Next consider this powerful factor in the business. _The truth
confirms itself._
Half a million people read of a professional politician, for instance,
that his oratory has an "electric effect," or that he is "full of
personal magnetism," or that he "can sway an audience to tears or
laughter at will." A Free Paper telling the truth about him says that
he is a dull speaker, full of commonplaces, elderly, smelling strongly
of the Chapel, and giving the impression that he is tired out;
flogging up sham enthusiasm with stale phrases which the reporters
have already learnt to put into shorthand with one conventional
outline years ago.[1]
Well, the false, the ludicrously false picture designed to put this
politician in the limelight (as against favours to be rendered), no
doubt remains the general impression with most of those 500,000
people. The simple and rather tawdry truth may be but doubtfully
accepted by a few hundreds only.
But sooner or later a certain small proportion of the 500,000 actually
_hear_ the politician in question. They hear him speak. They receive a
primary and true impression.
If they had not read anything suggesting the truth, it is quite upon
the cards that the false suggestion would still have weight with
them, in spite of the evidence of their senses. Men are so built that
uncontradicted falsehood sufficiently repeated does have that curious
power of illusion. A man having heard the speech delivered by the old
gentleman, if there were nothing but the Official Press to inform
opinion, might go away saying to himself: "I was not very much
impressed, but no doubt that was due to my own weariness. I cannot but
believe that the general reputation he bears is well founded. He must
be a great orator, for I have always heard him called one."
But a man who has even once seen it stated that this politician was
_exactly what he was_ will vividly remember that description (which at
first hearing he probably thought false); physical experience has
confirmed the true statement and made it live. These statements of
truth, even when they are quite unimportant, more, of course, when
they illuminate matters of great civic moment, have a cumulative
effect.
I am confident, for instance, that at the present time the mass of
middle-class people are not only acquainted with, but convinced of,
the truth, that, long before the war, the House of Commons had become
a fraud; that its debates did not turn upon matters which really
divided opinion, and that even its paltry debating points, the
pretence of a true opposition was a falsehood.
This salutary truth had been arrived at, of course, by many other
channels. The scandalous arrangement between the Front Benches which
forced the Insurance Act down our throats was an eye-opener for the
great masses of the people. So was the cynical action of the
politicians in the matter of Chinese Labour after the Election of
1906. So was the puerile stage play indulged in over things like the
Welsh Disestablishment Bill and the Education Bills.
But among the forces which opened people's eyes about the House of
Commons, the Free Press played a very great part, though it was never
mentioned in the big Official papers, and though not one man in many
hundreds of the public ever heard of it. The few who read it were
startled into acceptance by the exact correspondence between its
statement and observed fact.
The man who tells the truth when his colleagues around him are lying,
always enjoys a certain restricted power of prophecy. If there were a
general conspiracy to maintain the falsehood that all peers were over
six foot high, a man desiring to correct this falsehood would be
perfectly safe if he were to say: "I do not know whether the _next_
peer you meet will be over six foot or not, but I am pretty safe in
prophesying that you will find, among the next dozen three or four
peers less than six foot high."
If there were a general conspiracy to pretend that people with incomes
above the income-tax level never cheated one in a bargain, one could
not say "on such-and-such a day you will be cheated in a bargain by
such-and-such a person, whose income will be above the income-tax
level," but one could say; "Note the people who swindle you in the
next five years, and I will prophesy that some of the number will be
people paying income-tax."
This power of prophecy, which is an adjunct of truth telling, I have
noticed to affect people very profoundly.
A worthy provincial might have been shocked ten years ago to hear that
places in the Upper House of Parliament were regularly bought and
sold. He might have indignantly denied it The Free Press said: "In
some short while you will have a glaring instance of a man who is
incompetent and obscure but very rich, appearing as a legislator with
permanent hereditary power, transferable to his son after his death. I
don't know which the next one will be, but there is bound to be a case
of the sort quite soon for the thing goes on continually. You will be
puzzled to explain it. The explanation is that the rich man has given
a large sum of money to the needy professional politician, Selah."
Our worthy provincial may have heard but an echo of this truth, for it
would have had, ten years ago, but few readers. He may not have seen a
syllable of it in his daily paper. But things happen. He sees first a
great soldier, then a well-advertised politician, not a rich man, but
very widely talked about, made peers. The events are normal in each
case, and he is not moved. But sooner or later there comes a case in
which he has local knowledge. He says to himself: "Why on earth is
So-and-so made a peer (or a front bench man, or what not)? Why, in the
name of goodness, is this very rich but unknown, and to my knowledge
incompetent, man suddenly put into such a position?" Then he remembers
what he was told, begins to ask questions, and finds out, of course,
that money passed; perhaps, if he is lucky, he finds out which
professional politician pouched the money--and even how much he took!