The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Free Press, by Hilaire Belloc

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Title: The Free Press

Author: Hilaire Belloc

Release Date: March 19, 2006 [eBook #18018]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE FREE PRESS

by

HILAIRE BELLOC

London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Ruskin House 40 Museum Street W.C 1
First published in 1918
(All rights reserved)

DEDICATION

KINGS LAND,
SHIPLEY, HORSHAM.
_October 14, 1917._

MY DEAR ORAGE,

I dedicate this little essay to you not only because "The New Age"
(which is your paper) published it in its original form, but much more
because you were, I think, the pioneer, in its modern form at any
rate, of the Free Press in this country. I well remember the days when
one used to write to "The New Age" simply because one knew it to be
the only paper in which the truth with regard to our corrupt politics,
or indeed with regard to any powerful evil, could be told. That is now
some years ago; but even to-day there is only one other paper in
London of which this is true, and that is the "New Witness." Your
paper and that at present edited by Mr. Gilbert Chesterton are the
fullest examples of the Free Press we have.

It is significant, I think, that these two papers differ entirely in
the philosophies which underlie their conduct and in the social ends
at which they aim. In other words, they differ entirely in religion
which is the ultimate spring of all political action. There is perhaps
no single problem of any importance in private or in public morals
which the one would not attempt to solve in a fashion different from,
and usually antagonistic to, the other. Yet we discover these two
papers with their limited circulation, their lack of advertisement
subsidy, their restriction to a comparatively small circle, possessing
a power which is n