with opinion when that opinion is against them. In England such a
jealousy does already largely exist, it has been cultivated with us
since the seventeenth century at least; America, it seemed to me
during my short visit to the States, has somewhat retrograded from its
former British standard in this respect, there is a crude majority
tyranny in the matter of publication, an un-English disposition to
boycott libraries, books, authors and publications upon petty issues,
a growing disposition to discriminate in the mails against unpopular
views. These interferences with open statement and discussion are
decivilizing forces.

Given a clear public understanding of these necessities as primary,
then one may point out that the next necessity for the mental
existence of a Socialist State is an extension and cheapening of the
impartial universal distributing activity of the public post so that
it becomes not only the means of correspondence, but also of
distributing books and newspapers, pamphlets and every form of printed
matter. The post-office must become bookseller and newsagent. In
France this is already the case with the press, and newspapers are
handed in not by the newsboy but by the public mail. In England
Messrs. Smith and Mudie, and so forth, may censor what they like among
periodicals or books. The remedy is more toilsome and vexatious than
the injury. Neither England nor America has any security against
finding its public supply of magazines or literature suddenly choked
by the manoeuvres of some blackmailing Book or News Trust squalidly
"fighting" author or publisher for an increase in its proportion of
profits, or interested in financial exploitations liable to exposure.
Neither country is secure against the complete control of its channels
of thought by some successful monopolistic adventurer....

The Socialist State will not for a moment permit such risks as these;
it must certainly be a ubiquitous newsvendor and bookseller; the
ordinary newsvendor and bookseller must become an impartial State
official, working for a sure and comfortable salary instead of for
precarious profits. And this amplification of the book and news post
and the book and news trades will need to be not simply a municipal
but a State service of the widest range.

Distribution, however, is only the beginning of the problem. There is
the more difficult issue of getting books and papers printed and
published. And here we come to an intri