So far, we see the growth of the Press marked by these characteristics. (1) It falls into the hands of a very few rich men, and nearly always of men of base origin and capacities. (2) It is, in their hands, a mere commercial enterprise. (3) It is economically supported by advertisers who can in part control it, but these are of the same Capitalist kind, in motive and manner, with the owners of the papers.  Their power does not, therefore, clash in the main with that of the owners, but the fact that advertisement makes a paper, has created a standard of printing and paper such that no one—­save at a disastrous loss—­can issue regularly to large numbers news and opinion which the large Capitalist advertisers disapprove.

There would seem to be for any independent Press no possible economic basis, because the public has been taught to expect for 1d. what it costs 3d. to make—­the difference being paid by the advertisement subsidy.

But there is now a graver corruption at work even than this always negative and sometimes positive power of the advertiser.

It is the advent of the great newspaper owner as the true governing power in the political machinery of the State, superior to the officials in the State, nominating ministers and dismissing them, imposing policies, and, in general, usurping sovereignty—­all this secretly and without responsibility.

It is the chief political event of our time and is the peculiar mark of this country to-day.  Its full development has come on us suddenly and taken us by surprise in the midst of a terrible war.  It was undreamt of but a few years ago.  It is already to-day the capital fact of our whole political system.  A Prime Minister is made or deposed by the owner of a group of newspapers, not by popular vote or by any other form of open authority.

No policy is attempted until it is ascertained that the newspaper owner is in favour of it.  Few are proffered without first consulting his wishes.  Many are directly ordered by him.  We are, if we talk in terms of real things (as men do in their private councils at Westminster) mainly governed to-day, not even by the professional politicians, nor even by those who pay them money, but by whatever owner of a newspaper trust is, for the moment, the most unscrupulous and the most ambitious.

How did such a catastrophe come about?  That is what we must inquire into before going further to examine its operation and the possible remedy.

VI

During all this development of the Press there has been present, first, as a doctrine plausible and arguable; next, as a tradition no longer in touch with reality; lastly, as an hypocrisy still pleading truth, a certain definition of the functions of the Press; a doctrine which we must thoroughly grasp before proceeding to the nature of the Press in these our present times.