Gilbert Keith Chesterton

by Maisie Ward

It was a test case, and it seemed to Chesterton not a question of good manners, but of something far more fundamental. The assertion had been made in the House of Commons that peerages were being sold, and that the price of such sales was the chief support of the secret party funds. But the Daily News was a Liberal paper and this was an attack on the Liberal party. Chesterton replied (July 11, 1907):

I am sure you know by this time that I never resent the exclusion of my articles as such. I should always trust your literary judgment, if it were a matter of literature only: and I daresay you have often saved me from an indiscretion and your readers from a bore. Unfortunately this matter of the party funds is not one of that sort. My conscience does not often bother you, but just now the animal is awake and roaring. Your paper has always championed the rights of conscience, so mine naturally goes to you. If you disagreed with me, it would be another matter. But since you agree with me (as I was sure you would) it becomes simply a question of which is the more important, politeness or political morality. I agree that Lea did go to the point of being unmannerly. So did Plimsoll, so did Bradlaugh: so did the Irish members. But surely it would be a very terrible thing if anyone could say "The Daily News suppressed all demand for the Plimsoll line," or "The Daily News did not join in asking for Bradlaugh's political rights." I am sure that this is not your idea. You think that this matter can be better raised later on. I am convinced of its urgency. I am so passionately convinced of its urgency that if you will not help me to raise it now, I must try some other channel. They are going on Monday to raise a "breach of privilege" (which is simply an aristocratic censorship of the Press) in order to crush this question through the man who raised it: and to crush it forever. I have said that I think Lea's questions violent and needless. But they are not attacking his questions. They are attacking his letter, which contains nothing that I do not think, probably nothing that you do not think. Lea is to be humiliated and broken because he said that titles are bought; as they are: because he said that poor members are reminded of their dependence on the party funds; as they are: because he said that all this was hypocrisy of public life; as it is. . . .

One thing is quite certain. Unless some Liberal journalists speak on Monday or Tuesday, the secret funds and the secret powers are safe. These Parliamentary votes mark eras: they are meant to. And that vote will not mark a defence of C. B. The letter had nothing to do with C. B. It will mark the final decision that any repetition of what Lea said in his letter is an insult to the House. That is, any protest against bought titles will be an insult to the House. Any protest against secret funds will be an insult to the House.

I would willingly burn my article if I were only sure you would publish one yourself tomorrow on the same lines. But if not, here is at least one thing you can do. An article, even signed, may perhaps commit the paper too much. But your paper cannot be committed by publishing a letter from me stating my opinions. It might publish a letter from Joe Chamberlain, stating his opinions. I therefore send you a short letter, pointing out the evil, and disassociating it as far as possible from the indiscretions of Lea. I am sure you will publish this, for it is the mere statement of a private opinion and as I am not an M. P. I can say what I like about Parliament. You will not mind my confessing to you my conviction and determination in this matter. I do not think we could quarrel, even if we had to separate.

The letter was published, and was quoted in the House of Commons by Lord Robert Cecil amid general applause. But it was twenty years before a Bill was passed that forbade this particular unpleasantness.

While political corruption stirred Chesterton deeply, I think his outlook was even more affected by the progressive Socialism of Liberal legislation. He had honestly believed that the Liberal Party stood, on the whole, for liberty. He found that it stood increasingly for daily and hourly interference with the lives of the people. He found too that the Liberal papers, which he held should have been foremost in criticism of these measures, were as determined to uphold measures brought in by a Liberal Government as they had been to attack anything that the Tories brought forward.

It has been well said by Mr. Belloc that Chesterton could never write as a party man. But to the ordinary party newspaper such an attitude was utterly incomprehensible. I think that we can also see at this point how alien his fundamental outlook was from that even of the best members of his own Party. A great admirer said to me the other day that it had taken her a long time to appreciate Chesterton's sociology. "You see, I was brought up to think that it was quite right for the poor to have their teeth brushed by officials." This is undoubtedly the normal Socialistic outlook and the outlook most abhorrent to Chesterton. "The philanthropist," he once said, "is not a brother; he is a supercilious aunt."

The five years of Liberal Government had been disillusioning to many others besides Belloc and the Chesterton brothers. Probably many men in newspaper offices and elsewhere continued vaguely to support the party to which their own paper belonged. But there were others who were in those days going through a struggle between principles and Party which became increasingly acute. Gilbert has described his own feelings in a review of Galsworthy's play Loyalties, written several years later during the first World War.

. . . The author of Loyalty suffers one simple and amazing delusion. He imagines that in those pre-war politics Liberalism was on the side of Labour. On this point at least I can correct him from the most concrete experience. In the newspaper office where his hero lingered, wondering how much longer he could stand its Pacifism, I was lingering and wondering how much longer I could stand its complete and fundamental Capitalism, its invariable alliance with the employer, its invariable hostility to the striker. No such scene as that in which the Liberal editor paced the room raving about his hopes of a revolution ever occurred in the Liberal newspaper office that I knew; the least hint of a revolution would have caused quite as much horror there as in the offices of the Morning Post. On nothing was the Pacifist more pacifist than upon that point. No workman so genuine as the workman who figures in Loyalty ever figured among such Liberals. The fact is that such Liberalism was in no way whatever on the side of Labour; on the contrary, it was on the side of the Labour Party. . . .

Both Chesterton and Belloc had begun to point out that a Free Press had almost disappeared from England. The revenue of most of the newspapers depended not on subscriptions but on advertisement. Therefore nothing could be said in them which was displeasing to their wealthy advertisers. Nor was this the worst of it. Very rich men were often owners of half a dozen papers or more and dictated their policy. An outstanding example was Alfred Harmsworth—Lord Northcliffe—whose newspapers ranged from the Times through the Daily Mail to Answers. Thus to every section of the English people, Harmsworth was able to convey day by day such news as he thought best together with his own outlook and philosophy of life such as it was. Still worse, the Times had not lost in the eyes of Europe, to say nothing of America, that reputation it had held so long of being the official expression of English opinion. It was still the Jupiter of Trollope's day, the maker of ministries or their undoing. In the days of a Free Press a paper held such a position in virtue of the talents of its staff. Editors were then powerful individuals and would brook little interference. But today the editor was commonly only the mouthpiece of the owner.