republican experiment fares in Portugal, or how democracy advances in Australia or the United States. The space is needed for pictures of burned mansions and notorious murderers and the commonplace relatives of politicians, for verbatim reports of divorce and criminal cases, for inquests and royal processions, and for the magnificent speeches of Cabinet Ministers and would-be Cabinet Ministers.
This stricture applies to the press generally. How far it sacrifices to these meretricious purposes the serious function of educating the public has been painfully impressed on us by recent experience. Only one or two journals in England surpassed our drowsy politicians in sagacity and foresight. Though an extensive reader of German literature (scientific and historical), it had never been my business to follow political or military utterances; yet, when the war broke out and I looked back on Germany’s enormous output in this department, I realised that there had been in London for a year or two enough German literature to convince any moderate observer that war was fast approaching—and this was only a fragment of an enormously larger literature. Our press had ridiculed the one or two men and journals who warned the public of the danger. Further, when it transpired that our Government had met the crisis with painful slowness and inefficiency, nearly the whole press again conspired to check criticism, and it is probable that when the war is over the press will unite with the Churches in cultivating a foolish and dangerous
