We must consider separately, for it is not universal but peculiar to
our own society, the heavy disability under which the Free Press
suffers in this country from the now unchecked power of the political
lawyers.
I have no need to emphasize the power of a Guild when it is once
formed, and has behind it strong corporate traditions. It is the
principal thesis of "The New Age," in which this essay first appeared,
that national guilds, applied to the whole field of society, would be
the saving of it through their inherent strength and vitality.
Such guilds as we still have among us (possessed of a Charter giving
them a monopoly, and, therefore, making them in "The New Age" phrase
"black-leg proof") are confined, of course, to the privileged
wealthier classes. The two great ones with which we are all familiar
are those of the Doctors and of the Lawyers.
What their power is we saw in the sentencing to one of the most
terrible punishments known to all civilized Europe--twelve months
hard labour--of a man who had exercised his supposed right to give
medical advice to a patient who had freely consulted him. The patient
happened to die, as she might have died in the hands of a regular
Guild doctor. It has been known for patients to die under the hands of
regular Guild doctors. But the mishap taking place in the hands of
some one who was _not_ of the Guild, although the advice had been
freely sought and honestly given, the person who infringed the
monopoly of the Guild suffered this savage piece of revenge.
But even the Guild of the Doctors is not so powerful as that of the
Lawyers, _qua_ guild alone. Its administrative power makes it far more
powerful. The well-to-do are not compelled to employ a doctor, but all
are compelled to employ a lawyer at every turn, and that at a cost
quite unknown anywhere else in Europe. But this power of the legal
guild, _qua_ guild, in modern England is supplemented by further
administrative and arbitrary powers attached to a selected number of
its members.
Now the Lawyers' Guild has latterly become (to its own hurt as it will
find) hardly distinguishable from the complex of professional
politics.
One need not be in Parliament many days to discover that most laws are
made and all revised by members of this Guild. Parliament is, as a
drafting body, virtually a Committee of Lawyers who are indifferent to
the figment of representation which still clings to the House of
Commons.
It should be added that this part of their work is honestly done, that
the greatest labour is devoted to it, and that it is only consciously
tyrannical or fraudulent when the Legal Guild feels _itself_ to be in
danger.
But far more important than the legislative power of the Legal Guild
(which is now the chief framer of statutory law as it has long been
the _salutary_ source of common law) is its executive or governing
power.
Whether after exposing a political scandal you shall or shall not be
subject to the risk of ruin or loss of liberty, and all the
exceptionally cruel scheme of modern imprisonment, depends negatively
upon the Legal Guild. That is, so long as the lawyers support the
politicians you have no redress, and only in case of independent
action by the lawyers against the politicians, with whom they have
come to be so closely identified, have you any opportunity for
discussion and free trial. The old idea of the lawyer on the Bench
protecting the subject against the arbitrary power of the executive,
of the judge independent of the government, has nearly disappeared.
You may, of course, commit any crime with impunity if the professional
politicians among the lawyers refuse to prosecute. But that is only a
negative evil. More serious is the positive side of the affair: that
you may conversely be put at the _risk_ of any penalty if they desire
to put you at that risk; for the modern secret police being ubiquitous
and privileged, their opponent can be decoyed into peril at the will
of those who govern, even where the politicians dare not prosecute him
for exposing corruption.
Once the citizen has been put at this peril--that is, brought into
court before the lawyers--whether it shall lead to his actual ruin or
no is again in the hands of members of the legal guild; the judge
_may_ (it has happened), withstand the politicians (by whom he was
made, to whom he often belongs, and upon whom his general position
to-day depends). He _may_ stand out, or--as nearly always now--he will
identify himself with the political system and act as its mouthpiece.
It is the prevalence of this last attitude which so powerfully affects
the position of the Free Press in this country.
When the judge lends himself to the politicians we all know what
follows.
The instrument used is that of an accusation of libel, and, in cases
where it is desired to establish terror, of criminal libel.
The defence of the man so accused must either be undertaken by a
Member of the Legal Guild--in which case the advocate's own future
depends upon his supporting the interests of the politicians and so
betraying his client--or, if some eccentric undertakes his own
defence, the whole power of the Guild will be turned against him under
forms of liberty which are no longer even hypocritical. A special
juryman, for instance, that should stand out against the political
verdict desired would be a marked man. But the point is not worth
making, for, as a fact, no juryman ever has stood out lately when a
political verdict was ordered.
Even in the case of so glaring an abuse, with which the whole country
is now familiar, we must not exaggerate. It would still be impossible
for the politicians, for instance, to get a verdict during war in
favour of an overt act of treason. But after all, argument of this
sort applies to any tyranny, and the power the politicians have and
exercise of refusing to prosecute, however clear an act of treason or
other grossly unpopular act might be, is equivalent to a power of
acquittal.
The lawyers decide in the last resort on the freedom of speech and
writing among their fellow-citizens, and as their Guild is now
unhappily intertwined with the whole machinery of Executive
Government, we have in modern England an executive controlling the
expression of opinion. It is absolute in a degree unknown, I think, in
past society.
Now, it is evident that, of all forms of civic activity, writing upon
the Free Press most directly challenges this arbitrary power. There is
not an editor responsible for the management of any Free Paper who
will not tell you that a thousand times he has had to consider whether
it were possible to tell a particular truth, however important that
truth might be to the commonwealth. And the fear which restrains him
is the fear of destruction which the combination of the professional
politician, and lawyer holds in its hand. There is not one such editor
who could not bear witness to the numerous occasions on which he had,
however courageous he might be, to forgo the telling of a truth which
was of vital value, because its publication would involve the
destruction of the paper he precariously controlled.
There is no need to labour all this. The loss of freedom we have
gradually suffered is quite familiar to all of us, and it is among the
worst of all the mortal symptoms with which our society is affected.