(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 not only increasing but has long been quite out of
proportion to their numerical status.

Things happen because of words printed in "The New Age" and the "New
Witness." That is less and less true of what I have called the
official press. The phenomenon is worth analysing. Its intellectual
interest alone will arrest the attention of any future historian. Here
is a force numerically quite small, lacking the one great obvious
power of our time (which is the power to bribe), rigidly boycotted--so
much so that it is hardly known outside the circle of its immediate