered common. 
 Formative writing is seldom strong enough to be creative, 
 except in the hands of an extraordinary genius or among the 
 ranks of the extraordinarily ignorant. Yet it really forms 
 opinion, because it gives appropriate shape to masses of half- 
 articulate feeling, and because it stimulates the inert well- 
 wisher into activity. Such, in the main, is the nature of the 
 operation of all commentary upon opinion, though it would 
 be extremely hazardous to deny that books like " Eikon 
 Basilike " and Burke's ''Reflections" have converted multi- 
 tudes. ' This much is certain, that in so far as the clever 
 writer expresses to perfection what men are darkly groping 
 after, he veritably forms opinion and often appears to 
 create it. 
 
 The gloomy years between Waterloo and the Reform Bill 
 witnesse^ a complete reversal in the relative positions of 
 press and Parliament. Having accomplished its gigantic 
 European task the nation had leisure to reflect upon its own 
 reform. It had also that sharp incentive to domestic innova- 
 tion, the sting of economic distress. But to every change 
 the Tories offered such a resolute and unreasoning resistance 
 as after 1815 had lost its justification. While public opinion 
 drifted fast towards the Whigs, the original tendency of the 
 press in the same direction gathered strength and volume. 
 Under Liverpool, as under Pitt, government prosecutions, 
 however well deserved, only alienated the whole race of 
 journalists. The Ministers of George IV. had scarcely a 
 respectable apologist in the London or provincial press 
 except the T^mes, which professed independence and could 
 be relied upon by nobody. 
 
 The shameless character of too much of the newspaper 
 writing of the period is unfortunately beyond dispute. Most 
 outrageous of all were the unstamped sheets, circulating 
 among the lower orders at a cheaper rate. But they too 
 represented something, which was but feebly heard in Parlia- 
 ment, the passionate discontent of an ignorant suffering 
 multitude, hoping all things from political change. More 
 deserving of sympathy was the attack upon the criminal law, 
 the severity and absurdity of which no longer reflected the 
 moral sense of the nation. The decent portion of the press 
 insisted continually on the necessity of modifications, and 
 
13 
 
 aroused many consciences from a torpor begotten of habit or 
 of insufficient knowledge of appalling facts. 
 
 An abundance of testimony goes to prove that the press 
 had now attained to an authority such as it never before 
 enjoyed. It could not take the place of Parliament without 
 acquiring much of that influence which ordinarily attaches to 
 the leaders of the nation. Perhaps the most singular example 
 
 ffect upon opinion was the case of John Bull and Queen 
 Caroline. To all appearances the people were entirely given 
 
 to the cult of Brandenburgh House, when Theodore 
 Hook entered the lists against " that sickening woman " as he 
 called her in the first number, of which he printed only seven 
 hundred and fifty copies. By the sixth week the sale had 
 d ten thousand, and George IV. could say that "neither 
 he, nor his ministers, nor his Parliament, nor his courts of 
 justice, altogether, had done so much good as John Bull."' 
 Hook's methods were utterly unscrupulous, but it did not lie 
 in the mouths of the enemy to impugn his chivalry or 
 decency. Everything in John Bull except its cleverness he 
 borrowed from the infamous portion of their own press. 
 The Whigs took their castigation badly. Exquisitely ludi- 
 crous was the fury of the extreme supporters of freedom of 
 discussion, flayed with their own whip. 
 
 A letter from Mill to Fonblanque of the Examiner, makes 
 the same assumption of authority in the press. Writing 
 in 1832, just after the final struggle over the Reform Bill, 
 he said, "the people should appear to be ready and im- 
 
 :it to break out into outrage without actually breaking 
 out. The press, which is our only instrument, has at this 
 moment the most delicate and the most exalted functions to 
 it any power has yet had to perform in this 
 country. It has at once to raise the waves and to calm 
 them." By this tinu the newspaper had completely ousted 
 the pamphlet. Its principal rivals were public meetings, like 
 that of " Peterloo," and Associations, like the Catholic Asso- 
 ciation and the Constitutional Society. But these, as has 
 already been remarked, were largely dependent for effect upon 
 the newspaper press, and must share with it whatever influ- 
 ence they possessed. Expression rather than conversion was 
 the need of the hour. Sidney Smith summed up the case 
 exactly when he said, " The anti-reformers cite the increased 
 power of the press, this is the very reason why I want an 
 increased power in the House of Commons. The Times, 
 Herald, Advertiser, Globe, Sun, Courier, and Chronicle, are an 
 heptarchy which govern this country, and govern it because 
 the people are so badly represented. I am perfectly satisfied 
 that with a fair and honest House of Commons the power of 
 
14 
 
 the press would diminish, and that the greatest authority 
 would centre in the highest place." 
 
 In the half-century between the first Reform Bill and the 
 last the development of the press was enormous beyond any- 
 thing in preceding years. That development was mainly due 
 to two very diverse causes, the removal of artificial impedi- 
 ments and the co-operation of swiftly advancing science. 
 
 The abolition of the Stamp and of the Paper Duty, the 
 advent of the railway and the cable, and the progress of the 
 art of printing, contributed materially to the expansion of 
 journalism. Not only did the number, variety, and circula- 
 tion of newspapers increase at an astonishing rate, but the 
 quality of their information and even their mere external 
 appearance were proportionately improved. Perhaps the two 
 most remarkable features in this remarkable change were the 
 growth of a local and provincial press, generally respectable 
 and often able, and the tendency of opinion to seek special or 
 expert representation, as in the religious, the financial, the 
 sporting, and the comic press, and the innumerable organs of 
 particular trades, classes and professions. 
 
 That the press was now declaring the wishes of the nation 
 more accurately than it had ever before declared them, may 
 be taken as true, but in this, the proper function of Parlia- 
 ment, it was not now superior to that assembly. Ministries 
 rose and fell, parties had their days of power and of weakness, 
 individuals were exalted and humiliated, but Parliament 
 never lost touch of public opinion as it had lost it in the early 
 years of George Ill's reign, and in the dark season which 
 preceded the first Reform Bill. The gradual extension of the 
 franchise, though it did not necessarily improve representa- 
 tion, made many people think that it did, which was in itself 
 an improvement. Outside of Parliament, however, the press 
 had no competitor among self-appointed exponents of public 
 opinion. Meetings and petitions, as they grew more frequent, 
 came to be recognized as fallacious and inadequate at the 
 best, and the doubtful uses made of them in the Chartist 
 movement went far to overwhelm them with a derision from 
 which they have not as yet completely emerged. 
 
 Throughout this period the formative strength of the 
 newspaper was exhibited in a very honourable capacity, the 
 detection of abuses. The genuine abuse, whether it be a 
 miscarriage of justice or a piece of official "jobbery" is some- 
 thing which secrecy alone protects. Publication means con- 
 demnation. Facts without comment suffice to create opinion. 
 So much of this work was done in the middle of the century 
 that scarcely any remains to do, and the journalists have been 
 forced to concoct villanies that they might afterwards expose 
 
15 
 
 them. But the press, like the Areopagus, is the watch-dog 
 of the State. Its mere existence is a guarantee against a 
 recrudesence of abuses. 
 
 The normal action of commentary has already been 
 explained. It translates into definite language the feelings 
 of men who are too lazy, or too busy, or too stupid to perform 
 that function for themselves, and it confirms them in the 
 feelings by daily reiterating the language. Conversions it 
 does not often achieve, and the rare cases that occur are 
 difficult to establish. Yet there are and have been such, and 
 never so many as in the period between the first and last 
 Reform Bills. Wave after wave of fresh voters, each in the 
 political sense more uneducated than the last, streamed to 
 the hustings and the polling booth, while the party-managers 
 -s on the event. Till these raw politicians had 
 learned a little in the school of disappointment or betrayal, 
 ft u weapons of persuasion were tried on them in vain. The 
 book, the pamphlet, the platform, and the association had 
 each its opportunity and its triumph. Satire like that of 
 Dickens and Thackeray and oratory like Bright's were seldom 
 Protection went down before one society, the 
 d the Paper Duty before another. But societies were 
 largely dependent on the press, and the debt of the former 
 increased with the expansion of the latter. The platform 
 n similar case. An orator who quarrelled with the 
 reporters was politically lost. The one, great, abiding, self- 
 sufficient force was the newspaper. 
 
 In proof of this no better evidence could be adduced than 
 tin- history of The Times during the second and third quarters 
 of the century. The Times was nominally attached to no party 
 and to no personality. It professed independence, and 
 claimed to speak for the entire nation. But its appeal lay 
 primarily to the middle classes, in days which were essentially 
 those of middle class rule. Whether it led or followed, 
 inspired or was inspired, drove or was driven, its contem- 
 poraries could never discover. Probably it worked in the 
 Already described, clearly and loudly enunciating feelings 
 to which the slow English temperament was too shy or too 
 dull to give utterance. Its price was not so prohibitive as is 
 often supposed, because many clubbed together to procure it, 
 and many could read it or hear it read in inns and eating- 
 houses. But whatever may have been the secret of the power 
 of The Times, there is but one opinion as to the reality of it. 
 When The Times took up reform, it reduced the Tories to 
 despair, and whun it asserted its independence, it shook the 
 ministry that had carried "the Mill." When The Times 
 declared for war with Russia, it put an end to the nation's 
 
i6 
 
 doubts, and when it denounced the conduct of the war, it 
 overturned a government. No man nor combination of men 
 was considered an overmatch for The Times. It encountered 
 severally, and with varying fortune, the collective majesty of 
 the reformed House of Commons, and such redoubtable 
 personalities as O'Connell, Brougham, Bright, and Cobden. 
 The new Saturday Review wrote bitterly of "the magnificent 
 spectacle afforded by British freedom, thirty millions of cives 
 Romani governed despotically by a newspaper." But the 
 circle of its enemies was large, and their desire to cripple it 
 by competition strengthened the movement against the so- 
 called "taxes on knowledge." In this endeavour they were 
 partially successful. After 1861 the extraordinary pre- 
 eminence of The Times began to decline. But its proprietors 
 are left with this consolation that, having held what no 
 journal ever held before, they have now lost what no journal 
 has ever since attained. 
 
 Such, in mere outline, has been the part played by the 
 English press in the making and declaring of English opinion 
 in the past. Three questions still remain, the present position 
 of journalism, its future, and its ethics. 
 
 For the purposes of this essay there lies between existing 
 political conditions and any that preceded them a very vital 
 difference. The last extension of the franchise was possessed 
 of a certain air of finality. Whatever alterations may yet be 
 introduced in electoral machinery, virtual manhood suffrage 
 is now secured. In the vote-hunting rivalry of parties, the 
 policy of Drusus, the policy of leaving nothing to distribute 
 but " the dirt and the daylight," has been faithfully carried 
 out. Never before did the English Parliament rest upon so 
 broad a base. 
 
 As expressive of public opinion, Parliament to-day has 
 one serious competitor and only one, the newspaper press. 
 To pronounce judgment between their respective merits is a 
 difficult, and perhaps an invidious task. If it is necessarily 
 hard to secure good representation, it is equally hard to 
 know when you have it. Some men sit at Westminster 
 because they are chosen by the people, and others in Fleet 
 Street because they are supported by the people. In both 
 cases the presumption is that the people are satisfied. The 
 argument that the press is superior to Parliament because 
 Parliament stands adjourned for half the year, is not very 
 acute. The Ministry governs, and the Ministry is a com- 
 mittee of the majority in permanent session, governing only 
 so long as it can command the support of the majority. Of 
 course the minority is in a sense unrepresented during the 
 recess. But so, for all practical purposes, is the majority. 
 
17 
 
 Only during the session can the cabinet be brought to book 
 
 And once the session has begun, the system 
 
 mipenses. There is neither sect nor faction, 
 
 ver injurious or absurd, which has not at least one 
 
 mouti assembly at St. Stephen's. And a single 
 
 speech within these walls, though it be delivered in the 
 
 thinnest of Houses, is better representation than all the daily 
 
 noursof an organ which never circulates outside 
 
 the company of the ti< presentation in Parliament is 
 
 not in any serious sense less permanent than in the press, and 
 
 fur in it is more efficacious. Indeed, as 
 
 a permanent exponent of the popular will Parliament would 
 
 to be superior to the press. It goes directly to the 
 
 nation and i< turns directly from it. Not all the cunnin 
 
 expen editors a c-ditors and leader-writers can 
 
 up iui the lack of immediate contact with the men 
 
 whose minds they seek to depict. Neither its regular channels 
 
 of int< , nor its vast, unsolicited correspondence can be 
 
 : at the ballot boxes are to Parliament. To 
 
 suppose, a in, that its daily circulation furnishes the 
 
 i;ers of a paper with a reliable gauge, is utterly delusive. 
 
 Newspapers do not live by politics alone, and circulation 
 
 depends on a dozen things besides public opinion. Horse- 
 
 hit-tics, advertisements, literature, society, finance, 
 
 : *>lery must all be accounted for. It is notorious that 
 
 many journals subsist entirely, and many more partially, on 
 
 these and such as these. 
 
 The representative superiority of Parliament is most 
 apparent after one of those general elections in which a large 
 majority has been converted into a small minority. The 
 ballot-box announces a revolution in public opinion, but the 
 press can furnish no parallel indications of change. There is 
 no material alteration in the numbers of the newspapers 
 attached to either side. Circulation may or may not be 
 affected, but in any case the facts are known only to the few. 
 The press provides no outward and visible record of the 
 vicissitudes of the national mind. 
 
 This result is largely traceable to a theoretical defect 
 inherent in the English and indeed in every party-system. 
 In point of numbers the consistent supporters of the two great 
 s in the State are not unevenly balanced, but taken 
 together they are far from const' tuting the entire nation. 
 \Yhrn the voters who vote loyally for one side or the other 
 have been deducted, there still remains a large residuum 
 whose course of action defies calculation. The intimidated, 
 the corrupt, the indifferent, the honestly impartial are types 
 of this motley minority which by its very oscillations becomes 
 
i8 
 
 the ruling oligarchy. In many constituencies a handful of 
 such voters will turn the scale between the balanced factions. 
 The press, attached as it is to one or the other of the parties, 
 remains the same at the end of an election as it was at the 
 beginning. Even its circulation is not necessarily affected. 
 The oligarchy, which has revolutionised the composition of 
 Parliament, cares too little or too much for politics to 
 consider them in choosing a newspaper. 
 
 It is this theoretical defect which gives to the party- 
 system its practical utility. If opinion were always as 
 equally divided in Parliament as an examination of the 
 daily papers might lead a foreigner to suppose it to be 
 divided in the country, government, on its legislative side 
 at least, would be impossible. 
 
 But although there are distinct indications that Parlia- 
 ment is a somewhat more sensitive index of opinion than the 
 press, the differences between the two are trifling in com- 
 parison with the gulf that separates them both from all other 
 agencies of political representation. The devices of petition 
 and public meeting, less novel than they were though not 
 less pretentious, are notoriously partial and deceptive. 
 Least satisfactory of all are those bodies which, like the 
 Parliament of Paris in the Seventeenth Century and the 
 mob of Paris down to the present time, have claimed to 
 speak for an entire people. Legally, they have represented 
 nobody but themselves. Really, they have done no more 
 than voice the opinion of some one party, of which they have 
 happened to be the most numerous or the most audacious 
 section. Infinitely far above these and their like, the English 
 Parliament and the English press to-day compete on level 
 terms for the pre-eminence. 
 
 The present position of the newspaper among formative 
 influences is equally high. Apart from the fact that without 
 material there can be no opinion, a fact the very patency of 
 which seems often to obscure its overshadowing importance, 
 the newspaper is the most potent of all the permanent forces 
 operating on' the public mind. The subtle and often un- 
 defmable process by which it acts has been several times 
 suggested. Perhaps the most vital part of that process is 
 its perpetuity. The daily reiteration of the same argument, 
 the daily presentation of the same aspect, the daily contact 
 with the same mental and moral atmosphere, these things 
 are like the dripping of water on a rock. In shaping the raw 
 and confirming the weak the party press is unrivalled. 
 
 But there is a tendency, encouraged perhaps by the 
 natural vanity of journalists, to exaggerate the strength of 
 forces external to the public mind. In reality the power 
 
of all such forces is slowly declining. Education, especially 
 >n of going to the poll, makes men more self- 
 nit and les- . imt to the voice of the charmer. 
 11 majesty of print" is evaporating with every 
 accession to the numbers of those who are capable of forming 
 a judgment of their own. 
 
 The newspaper is strong not only because it is permanent, 
 but because it is almost alone in its permanence. The 
 periodical pamphlet of comment, which in the shape of the 
 wet :r?w still enjoys a vigorous existence, 
 
 is o l too limited in sphere to be regarded as a 
 
 serious riva! inly within that sphere, among the cul- 
 
 tured and i 'd classes, the deliberate essay is more 
 
 esteemed than the necessarily precipitate "leader." But the 
 people who read the reviews read them as much for pure 
 intellectual ; as for guidance or instruction. Ami in 
 
 any cas< which reaches only the few can no longer be 
 
 con- cheap press is in every house. 
 
 Whoever would compete with it must follow it thither. 
 
 stage is a stronger abiding force than the review. 
 iyh infinitely beneath the press, it is perhaj est 
 
 atli it. To quote a iamiliar example, the lower orders 
 .ir^'cly trained to patriotism in tin- music-halls, 
 nks to tl Devolution, love of country is now a 
 
 matter of opinion. In crude and often vi: ie, but con- 
 
 sistently and not always because it was the more popular 
 ills have inculcated the imperial ideal. 
 In moments of international crisis they make most display, 
 ami in one such they gave a new word to the language. But 
 their steady adherence to *' Jingoism," both in and out of 
 season, "is a more weighty fact than their participation in 
 those paroxysms of wrath which occasionally lay hold of the 
 entire nation. It would be idle to despise a force which 
 touches so many of the class most easy to move. 
 
 Among intermittent or potential factors the pulpit, the 
 platform, and the pamphlet are the most conspicuous. It 
 possible to regard these three as diverse manifestations of 
 the power of the individual. A certain school of preachers 
 is ever ready to take a hand in the political game. But 
 their success depends entirely on their reputation. A great 
 individuality, aided by the press which reports his fervid 
 utterances, is a force to be reckoned with, while the little 
 men who fume and vapour in obscure "Bethels" are of no 
 account. Similarly, the value of the platform is regulated 
 by the value of the speaker, and not least because the press 
 
 to disseminate the outpourings of a nobody. 
 Mr. Gladstone was the greatest example of this influence of 
 
 * 
 
20 
 
 an individual, who is also an orator. When he suddenly 
 reversed his Irish policy he drew after him the mass of his 
 party by the mere witchery of his name. The same ascen- 
 dency of the individual is seen in the latest development 
 of the pamphlet, the novel with a purpose. The rhetoric of 
 an original thinker, in whatever shape it is presented, will 
 seldom fall upon unheeding ears. 
 
 The personal aspect of the pulpit, the platform, and the 
 pamphlet is in striking contrast with the blank anonymity of 
 the press. Outside the world of Fleet Street the men who 
 write the papers are practically unknown, nor would the 
 publication of their names enhance the value of their work. 
 Nevertheless, by way of compensation, a newspaper tends to 
 acquire a distinct individuality of its own, and its sayings are 
 quoted and its conduct is censured or admired precisely as 
 though it were a politician of flesh and blood. 
 
 A picturesque illustration of the play of various forces was 
 supplied by the anti-Turkish agitation of the autumn of 1896. 
 Newspapers, with their daily denunciations and their daily 
 category of horrors, were the mainspring of the movement, 
 speakers and preachers supported them with vigour, at least 
 one poet lent his aid, and Mr. Gladstone himself assisted. 
 The agitation ran the normal course. Quite normal also was 
 the complete failure of the Ministerial press to stem the rush 
 of sentiment. But at the very crisis of the public fever the 
 Earl of Rosebery resigned the leadership of the Opposition, 
 vindicating his own conduct and the policy of the Cabinet in 
 a spirited and unanswerable speech. The whole movement 
 collapsed. In less than a week it had succumbed before the 
 dramatic intervention of a single strong personality. The 
 growth of Socialism has not destroyed the possibilities of 
 individual action. There are occasions when the great man 
 is a greater power than the press, though for years his forces 
 may be latent or forgotten. 
 
 Everybody who knows anything of the present situation 
 of the press has attempted to cast its horoscope. This 
 fascinating exercise has given birth to many wild and pre- 
 posterous conjectures. But indulged in with reason it is 
 only another method of analysing the press as it is. Every 
 prognostication should be based on an existing tendency. 
 Nobody should prophecy until he has observed. 
 
 In its representative capacity the press of the immediate 
 future will remain for all practical purposes the press of the 
 present. If Parliament should cease to speak with the voice 
 of the nation the journalists will supplant it, as they have 
 supplanted it before. If Parliament retains its rightful 
 prestige there is no reason to suppose that the newspaper 
 will ever oust it from the confidence of the country. 
 
21 
 
 As a formative power the press will slowly and imper- 
 ceptibly . It will decline in common with all the 
 oti. .al influences usually brought to bear upon public 
 opinion. Knowledge and experience must tend to make the 
 < ndent of advisers. At any rate the forecast 
 i the journalist will extend his empire in this direction is 
 litti be realised. As to the relative strength of 
 competing forces in the future, one only need be touched on 
 The day is coming when the Church of England will 
 be compelled in self-defence to embark on politics. Despite 
 a widespread delusion to the contrary, nearly two centuries 
 have elapsed since her great organisation was directly turned 
 against a party in the State. The clergy have long been 
 dej 1 agents. The day is coining when they 
 he driven to deserve the name. The combined factions 
 h will attempt the spoliation of the Church will court 
 i ruction is of a power which has never been 
 fully exerte the reign of Anne. And not all the 
 newspapers in England will avail them in that day. 
 
 re are certain subsidiary questions which demand^ 
 
 . :< . have appeared of late in the English 
 i are po- mptomatic of organic change in 
 
 immediate future. Imitation, for example, of the less 
 nethods of American journalism is growing in 
 ur wit I; ;tors and presumably with their readers. 
 
 " the press appears to be synonymous with 
 ^arising it. A coarsely meretricious style, an inordinate 
 love of personality, a pandering to the appetite for the unclean 
 : ocious, are among the worst features of a move- 
 ment whirh is also responsible for such comparatively venial 
 as staring headlines and egregious spelling. The 
 her functions of the press are only impeded by these 
 bai a paper gravely announces that on the 
 
 ;aking purchases in 
 
 : and looking her usual charming self, it is neither 
 printing mt of public interest nor supplying material 
 
 for public opinion. I Yet the space allotted to information of 
 this kind increases yearly. The baser sort of personality 
 does not flourish, because the law is too strong for it, but 
 this eternal stream of inane gabble about the private lives 
 of individuals is one of the least pleasing characteristics of 
 modern journalism. The growth of such deformities has 
 been steady and distinct, and though it may possibly not 
 increase it will assuredly not diminish. 
 
 )/ A second, most interesting problem, is concerned with 
 the relative importance of news and comment. In the 
 United States the " editorial " is read little and obeyed less. 
 
22 
 
 In England the " leader" is still taken seriously. But the 
 "Americanising" section of the press is inclined to neglect it, 
 and the question arises whether this inclination of the few 
 will become the practice of the many. Comment is slighted 
 in America, because bribery and intimidation are more 
 effective weapons, because the people mistrust the editor and 
 the men behind the editor, and because the average citizen 
 considers himself quite capable of forming his own opinion. 
 Yet the American voter is no better supplied with the 
 material of opinion than the English, though the American 
 press spends fortunes on its news. Probably the " editorial " 
 in the United States is now at its weakest. If the manage- 
 ment of the American press is purified, the electorate will 
 begin to confide in its utterances. In England the nation 
 . trusts the press and is proud of it. It reads the "leaders" 
 and unconsciously absorbs them. Doubtless the influence of 
 all commentary must slowly decline, but many generations 
 will pass before the declination is marked. Those journals 
 which affect to do without it now, succeed financially not be- 
 cause the English dislike the " leader," but because they love 
 the "sensational" news which supplants it. So long as these 
 conditions continue, it seems most improbable that the dis- 
 placement of commentary will be effected in England on any 
 extensive scale. 
 
 And thirdly, there is the question whether the press of the 
 future will continue to be a party press or not. This is not 
 identical with the question of the elimination of comment, 
 since impartial comment is not wholly a contradiction in 
 terms. Certainly there have been, and there are, journals 
 which profess attachment to no faction and which honestly 
 attempt to handle every issue on its bare merits. Financially 
 they may succeed, because the alternations of the electoral 
 pendulum, so monotonous in their even-handed regularity, 
 have evoked a feeling of disgust in many thoughtful minds. 
 But in reality they are essaying an impossible enterprise. 
 For it is not the party-press that is at fault, but the party- 
 system of which the press is only the satellite. When that 
 system collapses, party-journalism will collapse, as indeed 
 will all journalism, seeing that a representative Government 
 can only be conducted upon party lines. At the present 
 time, with the best intentions in the world, the impartial 
 always drift into a party of their own with the journal of im- 
 partiality for its organ. Generally they become "moderates" 
 or men of "the centre," and in England are speedily re-ab- 
 sorbed or annihilated. 
 
 A rough outline has now been sketched of the position of 
 the English press in its relation to public opinion and to 
 
23 
 
 other agencies for declaring and moulding that opinion. It 
 only remains to deal with the ethics of journalism and with 
 the cognate question of politics. What ought the newsj 
 press to be, and to what extent, if any, should the law 
 constrain it to be what it ought to be? 
 
 The solution of both problems is immensely facilitated if 
 the mind is previously purged of the common but erroneous 
 
 ction between absolute and relative morality. Whoever 
 has realised that the only sort of conduct which is absolutely 
 uit which is absolutely i -ill proceed in this 
 
 : [trammelled by the superstitions of any philosophy. 
 To him the alarmists, whose habit of mind is universally to 
 associate a free press with revolution, and the fanatics, who 
 see impending despotism in every successful prosecution of a 
 scurrilous print, will appear equally absurd. He will under- 
 stand tha: . L,'.u>d in England may be bad in India, and 
 
 .vhat has promoted the growth of society in the nine- 
 
 h century might have destroyed it in the Middle Ages. 
 To comprehend thus much is to see daylight in most of the 
 obscurer regions of journalistic ethics. 
 
 In the free monarchy of England, though the press is in 
 point of fact highly expressive of public opinion, it has no 
 bounden duty to discharge that function. The nation is 
 Anally represented by a body, of which, in the words 
 of Mr. Samuel Gardiner, this is the "chief glory, that it is 
 the representative not of one class, or of one portion of 
 society alone, but of every class and of every portion which, 
 at any given time, is capable of representation. Every social 
 force which exists in England makes its weight felt within 
 
 alls of Parliament. The various powers of intellect, of 
 moral worth, of social position and of wealth find their 
 
 ssion there. Lords and prelates, knights and burgesses, 
 join, as they have ever joined, in making laws, because each 
 of these classes of men is capable of forming an opinion of 
 its own, which in its turn is sure to become an element in 
 the general opinion of the country." With such a body the 
 newspaper is under no obligation to compete. Rather ought 
 
 :nallest appearance of rivalry to be avoided as tending 
 
 aken the authority of law. The representative at- 
 tributes of the English press are accidental and not essential. 
 Yet they ought always to be held in reserve against the day 
 of national dissatisfaction with the nation's choice. Neither 
 a 1760 nor an 1832 is ever impossible. 
 
 ier ordinary circumstances, however, serious competi- 
 tion between press and Parliament in the business of 
 representation is little likely to occur, if only because the 
 importance of the representative element in the English 
 
2 4 
 
 constitution has long been declining. The government of 
 England resembles Homeric and old Teutonic governments 
 more closely to-day than it ever did. In those ancient 
 polities the wise and great discussed affairs within the 
 hearing of the people. Thanks to a newspaper press, ren- 
 dered marvellously efficient by mechanical contrivances, the 
 debates in Parliament can be read at every breakfast table 
 before the debaters have been many hours in bed. 
 
 It has already been observed that the press cannot fail 
 to be representative, if only of a single writer. When one 
 man sets out to move the world with a newspaper, that 
 newspaper must express his convictions. But such expression 
 is only an accident of its being. Its proper purpose is to 
 create. And the normal function of the press is to create. 
 Without news opinion cannot even exist, and without com- 
 ment a large class of opinion can never take definite shape. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that a party-newspaper has or 
 ought to have for its primary aim the expression of the views 
 of a party. Those views are sufficiently well expressed 
 elsewhere. Rather should it aspire to the leadership of 
 opinion. Its first and most necessary task is to encourage, to 
 confirm, and to instruct the party; its second and most 
 difficult to win the halting and convert the hostile. Both 
 functions are lofty and honourable, and far removed above 
 servility. Many at the present day affect to despise partisan- 
 ship as incompatible with patriotism or mental vigour. But 
 however applicable their contempt may be to debased types, 
 true partisanship rises above their reach. True partisanship, 
 whether in a newspaper or an individual, is the possession of 
 a set of principles at the bar of which all conduct must be 
 judged. It is based upon the conviction that of two possible 
 points of view, of the two ways of doing most things, one is 
 infinitely to be preferred. As long as a newspaper adheres to 
 its own convictions, it leads. As soon as it begins to palter 
 with principle for the sake of circulation, to reflect when it 
 ought to illuminate, to confound the accident with the 
 essence, it drops at once into a moral and intellectual sub- 
 jection unworthy of its high calling. 
 
 But someone may object that, while this is a just outline 
 of what in certain respects the English press ought to be 
 and of what to a great extent it is, there are many journalistic 
 operations, such as advertising, to name the largest, of which 
 no account has been rendered. It may be argued that the 
 newspaper is a commercial enterprise and must be conducted 
 upon kindred lines to other commercial enterprises. This is 
 true, but need not affect anything that has been said. The 
 work of a newspaper is so arduous that, unless it were a 
 
25 
 
 financial speculation of some promise, nobody would undertake 
 :id just because the English press is commercially suc- 
 cessful, it finds it easy to be honest. There are certain vices 
 to which the rich have no temptation. Everything that 
 places journalism above the suspicion of corruption is to be 
 commend* (1. The business of advertising is not only most 
 beneficial to the public, but it is extraordinarily remunerative 
 to the proprietor. Without it the greater portion of the press 
 would collapse. As long as it does not encroach upon the 
 iired for the free play of the vital functions of the 
 newspaper, advertising is a legitimate and healthy process. 
 And that indeed is the crucial test. Whatever interferes 
 with the duties of disseminating intelligence of public interest 
 and of commenting thereon should be sternly checked. But 
 . without cramping these functions, tends to create 
 for them an atmosphere in which corruption cannot live, is to 
 be retained and cultivated. 
 
 re is no contradiction here of what has been urged 
 st the deluge of personal and sometimes scandalous 
 hat ladies of any social standing should be unable 
 to lunch at a public restaurant without the fact being pro- 
 claimed from the housetops to the hundreds of thousands 
 who can afford to pay a halfpenny to hear it, is in itself 
 :>us and disgusting. But that the columns of the press 
 should be overflown with this sterilising weed is a calamity, 
 i of national importance is curtailed, or omitted, or 
 in a corner, to make room for trivialities which 
 do not possess even the trivial virtue of accuracy. They 
 rather recall the sneer of Fielding against the newspapers of 
 his own day, wherein he could discover neither truth nor 
 sense nor anyth: 
 
 h and powerful and inclined to be conceited, the press 
 occasionally takes upon itself to do all manner of things ex- 
 traneous to its province. The rule enunciated above is the 
 rule by which to judge them. If a newspaper engages to 
 exploit a charitable scheme or to arbitrate between labour 
 and capital, or to explore a continent, it runs the risk of 
 neglecting its regular duties, though it does not of necessity 
 neglect them. But in any case it must be prepared to face 
 certain taunt of self-advertisement. 
 
 So far as this essay has proceeded, if partiality has been 
 anywhere displayed, it has been displayed on behalf of, and 
 not against, the newspaper press. The recognition of that 
 fact should secure a fair hearing for the remainder, which 
 treats of the proper relationship between the law and the 
 journalist. 
 
 One of the least hopeful signs of modern politics is the 
 
26 
 
 continued servitude of large masses of minds to phrases and 
 catchwords. Men, who regard the reverence of high Tories 
 for the unreformed constitution and the devotion of Royalists 
 and Jacobites to the person of the monarch as grovelling 
 superstitions, are themselves the slaves of ideas no more 
 veracious and certainly less picturesque. One such idea is 
 that of an absolute, indefeasible " right of free speech," a 
 doctrine foreign to any decent system of ethics and stated in 
 language unknown to the law of England. As widely held 
 to-day, it is a doctrine thoroughly wicked and ridiculous, 
 a worthy child of the union of passion and nonsense which 
 passed for philosophy in the France of the Revolution. It is 
 a doctrine moreover which cannot be, ought not to be, and 
 as a matter of fact is not recognized by any existing State, 
 however democratic in its polity. 
 
 The publication of news is not only the most obvious 
 function of the newspaper, but in a free State it is also the 
 n most indispensable. Where the nation at large is required 
 \ to arrive at a judgment, full and reliable information must be 
 \ carried into every home with cheapness and celerity. Only 
 \ the press can accomplish the task, and if the press abuse its 
 power to deceive the people there is no guarantee against a 
 calamitous decision. Whosoever with deliberate and mali- 
 cious intent disseminates a lie about public affairs should be 
 punishable at law. It may be said that the jealousy of 
 watchful rivals is a sufficient antidote for mendacity in the 
 press. This is true of the better sort of papers, especially in 
 England, but it is by no means true universally. And even 
 in England there is a subtle and insidious mode of falsifying 
 news which the best of journals have not disavowed. All 
 items that tell in favour of the party are expanded and made 
 much of, while all of an opposite complexion are abridged or 
 omitted. Such an abuse defies the law, but downright lying 
 can and should be grappled with. And if this be desirable 
 now, how much more desirable in the unruly past ! Now-a- 
 days a slander may come and go, leaving scarcely a ripple 
 on the surface of affairs, which under George III. would 
 have meant riot, under Henry VIII. insurrection. In States 
 where the people have no voice in the government the case 
 for legal interference is equally strong. Infinite lying may 
 expand to infinity the difficulty of ruling. The statesmen of 
 all ages have recognized the peril, and have taken steps to 
 meet it. Few sights are more contemptible than to see the 
 little gospellers of free speech or free trade, or some other 
 revealed law which altereth not, lecturing and patronising 
 these " simple great ones gone." 
 
 Moreover the argument is not restricted to false or garbled 
 
2 7 
 
 intelligence. News of unquestionable truth may be dangerous 
 or demoralising to publish. There would, for example, be 
 good cause for congratulation if the press were disabled from 
 reproducing the indecencies of the Divorce Court. Descrip- 
 < ports of its nauseous proceedings, set out with vulgar 
 iines and grotesque illustrations, corrupt the morals 
 ut preserving the liberty of the nation. Similarly, on 
 self-evident grounds the press should be required to exercise 
 a patriotic discretion in revealing the secrets of diplomacy 
 and war. Every day the public, curiosity renders it more and 
 more difficult to conduct the foreign policy of England in the 
 face of mysterious cabinets like that of St. Petersburg. 
 \Yhrn statesmen and soldiers protest, the press stands ab- 
 surdly on its dignity, and continues to do the wrong. In 
 .ml the time for interference has gone by, but the full 
 reckoning is yet to be paid. 
 
 Nor is comment on any different footing from news in 
 these respects. There are times when opinion must be 
 regarded as action, and as carrying with it all the respon- 
 sibility of action. Even Mill was aware of this when he 
 wrote " An opinion that corndealers are starvers of the poor, 
 or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested 
 when simply circulated through the press, but may justly 
 incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob 
 assembled before the house of a corndealer, or when handed 
 about among the same mob in the form of a placard." This 
 :e, though certain feeble followers of Mill deny the 
 distinction. But it is also true that, if a study of the news- 
 papers induced the assembling of the mob, the journalists 
 were accomplices in any crime that ensued. Even Cavour 
 has said : "I respect great principles but principles are one 
 thing, their application another; in their application it is 
 necessary to take account of time and circumstance." (Jlow 
 far the suppression of inflammatory utterances by law is 
 desirable can never be stated in universal terms! | The 
 T depends upon the character of the government and 
 of the governed, upon the existing position and past history 
 of the country, and upon innumerable conditions which vary 
 in every instance. Of course the doctrinaires may always 
 argue that an opinion, being a distinct species, can only be 
 properly encountered by another opinion. The reasoning is 
 valid, but it is based upon the assumption that the thing 
 called opinion, whether public or private, is deserving of the 
 name. In reality it is hardly ever opinion in the philosophical 
 sense, but largely and often entirely prejudice. Humiliating 
 as the confession sounds, the majority of civilised men are 
 incapable of abstract thought. Moreover, upon a variety of 
 
28 
 
 questions, even trained and accurate logicians are the play- 
 things of passion. Not until one half of our human nature is 
 annihilated can the theory of an absolute irrefragible liberty 
 of opinion possess either morality or truth. 
 
 Whether prosecution is the best method of suppressing 
 license is a point of policy. In England generally it is not 
 the best, if only because the prosecuted always secure the 
 prestige of the persecuted. Sometimes a more excellent way 
 is to take the doctrinaires at their word, and confront the 
 base creature they call opinion by baser creatures of its own 
 kind. When lies are steadily faced with lies, and insult 
 with insult, a reduction to absurdity ensues. From the time 
 when Milo checkmated the gladiators of Clodius with other 
 gladiators, to the time when Hook defied the Radicals of 
 the Regency with John Btill, the irritation produced by this 
 device has been the measure of its success. There is much 
 to be said for these practical proofs that violence and outrage 
 are not of necessity the healthy effervescence of a righteously 
 indignant democracy, but are commodities always at the 
 disposal of a well-filled purse. 
 
 In England the relations subsisting between the law and 
 the press are highly characteristic of the temper of the 
 people. The liberty of the ancient world was positive and 
 active. It was satisfied with nothing short of personal 
 participation in the business of government. Modern liberty 
 is negative and passive. It looks upon government as 
 something external, even hostile to the individual, and 
 nourishes no larger ambition than to be let alone. On the 
 continent of Europe this theory is controlled in practice by 
 the immense discretionary powers of the executive. But the 
 English are impatient of all authorities save one, the authority 
 of their ancient laws. In these, as tested by experience and 
 continually amended by Parliament, they have implicit con- 
 fidence. They dislike the creation of special offences or 
 special classes of offenders, firmly believing that no male- 
 factor is too powerful, no evil too extensive for the established 
 laws to grapple with. 
 
 Only for one century in English history has the executive 
 been expected by the nation to over-ride the law. That 
 century expired with Elizabeth Tudor, before the press came 
 into being. A reversion to the supremacy of law was not 
 effected without agony. Politically, and apart from its 
 immense religious motive, the conflict of the iyth century was 
 concerned with methods rather than with things. Englishmen 
 resented not that Prynne, Burton and Bastwick should have 
 their ears clipped, but that the Star Chamber should have 
 commanded the clipping. This issue, with all its tragical 
 
2Q 
 
 concomitants, was decided while the press was still in its 
 
 infancy. As one result of the decision, the press to-day, 
 
 tremendous engine as it is, must answer for misconduct to 
 
 no extraordinary tribunal. In common with the lowest 
 
 blackguard a great London " daily " may be called upon to 
 
 demonstrate to the satisfaction of a jury that it has not 
 
 ^ d the law of libel. On the one hand there are in 
 
 England neither censors, licenses, nor press-laws ; on the other 
 
 there are no abstract rights of free speech or free opinion. An 
 
 English subject, wheti . :itr the papers or read them, 
 
 ie privilege of s nd doing what he 
 
 short of cont: tlu law of the land. So long as 
 
 he injures nobody, that law is not concerned with him, unless 
 
 to protect him against injury from another. liould 
 
 he stand convicted of wrongdoing, no French philosophy and 
 
 no windy declamation about the rights of man will relieve him 
 
 punishment. 
 
 _;lish press has not always escaped exceptional 
 . The Censorship and the Licensing Act, ideas asso- 
 ciated for ever with the Bishops, the S imber, ai 
 Roger L'Estrange, quietly lapsed at the Revolution. Their 
 i had been the pamphlet, in days when the newspaper 
 carcely born. But before the death of Anne a <1 
 was discovered for crippling the press which served that pur- 
 pose far down into the present century. The Tories selected 
 the newspaper as a subject for taxation, not because the . 
 
 yden and Swift had conscientious objections to political 
 . but chiefly from a desire to damage the Opposition. 
 Of course the weapon was double-edged, and the net result of 
 the entire, subsequent policy of fiscal burdens was to hamper 
 the press without distinction of party while it swelled the 
 national revenue. Two classes of people resisted the removal 
 of these burdens, those who feared increased taxation, and 
 those who feared increased licentiousness. One unanswerable 
 argument was advanced upon the other side. The re- 
 spectable press was too expensive for the poor man, but the 
 base, unstamped periodical was within his reach. A law which 
 cannot be enforced had better be abolished in the interests of 
 all law. When, i :i, it promotes the spread of false- 
 
 hood and immorality at the same time that it checks the 
 diffusion of their antidote, the circumstances that could justify 
 its retention are not easily conceived. 
 
 There have been other burdens which, though not specially 
 
 ed upon the press, have been specially felt by it. One 
 
 the Commons' jealously guarded privilege of secret 
 
 nother the old interpretation of the law of libel which 
 
 ith the jury. A third was the repressive 
 
30 
 
 severity of Tory administrations between the years 1789 
 and 1832. The drastic policy of Pitt and his successors, like 
 the execution of the Catilinarian conspirators, must for ever 
 remain a subject of controversy. But sufficient material for 
 approving or condemning it can only be derived from the 
 circumstances of the time. Several weighty and well-judged 
 arguments may be urged upon both sides, always excepting 
 the assumption of any abstract right. 
 
 When all is said that can be said of the troublous periods 
 in the history of English journalism, the consistent superiority 
 of its position remains unimpaired. Historically indeed the 
 grounds of comparison are meagre in the extreme. Down to 
 the Revolution of 1789 even the " politest" nation of Europe 
 possessed no newspaper save the official Gazette and the 
 journals of fashion, art, science and agriculture. Excursions 
 into French politics terminated in the galleys. Writing just 
 before the great catastrophe, Young placed on record the 
 " frightful ignorance among the people of events which ought 
 to interest them most." The continental press indeed is a 
 product of the nineteenth century, and of the later rather 
 than the earlier portion of that century. Only in two states, 
 the Republics of France and America, does journalism 
 flourish on a sufficiently large and liberal scale to render 
 comparison with England possible. To institute such a 
 comparison is not one of the purposes of this essay. It is 
 enough to observe that under the English system of law and 
 government the press has attained to a position of utility 
 and strength without parallel. And in any sense, moral, 
 political, or literary, in which the attribute of purity can be 
 attached to a newspaper, it is the purest in the world. To 
 argue from such facts that the English system is absolutely 
 and universally the best would be to perpetrate the very 
 fallacy which has been combated in the preceding pages. 
 But the facts themselves are not to be controverted. Despite 
 the shortcomings and delinquencies of the English press (and 
 some of these have not been whitewashed in this essay), a 
 patriotic Englishman would not be ashamed that his country 
 should be judged abroad by her newspapers. Could any self- 
 respecting French or American citizen accept a similar test ? 
 
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