I say at the close of these pages that I do not believe the new spirit
we have produced will lead to any system of self-government, economic
or political. I think the decay has gone too far for that. In this I
may be wrong; it is but an opinion with regard to the future. On the
other matter I have experience and immediate example before me, and I
am certain that the battle for free political discussion is now won.
Mere knowledge of our public evils, economic and political, will
henceforward spread; and though we must suffer the external
consequences of so prolonged a regime of lying, the lies are now known
to be lies. True expression, though it should bear no immediate and
practical fruit, is at least now guaranteed a measure of freedom, and
the coming evils which the State must still endure will at least not
be endured in silence. Therefore it was worth while fighting.

Very sincerely yours,
H. BELLOC.




The Free Press

I PROPOSE to discuss in what follows the evil of the great
modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and
misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble
hands; its correction by the formation of small independent
organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last.