We have said enough to show that in internal affairs the influence of the press, when it directly interferes with Parliament is an anti-social force.  In matters of foreign policy the case is still worse.  The press is almost universally jingoistic, because it is financially interested in sensationalism.  A war generally means a fortune to newspaper proprietors.  In such matters, therefore, responsible leadership by Parliament is still more urgently required.

We now come to the claim of those ultra-democrats who preach the poisonous doctrines of direct government and of unrestrained majority rule, that responsible leadership is incompatible with popular government.  This claim, is of course, supported by the radical press in Australia.  We have already quoted from Mr. Syme’s work on “Representative Government in England” the extreme views in which he confuses representation with delegation.  “Popular government,” he declares, “can only exist where the people can exercise control over their representatives at all times and under all circumstances.”  The method proposed to obtain this control is to give a majority of the constituents power to dismiss a representative at any time, and is utterly impracticable.  Imagine the position of a member elected by a majority of one or two votes!  The true way to prevent members abusing their trust is not to increase the direct control of the people, but to prevent the control of the press and all other irresponsible agencies over them; and so to ensure the return of better men.

Perhaps the most striking anomaly in Mr. Syme’s position is that, while he would confine the office of Parliament to expressing public opinion, he declares in the same work that “the press at once forms and expresses public opinion."[2] Now, it is quite true that if Parliament is weak and disorganized, or occupies itself in fighting for the spoils of office, the power of forming public opinion is thrown into the hands of the press.  But the more power is seized by the press, the more Parliament is degraded, and the less is the chance of recovery.  The situation presents little difficulty to Mr. Syme.  Every newspaper reader, he declares, “becomes, as it were, a member of that vast assembly, which may be said to embrace the whole nation, so widely are newspapers now read.  Had we only the machinery for recording the votes of that assembly, we might easily dispense with Parliament altogether.”

These ideas are not of mere academic interest; they have dominated the trend of Victorian politics for many years.  The time has now arrived for the people to consider whether it is better to keep a Parliament of weak delegates to express the public opinion which is formed by the press than to elect a Parliament of “leaders of the people,” highly-trained legists, economists, and sociologists, to form and direct the public opinion which is expressed by the newspapers.  Why should the principle of leadership, as exemplified in Mr. Syme’s own career, be given full scope in the press, and entirely repressed in Parliament?  As to the kind of influence we mean, no better description could be given than that of the well-known Labour leader, Mr. H.H.  Champion.  In an open letter to Mr. David Syme in the Champion of 22nd June, 1895, he wrote:—­