The whole of England was concerned during the second year of the War
with the first rise in the price of food. There was no man so rich but
he had noticed it in his household books, and for nine families out of
ten it was the one pre-occupation of the moment. I do not say the
great newspapers did not deal with it, but _how_ did they deal with
it? With a mass advocacy in favour of this professional politician or
that; with a mass of unco-ordinated advices; and, above all, with a
mass of nonsense about the immense earnings of the proletariat. The
whole thing was really and deliberately side-tracked for months until,
by the mere force of things, it compelled attention. Each of us is a
witness to this. We have all seen it. Every single reader of these
lines knows that my indictment is true. Not a journalist of the
hundreds who were writing the falsehood or the rubbish at the
dictation of his employer but had felt the strain upon the little
weekly cheque which was his _own_ wage. Yet this enormous national
thing was at first not dealt with at all in the Press, and, when dealt
with, was falsified out of recognition.
I could give any number of other, and, perhaps, minor instances as the
times go (but still enormous instances as older morals went) of the
same thing. They have shown the incapacity and falsehood of the great
capitalist newspapers during these few months of white-hot crisis in
the fate of England.
This is not a querulous complaint against evils that are human and
necessary, and therefore always present. I detest such waste of
energy, and I agree with all my heart in the statement recently made
by the Editor of "The New Age" that in moments such as these, when any
waste is inexcusable, sterile complaint is the _worst_ of waste. But
my complaint here is not sterile. It is fruitful. This Capitalist
Press has come at last to warp all judgment. The tiny oligarchy which
controls it is irresponsible and feels itself immune. It has come to
believe that it can suppress any truth and suggest any falsehood. It
governs, and governs abominably: and it is governing thus in the midst
of a war for life.