expression in
the clauses of beneficent Bills.

These are the publicists. As individuals they are of value to the
community according to the value of the views they hold and express. As
a class they are of value to the community because the views they hold
and express, whether right or wrong, are _sincere_. In contrast with the
great body of the Capitalist Press that expresses anonymous opinions
which, whether sincere or not (and it can be proved that they are often
quite insincere), must still necessarily aim at the maintenance and
strengthening of present social and economic conditions, these men
express their own personal convictions as to what is wrong with the
world and how, as _they_ think, the world may be made a better place.

It is this inestimable quality of sincerity which links Mr. Belloc with
the too small band of publicists of the day. It has been said of Mr.
Belloc that he is a "man of independent mind, and, where necessary, of
unpopular attitude ... his estimates, right or wrong, are his own ... he
carries a sword to grasp not an axe to grind." In the following chapters
a brief exposition of Mr. Belloc's views both of Europe and of England
will be given with a short summary of his translation of these views
into the language of practical reforms; and we shall then be able to
form some estimate of Mr. Belloc's particular value to the community. In
his articles both on the military and on the political aspect of the war
Mr. Belloc is working, as we have seen, "for the instruction of public
opinion." That this is to-day true, moreover, of Mr. Belloc's whole
attitude towards the public is not fully realized. Large numbers of
people have found in Mr. Belloc's war articles their only hope of sanity
in the midst of distressing and unintelligible events. In the general
course of modern life events move less rapidly, but are equally
important, and there, too, Mr. Belloc has attempted with almost
pathetic lucidity to explain. His true earnestness will not be rewarded,
his true purpose will not be attained, until the thoughtful public
realizes that it can find in Mr. Belloc's historical and political
writings at large the guide to the formation of opinion and the help to
sanity which it has already found in his explanations of the war.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. BELLOC AND EUROPE

The beginning of Mr. Belloc's literary career was in history. He took a
first in the school of modern history at Oxford, and his f