126 DAMMING THE STREAM OF CHANGE

history* I am asking that question still Neither I nor
anyone else knows the answer to it*

Suppose all the newspapers, or almost all of them,
were to shout in chorus that the country was being ruined
by inept democracy, or that it had been insulted by some
other country and must wipe out the affront in blood,
would there be an affirmative or a negative reaction?
Nobody can tell.

It may be that half the number of people who read
newspapers still believe all they read* Until twenty years
ago the proportion was probably ninety in a hundred*
Of those who discuss public affairs, by far the greater
number still repeat statements with which a newspaper
has provided them* Yet we know little, scarcely anything,
for certain about the possibilities of this tremendous force,
which is also a flourishing industry* It has been inter-
preted to the public only in flattering, insincere speeches
by politicians (who are mightily afraid of it), and in
books which make little attempt to mirror more than its
surface aspects*

The superficiality of such books, the insincerity of such
speeches, make them entirely worthless* Both authors
and orators pay tribute to what is called " the influence of
the Press*" But they never define it, they do not speak
of its limitations, they avoid saying exactly what it is.

Of direct influence the Press has very little in matters
which the mass of us are capable—or think we are capable
—of judging for ourselves*

Not even the Daily Mail at the height of its power could
persuade people to eat Standard Bread or to wear a
Winston Churchill hat* In 1906 three-quarters of the
Press clamoured for the continuance of the Conservatives
in office: the Liberals were put in by the largest majority
known since the Reform Act (1832)* In 1929 all the