The Free Press | Page 2

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