Greyson did not so much mind there being a Devil’s market, provided he could be assured of an honest market alongside, so that a man could take his choice.  What he feared was the Devil’s steady encroachment, that could only end by the closing of the independent market altogether.  His remedy was the introduction of the American trust law, forbidding any one man being interested in more than a limited number of journals.

“But what’s the difference,” demanded Joan, “between a man owning one paper with a circulation of, say, six millions; or owning six with a circulation of a million apiece?  By concentrating all his energies on one, a man with Carleton’s organizing genius might easily establish a single journal that would cover the whole field.”

“Just all the difference,” answered Greyson, “between Pooh Bah as Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Lord High Admiral, or Chief Executioner, whichever he preferred to be, and Pooh Bah as all the Officers of State rolled into one.  Pooh Bah may be a very able statesman, entitled to exert his legitimate influence.  But, after all, his opinion is only the opinion of one old gentleman, with possible prejudices and preconceived convictions.  The Mikado—­or the people, according to locality—­would like to hear the views of others of his ministers.  He finds that the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice and the Groom of the Bedchamber and the Attorney-General—­the whole entire Cabinet, in short, are unanimously of the same opinion as Pooh Bah.  He doesn’t know it’s only Pooh Bah speaking from different corners of the stage.  The consensus of opinion convinces him.  One statesman, however eminent, might err in judgment.  But half a score of statesmen, all of one mind!  One must accept their verdict.”

Mary smiled.  “But why shouldn’t the good newspaper proprietor hurry up and become a multi-proprietor?” she suggested.  “Why don’t you persuade Lord Sutcliffe to buy up three or four papers, before they’re all gone?”

“Because I don’t want the Devil to get hold of him,” answered Greyson.

“You’ve got to face this unalterable law,” he continued.  “That power derived from worldly sources can only be employed for worldly purposes.  The power conferred by popularity, by wealth, by that ability to make use of other men that we term organization—­sooner or later the man who wields that power becomes the Devil’s servant.  So long as Kingship was merely a force struggling against anarchy, it was a holy weapon.  As it grew in power so it degenerated into an instrument of tyranny.  The Church, so long as it remained a scattered body of meek, lowly men, did the Lord’s work.  Enthroned at Rome, it thundered its edicts against human thought.  The Press is in danger of following precisely the same history.  When it wrote in fear of the pillory and of the jail, it fought for Liberty.  Now it has become the Fourth Estate, it fawns—­as Jack Swinton said of it—­at the feet of