“The Scrutineer is getting just like all the rest of them,” commented George.  “It’s being run for money, only they make their pile as yet by playing to the gallery while the other papers play to the stalls and dress circle.”

“It has done splendid work for the movement, just the same,” said Ford.  “Admit it’s a business concern and that everybody growls at it, it’s the only paper that dares knock things.”

“It’s a pity there isn’t a good straight daily here,” said Geisner.  “That’s the want all over the world.  It seems impossible to get them, though.”

“Why is it?” demanded Nellie.  “It’s the working people who buy the evening papers at least.  Why shouldn’t they buy straight papers sooner than these sheets of lies that are published?”

“I’ve seen it tried,” answered Geisner, “but I never saw it done.  The London Star is going as crooked as the others I’m told.”

“I don’t see why the unions shouldn’t start dailies,” insisted Nellie.  “I suppose it costs a great deal but they could find the money if they tried hard.”

“They haven’t been able to run weeklies yet,” said George, authoritatively.  “And they never will until they get a system, much less run dailies.”

“Why?” asked Ned.  “You see,” he continued, “our fellows are always talking of getting a paper.  They get so wild sometimes when they read what the papers say about the unions and know what lies most of it is that I’ve seen them tear the papers up and dance a war-dance on the pieces.”

“It’s along story to explain properly,” said George.  “Roughly it amounts to this that papers live on advertisements as well as on circulation and that advertisers are sharp business men who generally put the boycott on papers that talk straight.  Then the cable matter, the telegraph matter, the news matter, is all procured by syndicates and companies and mutual arrangement between papers which cover the big cities between them and run on much the same lines, the solid capitalistic lines, you know.  Then newspaper stock, when it pays, is valuable enough to make the holder a capitalist; when it doesn’t pay he’s still more under the thumb of the advertisers.  The whole complex organisation of the press is against the movement and only those who’re in it know how complex it is.”

“Then there’ll never be a Labour press, you think?”

“There will be a Labour press, I think,” said George, turning Josie’s hair round his fingers.  “When the unions get a sound system it’ll come.”

“What do you mean by your sound system, George?” asked Geisner.

“Just this!  That the unions themselves will publish their own papers, own their own plant, elect their own editors, paying for it all by levies or subscriptions.  Then they can snap their fingers at advertisers and as every union man will get the union paper there’ll be a circulation established at once.  They can begin with monthlies and come down to weeklies.  When they have learnt thoroughly the system, and when every colony has its weekly or weeklies, then they’ll have a chance for dailies, not before.”