It is the way with all human institutions; they remain in appearance long after they have passed away in reality.  It is on record that the Roman senate still thought Rome was a republic in the third century of the Christian era.  It is nothing wonderful, therefore, that people suppose that the King, the Lords, and the Commons, debating through a Ministry and an Opposition, still govern the British Empire.  As a matter of fact it is the lawyer-politicians, split by factions that simulate the ancient government and opposition, who rule, under a steadily growing pressure and checking by the Press.  Since this war began the Press has released itself almost inadvertently from its last association with the dying conflicts of party politics, and has taken its place as a distinct power in the realm, claiming to be more representative of the people than their elected representatives, and more expressive of the national mind and will.

Now there is considerable validity in this claim.  It is easy to say that a paper may be bought by any proprietor and set to put what he chooses into the public mind.  As a matter of fact, buying a newspaper is far more costly and public a proceeding than buying a politician.  And if on the one hand the public has no control over what is printed in a paper, it has on the other the very completest control over what is read.  A politician is checked by votes cast once in several years, a newspaper is checked by sales that vary significantly from day to day.  A newspaper with no circulation is a newspaper that does not matter; a few weeks will suffice to show if it has carried its public with it or gone out of influence.  It is absurd to speak of a newspaper as being less responsible than a politician.

Nevertheless, the influence of a great newspaper is so much greater than that of any politician, and its power more particularly for mischief—­for the creation of panic conditions, for example—­so much swifter, that it is open to question whether the Press is at present sufficiently held to its enormous responsibilities.

Let us consider its weaknesses at the present time, let us ask what changes in its circumstances are desirable in the public interest, and what are likely to come about.  We have already reckoned upon the Press as a chief factor in the adequate criticism, cleansing, and modernisation of the British lawyer-politician; is there any power to which we may look for the security of the Press?  And I submit the answer is the Press.  For while the legal profession is naturally homogeneous, the Press is by nature heterogeneous.  Dog does not eat dog, nor lawyer, lawyer; but the newspapers are sharks and cannibals, they are in perpetual conflict, the Press is a profession as open as the law is closed; it has no anti-social guild feeling; it washes its dirty linen in public by choice and necessity, and disdains all professional etiquette.  Few people know what criticisms of the Lord Chief Justice may have ripened in the minds of Lord Halsbury or Sir Edward Carson, but we all know, to a very considerable degree of accuracy, the worst of what this great journalist or group of newspaper proprietors thinks of that.