It is the prevalence of this last attitude which so powerfully affects the position of the Free Press in this country.

When the judge lends himself to the politicians we all know what follows.

The instrument used is that of an accusation of libel, and, in cases where it is desired to establish terror, of criminal libel.

The defence of the man so accused must either be undertaken by a Member of the Legal Guild—­in which case the advocate’s own future depends upon his supporting the interests of the politicians and so betraying his client—­or, if some eccentric undertakes his own defence, the whole power of the Guild will be turned against him under forms of liberty which are no longer even hypocritical.  A special juryman, for instance, that should stand out against the political verdict desired would be a marked man.  But the point is not worth making, for, as a fact, no juryman ever has stood out lately when a political verdict was ordered.

Even in the case of so glaring an abuse, with which the whole country is now familiar, we must not exaggerate.  It would still be impossible for the politicians, for instance, to get a verdict during war in favour of an overt act of treason.  But after all, argument of this sort applies to any tyranny, and the power the politicians have and exercise of refusing to prosecute, however clear an act of treason or other grossly unpopular act might be, is equivalent to a power of acquittal.

The lawyers decide in the last resort on the freedom of speech and writing among their fellow-citizens, and as their Guild is now unhappily intertwined with the whole machinery of Executive Government, we have in modern England an executive controlling the expression of opinion.  It is absolute in a degree unknown, I think, in past society.

Now, it is evident that, of all forms of civic activity, writing upon the Free Press most directly challenges this arbitrary power.  There is not an editor responsible for the management of any Free Paper who will not tell you that a thousand times he has had to consider whether it were possible to tell a particular truth, however important that truth might be to the commonwealth.  And the fear which restrains him is the fear of destruction which the combination of the professional politician, and lawyer holds in its hand.  There is not one such editor who could not bear witness to the numerous occasions on which he had, however courageous he might be, to forgo the telling of a truth which was of vital value, because its publication would involve the destruction of the paper he precariously controlled.

There is no need to labour all this.  The loss of freedom we have gradually suffered is quite familiar to all of us, and it is among the worst of all the mortal symptoms with which our society is affected.

XIII

Why do I say, then, that in spite of such formidable obstacles, both in its own character and in the resistance it must overcome, the Free Press will probably increase in power, and may, in the long run, transform public opinion?