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?

It is with the argument in favour of this judgment that I will
conclude.

My reasons for forming this judgment are based not only upon the
observation of others but upon my own experience.

I started the "Eye-Witness" (succeeded by the "New Witness" under the
editorship of Mr. Cecil Chesterton, who took it over from me some
years ago, and now under the editorship of his brother, Mr. Gilbert
Chesterton) with the special object of providing a new organ of free
expression.

I knew from intimate personal experience exactly how formidable all
these obstacles were.

I knew how my own paper could not but appear particular and personal,
and could not but suffer from that eccentricity to general opinion of
which I have spoken. I had a half-tragic and half-comic experience of
the economic difficulty; of the difficulty of obtaining information;
of the difficulty in distribution, and all the rest of it. The editor
of "The New Age" could provide an exactly similar record. I had
experience, and after me Mr. Cecil Chesterton had experience, of the
thre