en
this world we know must perish. Custom alone blinds us to the fact,
plain to the open eye. Scotland cannot feed her people but for a few
weeks in the year. For the rest they must be fed by the food brought
from overseas by the fruits of our industries. If these industries
fail ... we perish. The Clyde will no longer hum with the throbbing
engines or great ships come with food.... And every strike, every
stoppage of labour, is but a step towards the abyss.... But probably
that is what God means. He makes the wrath of men to praise Him--He
will use hunger as the instrument wherewith to scatter the great
Scottish race broadcast over the world, to people the mighty plains of
Canada and the wastes of Australasia. A great silence will fall over
the plain of central Scotland. The most hideous of all the workings of
man will be beautified when the lichen grows over the crumbling ruins.
The mavis will sing in the thorn-tree, dewy with fragrance, where
Motherwell now stands ... or Anderston. That may be the hidden purpose
of our follies and our crimes. This, at least, is sure, that if we
cannot shake ourselves loose from the grip of custom--custom will be
our destruction.

CHAPTER V

THE LAST DELIVERANCE

Every great social advance made by men in the past has been made under
the pressure of public opinion. That public opinion was created by a
free and an unfettered Press. The grim fact that we are now faced with
is that the day of the free Press is over. Syndicates of capitalists
control the Press of the country, and newspapers whose circulation
approaches a couple of millions create the opinion their owners desire.
The duty of the newspaper is to record facts, and communicate to the
people the correct data on which public opinion can be based. If the
Press purposely suppresses what is true, lends itself to the colouring
of the records so that the false seems to be the true and the true
false, then it becomes the greatest public peril. A generation that is
doped with doctored news can scarcely arrive at the truth. The
newspapers are supplied free by the bureaux of the interested with news
that serve their purpose. Thus it comes that the machinery for
creating public opinion is largely in the hands of those whose purpose
is that public opinion shall not destroy or lessen their profits.
There are noble exceptions; but, taking it as a whole, the syndicated
Press of this country is no longer a mirror o