But this fraud on the public, and there is no other name for a species of false pretence which is growing so rapidly that it is developing into an open scandal, is, relatively, a minor affair. The real evil is that the controllers of the Press, themselves largely amateurs, are going out of their way to encourage the incursion of the amateur into what is a highly-skilled and highly-complex avocation. And that constitutes the real false pretence. It does not matter very much whether that popular film comedienne, Miss Ruby Vamp, is actually responsible or not for the article on “Should Curates Charleston?” extensively and expensively advertised by the “Daily Dope.” But it does matter if the public be led to believe that an article on foreign relations written to order by a hack journalist for the purpose of provoking a sensation or promoting the policy of a newspaper proprietor should purport to be, and should be accepted, as from the pen of an impartial diplomatic expert, who has, in fact, only lent his name in return for money or for purposes of self-advertisement.[1]
[1] In December last, the Lawn Tennis Association passed resolutions prohibiting a competitor in tournaments and matches from writing articles thereon for the Press “under his own name, initials, or recognisable pseudonym,” and also from allowing a player to permit his name to be “advertised as the author of any book or press article of which he is not the actual author.” This resolution was boycotted by a portion of the Combine Press, while one newspaper distorted the attitude of the Association as representing “interference with amateurs,” and “dictating to newspaper proprietors and editors.” Imperence.
III
The Dictators
Few people understand the economic, still less the social, significance of Trusts and Combines. The public is familiar enough with the amalgamation of a number of more or less competing concerns engaged in the same industry; it is not so familiar with the conception of a Trust which owns or controls undertakings of widely-differing nature, such as the modern Combine which aims at controlling an article during the whole cycle of operations from the winning of the raw material to the marketing of the finished product. Still less is it familiar with the process whereby control, which is far more important than ownership, can be acquired by putting up quite a small proportion of the total capital invested in a commercial undertaking.[2]
[2] A large proportion of the capital of modern joint-stock companies is provided by debenture-holders, who normally have no voting rights whatever, and by preference share-holders, who may vote at meetings only when their dividend has been in arrears for a prescribed period. Even ordinary share-holders may have no voting rights, and the entire control, including the appointment of directors, can be vested in the owners of a particular class of share representing less than a tenth of the company’s total capital.
It is as the result of control rather than actual ownership that the British Press has within the past few years largely come into the hands of some four or five men. The Independent Press has, in consequence, almost ceased to exist. There are still, of course, newspapers uncontrolled by Combines or Trusts, but these are in the main restricted alike as to circulation, influence, and the range of their geographical distribution. Moreover, independence of ownership does not necessarily mean independence of control by a political party in whose interests the paper is administered by its nominal owners.
The “Trustification” of the Press is an entirely logical development, and has been accepted by the public in much the same way as amalgamations in any other industry. But there is a vital difference between a Newspaper Trust and a Beef Trust. The Newspaper Trust controls and manipulates public opinion. Its workings are largely subterranean. It is guided on occasion by purely political considerations to an extent impossible in any other industry. It may exercise a decisive influence on the issue of war or peace. Obviously, the control of a nation’s Press by a handful of men is not to be regarded in the same light as the control of its chemical industry. A “deal” in newspapers embodies, ultimately, a “deal” in the means of manipulating public opinion.
In every industry, the appetite for amalgamation grows by what it feeds on. The tendency is for the immensely powerful and wealthy Newspaper Trusts to absorb more and more publications. Very often, a competing organ is bought only that it may be “killed,” as happened to London’s oldest evening paper, The Globe. Amalgamation is often only a euphemistic term for the disappearance of an old-established paper. The independent journals cannot withstand the tentacles of the Octopus. Either they are forced out of existence by sheer inability to stand up against their much wealthier rivals, or the owners are induced to sell by offers too tempting to refuse. In the latter instance, the matter has usually been decided on down to the last detail by the directors on both sides before the offer is submitted to the share-holders who are the nominal and legal owners of the property.