same key. But, in fairness to the Northcliffe press, it must be stated that it has never failed to advocate a vigorous prosecution of the war till victory is achieved, and that it has frequently been in advance of average opinion in urging definite measures that subsequent experience has proved to be desirable. Its influence with the nation is probably due to these facts at least as much as to tricks of style intended to catch the popular taste, and to extremely clever business methods of promoting circulation.

When, therefore, the country began to feel that the coalition ministry was moving too slowly, the Northcliffe press was on strong ground in advocating a change of government. Other newspapers outside the Northcliffe group, and even opposed to it, took the same view; but the newspapers controlled by Lord Northcliffe were most skilful in beating the big drum, and in suggesting that they were the authors of a change which a large part of the nation, and also of the House of Commons, had come to desire. It is also reasonable to assume that Lord Northcliffe, in his individual capacity, counted for a good deal in the negotiations behind the scenes which led to the displacement of Mr. Asquith. At any rate, it is notorious. that Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Northcliffe have long been in close coöperation, and it may safely be said that without the aid of the latter the former would never have become Prime Minister.

Having reached the pinnacle with the aid of the Northcliffe press, Mr. Lloyd George dare not dispense with that aid. For he has nothing else to depend upon. He has no party caucus behind him as previous Prime Ministers have always had. The Liberal caucus remains under the control of

Mr. Asquith, with those leading members of the Liberal Party who have joined their fortunes to his; the Tory caucus is apparently still under the control of Mr. Bonar Law. For the moment both machines are giving their support somewhat halfheartedly — to to the Lloyd George Ministry; but he cannot count on either. He has, it is rumored, been making desperate efforts to get together a party machine of his own, and the enormous multiplication of titles of honor is probably in part due to this ambition. But though money can be raked in by the sale of titles, it is impossible to build up within a few months an efficient political machine with its necessary coteries of wire-pullers and canvassers in all the principal constituencies. Except for the support of the press Mr. Lloyd George would be standing on air. That is the final explanation of the control which the Northcliffe press exercises over the Lloyd George Cabinet.

It is natural enough, as pointed out above, that members of parliament should resent this situation, and should regard as blacklegs the people who have taken their job. But from the national point of view it cannot be said that there is any obvious loss. The House of Commons in the past has kept in power ministers who were palpably working against the nation's interest. For example, not many years ago it permitted Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill to intrigue together to cut down the navy, even in opposition to the policy of the Cabinet of which they were members. Nor ought it now to be forgotten that the present House of Commons forced into law a Home Rule Act which could only have been put into operation at the cost of civil war, and which probably no single

individual on either side of St. George's Channel now wants. If we looked further back we should without difficulty find multitudes of instances where measures have been passed solely to please a political faction, and it is certain that if the House of Commons again comes under the alternating control of rival caucuses both legislation and administration will become even more partisan in character, and the general well-being of the nation will be even more frankly disregarded. The most hopeful chance of avoiding this outcome of parliamentary government dependent upon a gigantic popular electorate lies in the adoption of such measures as proportional representation and the referendum. Yet Mr. Chamberlain, who took the lead in attacking the influence of the press upon the government, is the bitterest opponent of proportional representation, and was equally violent a few years ago in opposing the introduction of the referendum. His ideal, apparently, is the unchecked tyranny of the caucus. Even the tyranny of the press is better than that.

But it is relevant to ask whether there is any necessity that the country should reconcile itself to either form of tyranny. That we must in time of war submit to the loss of a great many of our accustomed liberties is obvious; but the extent of this necessity has been exaggerated, and the press has suffered not a little from the censorship which has been established. Even the members of the Press Bureau themselves would hardly claim that their office has been a brilliant example of successful state control. Frequently the Bureau, acting on superior orders, has suppressed news of importance for no other reason than the fear that the public might be discouraged because the news was

bad. On other occasions it has suppressed, or attempted to suppress, public criticism because the criticism was disagreeable to members of the government.

The most notable illustration of this latter type of tyranny was the prosecution of Colonel Repington, the well-known military critic, and Mr. Gwynne, the editor of the Morning Post, for writing and publishing an article attacking the proposal to send British troops from the western front to Palestine. That a technical offense was committed is indisputable, for the Defense of the Realm Regulations are so widely drawn that they can be made to cover any reference whatever to the movement of troops. But the only legitimate purpose of these regulations is to prevent newspapers from publishing information which might be useful to the enemy. If the case had been decided on this ground the prosecution would have failed, for all the facts alluded to in the Morning Post article had already been published in German as well as French and Italian newspapers. But the magistrate, whose tone throughout the trial was painfully inconsistent with the best traditions of the English bench, took the narrow, bureaucratic view that any breach of a bureaucratic order is a serious offense which must be punished. There would be few English liberties to-day if that had been the attitude adopted by English judges in the past. The prosecution was obviously undertaken for no other purpose than to punish a critic who dared to oppose a policy dear to the Prime Minister. Had a similar article appeared from another pen in one of the newspapers which supports Mr. Lloyd George there would have been no prosecution.

The case is important because it shows that the destruction of the

liberty of the press may proceed pari passu with a growth in the power of the press.

If a British government can, with impunity, disregard that English tradition of liberty which is the ultimate bond uniting the whole British Empire, it will not hesitate to shower favors on one section of the press, while straining the law in order to suppress the criticisms of another section. To-day the Northcliffe press receives the favors, and the Morning Post the cuffs; a year hence the positions may be reversed.

A word may be said about the plea that 'the law must be enforced.' Where that plea is honestly used it is unanswerable. Where the law is in substance broken, the men who break it must be substantially punished if the oncoming of anarchy is to be prevented. But a ministry which allows Irish Sinn Feiners and English and Scottish trade unionists openly to defy laws essential to the peace and good government of the country cannot honestly claim that mere technical breaches of bureaucratic regulations should be punished as if they were serious offenses. Yet it is in this spirit that the law is being administered to-day by magistrates who appear to have lost all sense of proportion. Analogous to the Morning Post case is the case of Lady Ela Russell, who was ordered by the Hertfordshire War Agricultural Committee to plough up certain land which was being used by her for keeping cows. The chairman and the vice-chairman of the Local Food Control Committee and the chairman of the Urban District Council all gave evidence that in their opinion the existing use of the land was the best use to which it could be put, and that Lady Ela Russell was doing a real public real service by supplying milk to the district. The local magistrates, taking

exactly the same line as Sir John Dickinson in the Morning Post case, refused to go into the merits of the matter. For them, as for him, an order must be obeyed, however foolish it might be, and they imposed the maximum penalty of £100 and costs. It may safely be said that if cases similar to these had been brought into court before the war they would either have been dismissed or a nominal fine of one farthing would have been imposed.

The real root of the trouble is the extravagant extension of the functions of the government. A government can only act through officials, and it is inherent in the nature of officialdom to arrogate to itself arbitrary powers. At the same time the average capacity of officials must necessarily decline as their numbers are increased, and as the range of their operations is extended. When the functions of government are limited to what is strictly necessary for the well-being of the nation, the civil service can consist of a few picked men, and their judgment on the limited range of questions entrusted to them is probably the best obtainable. As a rule, moreover, men of this calibre, from the very fact that they are competent, are also modest; they are willing to seek advice and proceed by agreement instead of attempting to impose by force hastily formed opinions. But when a vast army of new officials is created, many of them with a very limited general education, and most of them with no technical knowledge of the subjects with which they are called upon to deal, it is certain that their arrogance will be in almost direct proportion to their ignorance. The country which accepts such a form of government will be subjected as Great Britain is to-day to a multitude of regulations which

quite needlessly interfere with the liberty and initiative of the individual citizen. Yet it is the individual selfsupporting citizen who has finally to bear upon his shoulders the whole cost of the state, including the cost of the bureaucrats who handicap his productive efforts.

In a word, to debate the power of

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the press, or of any other instrument of government, without first asking what the functions of government are to be, is necessarily futile. If the functions of government are unduly expanded the destruction of liberty is certain, whether the government be controlled by the press or by the caucus.

[On September 28, 1914, the writer was taken prisoner by the Germans. The enemy had successfully attacked the shallow trench where he lay at the edge of a wood. A tree, snapped off by shell fire, fell upon him and injured his leg, pinning him down for twenty-four hours. After scraping away the earth with his free hand, he at last got clear, and, hobbling away in search of water for other wounded men, fell into the hands of the German Medical Corps, and was taken to headquarters - a farmhouse. Here he was questioned by an intelligence officer, who, in a rage at learning nothing, 'told me more about the movements of my own brigade than I knew myself, from when we mobilized up to that very day,' and, finally, purple with fury at some remarks on the Kaiser in a friend's letter, and the conscious smile on the face of his prisoner, he called me everything from a pig to a pickpocket; threw my letters at me, and stalked off with the others, muttering "Huh! Engländer! Schweinhünde!"']

I WAS left standing where I was for a few moments, when a tall Uhlan approached me, saying in good English, 'Where do you come from?' I was dumbfounded, and, on my not replying, he said 'You come from the Isle of Wight, don't you?' I said

'Yes.' 'I thought so,' said he. 'I've seen you several times on Hunny Hill, Newport. You are a music-hall artist: I have seen you giving turns several times at Cowes and Ryde. I saw you once at Medina Hall and once at the Palace, Newport.' He then offered me some cigarettes. I thought of my dignity, and answered Thank you, but I have some English cigarettes.' 'I suppose you prefer those to Continental cigarettes?' said he. I replied Infinitely!' I felt that I had scored one.

Just then I heard an altercation on my right, and, on turning, I saw three or four Uhlans violently jabbering with threatening gestures at another Britisher. I looked a little closer and recognized him as a man belonging to my own regiment, whom I knew very well. The Uhlans seemed as though they would have liked to tear him limb from limb, but he stood there with a perfectly impassive countenance. This seemed to infuriate them all the more, especially one big Uhlan, who stepped back a few paces, grabbed a

lance that was leaning against the wall, and, pointing it towards my friend's head, rushed at him. The Englishman, seeing what was coming, suddenly sprang to attention, and the lance just missed the top of his head and stuck into the door at the back of him. This caused a roar of laughter from all the Germans in the courtyard, staff officers and all; but the Englishman never for a second relaxed his position of attention.

The laughter having somewhat subsided, the big Uhlan then stepped forward and pulled the lance out of the door. This done the Englishman went smartly through the motions of stand at ease, pulled a dirty handkerchief from his sleeve, and wiped his nose with the air of a man who is frightfully bored with a very uninteresting piece of acting. I would have liked to rush forward and shake hands with him, but I dared not. So I shouted 'Good boy, Dick!' He looked round quickly and, when he saw me, his face changed immediately, and with a cheery grin he said 'Wot cheer!' One of the officers then came forward and bawled at me, saying 'Nicht sprechen!' which I took as an order not to speak. He was a tall man, with a wizened face, which appealed to my sense of humor, and I could not help giving vent to this. I replied very quickly, so that none of the Germans who spoke English could understand-All right, old frosty frosty face!' At this he barked at me a bit more, and stalked off, muttering more curses on Englanders.

Soon after this, an escort of Uhlans was ordered to take us farther down the road to Laon. While they were preparing, my would-be friend, the Uhlan, endeavored to engage me in conversation again, telling me that we were to be taken to where his squadron of Uhlans was, and they

would supply an escort for us to Laon. At the same time he warned me not to try to escape, or I would be shot immediately, and advised me to tell all the other Englishmen that I came across down the road. I said 'Thanks! I know what to expect when trying to escape, if not successful, and so do all British soldiers.'

At this he was silent for a moment, then said 'You know you English are very foolish to have made war on us, because in a few months we shall be in London.' I said nothing, but merely raised my eyebrows and looked at him from under my eyelids, just as a magistrate does when he looks over his spectacles at a prisoner in the dock. He understood the expression, but said nothing.

By this time the escort was ready to take us away. He then said ‘Goodbye,' and advanced to shake hands; but I kept my hands in my pockets and, with a slight inclination of my head, said 'Good-bye,' and was marched off with the o her two Englishmen out of the courtyard.

Soon after, an English aeroplane flew over, far out of range; but a whole squadron of Uhlans snatched up their rifles and fired at it furiously, madly gesticulating all the while.

One or two of us were smiling at their efforts, when suddenly I became aware of a tall Uhlan officer by my side. He wore spectacles and, to my idea, he had a kindly face. He said to me in perfect English For goodness sake, man, don't laugh! If they saw you laughing, they would shoot you without the slightest hesitation." I took the cue; thanked him, and told the others what he had told me, and advised them to feign disinterestedness in the operations on our aeroplane. The officer, seeing this, nodded and walked away, and I could see by the expression of his face that he felt