“Freedom of thought, for one thing.”
“We have quite enough free-thinking.”
“There’s not enough if there’s not perfect freedom.”
“Dangerous!” quoth Mr. Austin.
“But it’s that danger which makes men, sir; and it’s fear of the danger that makes our modern Englishman.”
“Oh! Oh!” cried Tuckham in the voice of a Parliamentary Opposition. “Well, you start your paper, we’ll assume it: what class of men will you get to write?”
“I shall get good men for the hire.”
“You won’t get the best men; you may catch a clever youngster or two, and an old rogue of talent; you won’t get men of weight. They’re prejudiced, I dare say. The Journals which are commercial speculations give us a guarantee that they mean to be respectable; they must, if they wouldn’t collapse. That’s why the best men consent to write for them.”
“Money will do it,” said Beauchamp.
Mr. Austin disagreed with that observation.