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 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
adherents and quite unknown abroad. Yet this force is doing work--is
creating--at a moment when almost everything else is marking time; and
the work it is doing grows more and more apparent.
The reason is, of course, the principle which was a commonplace with
antiquity, though it was almost forgotten in the last modern
generation, that truth has a power of its own. Mere indignation
against organized falsehood, mere revolt against it, is creative.
It is the thesis of this little essay, as you will see, that the Free
Press will succeed in its main object which is the making of the truth
known.
There was a moment, I confess, when I would not have written so
hopefully.
Some years ago, especially after I had founded the "Eye-Witness," I
was, in the tedium of the effort, half convinced that success could
not be obtained. It is a mood which accompanies exile. To produce that
mood is the very object of the boycott to which the Free Press is
subjected.
But I have lived, in the last five years, to see that this mood was
false. It is now clear that steady work in the exposure of what is
evil, whatever forces are brought to bear against that exposure, bears
fruit. That is the reason I have written the few pages printed here:
To convince men that even to-day one can do something in the way of
political reform, and that even to-day there is room for something of
free speech.
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.