One of the chief problems connected with the press is therefore this—­how can it be prevented from producing hysteria in the feeble-minded?  In time of war the censorship no doubt does something to prevent this; and I think it might do more.  ‘Scare-lines’, as they are called—­that is, sensational headings in large capital letters—­might be reduced by law to modest dimensions.  More important, the censorship might insist that all who write shall sign their names to their articles.  Why should journalists alone be relieved of responsibility to their country?  Is it possible that the Government is afraid of the press?  There is no need for fear.  ‘Beware of Aristophanes’, says Landor, ’he can cast your name as a byword to a thousand cities of Asia for a thousand years.  But all that the press can do by its disfavour is to keep your name obscure in a hundred cities of England for a hundred days.  Signed articles are robbed of their vague impressiveness, and are known for what they are—­the opinions of one man.  I would also recommend that a photograph of the author be placed at the head of every article.  I have been saved from many bad novels by the helpful pictorial advertisements of modern publishers.

The real work of the Press, as I said, is to help to hold the people together.  Nothing else that it can do is of any importance compared with this.  We are at one in this War as we have never been at one before within living memory, as we were not at one against Napoleon or against Louis XIV.  Our trial is on us; and if we cannot preserve our oneness, we fail.  What would be left to us I do not know; but I am sure that an England which had accepted conditions of peace at Germany’s hands would not be the England that any of us know.  There might still be a few Englishmen, but they would have to look about for somewhere to live.  Serbia would be a good place; it has made no peace-treaty with Germany.

We are profoundly at one; and are divided only by illusions, which the press, in times past, has done much to keep alive.  One of these illusions is the illusion of party.  I have never been behind the scenes, among the creaking machinery, but my impression, as a spectator, is that parties in England are made very much as you pick up sides for a game.  I have observed that they are all conservative.  The affections are conservative; every one has a liking for his old habits and his old associates.  There is something comic in a well-nourished rich man who believes that he is a bold reformer and a destructive thinker.  For real clotted reactionary sentiment I know nothing to match the table-talk of any aged parliamentary Radical.  When we get a Labour Government, it will be patriotic, prejudiced, opposed to all innovation, superstitiously reverential of the past, sticky and, probably, tyrannical.