The power of the press, the power of the platform, the power of the street, the power of majorities, multitudes and mobs, form undoubtedly the burning questions of the day. To a Russian, who has the blessing of being still “behind the time,” who has but little to do with the wretched gods of the day, nothing is more useful than to weigh impartially all the different results of what appears to him a morbid civilization. The Contemporary Review of May, 1886, has rendered a positive service to the thinking world in publishing the paper on “Government by Journalism.” The arguments adduced to show the tendency, the pente douce, which will naturally modify and even replace parliamentary government by that of the press, are most telling, and worth meditating upon. It is only incomprehensible how a transfiguration of that sort, less unexpected than those of Ovid, but infinitely more mischievous, can be viewed by you with calm and almost smiling fortitude. Will you tolerate, once more, my artless plain speaking? May I shock your readers with a piece of impertinent frankness? There is too much talking and phrase making in the world, and life is short. Let others be complaisant—that is not my object. “Clear and fair dealing is the honour of man’s nature,” said one of your greatest thinkers, and each of us, however simple and humble, should try to develop that nature, whether it pays well or does not pay at all. What does it matter? The most brilliant triumphs are sometimes nothing but crimes; to succeed, therefore, should never be our principal object. Everybody pretends to have truth on his side: the best and surest way to secure that aristocratic company is to go oneself on the side of truth.

But I must not digress too much. The remarkable article to which I allude starts with asking, “Is it possible that the government of the House of Commons may become out of date?” (p. 653). And the writer frankly and with great civic courage admits that “nations are getting more and more impatient of intermediaries between themselves and the exercise of power.” This is undeniable. We may safely foretell that the government of the next-but-one generation, not only in England, but in the whole of Western Europe, will belong, most certainly, to popular meetings and journalism—those would-be representatives of would-be public opinion. There may be developed, perhaps, another corollary of those forces—a regular levying of blackmail Instead of kings, lords, and commoners, forthcoming generations will have perhaps to become the slaves of editors and reporters! (A good thing it is after all that life is so short!) Western Europe may come to see all these fine results of her criminal mistakes, of her egotistical craving for artificial greatness. What was the origin, the progress, of government in the West? It was conquest; it was war and violence. That origin gives a definite shape to the whole history of Western Europe—namely, the preponderance of hostile powers, the constant “struggle for life” between the ruler and his subjects; and England is the best representative of that constant war. In her history we may see the slow but persistent progress of that struggle,¹ from 1215, when the great Barons, in steel and armour, sword in hand, wrested from their weakling King the Magna Charta, still preserved in the British Museum, down to the present times, when peaceable journalists in morning gowns and shabby slippers, pens in hand, are dragging into their closets the poor remainders of power de jure still belonging to Parliaments. Such, indeed, is the result of English history, of English struggles. The first epoch contains the narrative of the antagonism between the oppressed Lords and the oppressor King; the second shows how power went from the oppressor Lords to the oppressed Commoners: the third and last epoch will show how oppressing Commoners will finally yield to the oppressed popular orators, supported by mobs, “the new Fourth Party,” and their inspirers—the journalists. Power glides from the throne to the woolsack, and from the woolsack to the planks of the platform.

Now, do you Westerns naively think that oppression in Western Europe has already reached its last shape? Do you actually suppose that you see the end of it? Not we! We foresee dreadful events which have to come yet, and which make us cling to our old-fashioned political creeds. In the article in the Contemporary is shown us, in a small photograph, the history of that transmission of power, and it explains how, once it belongs to the platform, it comes under the sway of the editorial closet, how modern government can work only if it is subservient to the printing-office of the journal, or, at least, organically united with it. Yes; meetings govern the Empire; everybody is a voter, a King—unless he is an acknowledged thief or a murderer; though sometimes, as in France, for instance, they may become deputies. But in England some of them—like the murderer of General Mesenkoff— are leaders of a portion of “public opinion.” Bacon says that lies are sufficient “to breed opinion.” Some quarters are full of that power. Admire the results. Englishmen are reverting to the state of their ancestors, attending personally, in their small village (the national Witan), to every question submitted to them by their chieftain. Let us hope that an immense central hall will be ready for the time when every Englishman, from Inverness down to Land’s End, will be eager to deliver as many speeches as he likes. But, again, if you have a burning desire to make an oration, it is better to have something to speak about. Where is the poor, thirsty, breathless orator to get his ideas or his opinions? Thank heavens, if he has a halfpenny he may get a paper, and his majesty the editor may encouragingly tap him on the shoulder; but if he has no halfpennies, what then? If we are unable to form a judgment, and if at the same time civilization compels us to act as if we did, a newspaper editor is undoubtedly the sole guide we can get. An old-fashioned M.P. is sometimes tempted to go ahead, to be true to his own ideals, to his professed creed, to his own Almighty. The editor is the exponent of what the reader happens to wish. His duty is to change his views according to the wind he feels, the storm he foresees. Suppose the newest Government working for a certain time. Can anything be nicer? Everybody, every halfpenny holder, finds every morning his programme quite ready; no study needed, no learning beyond the ABC, to get all the required information in the easiest way; opinions without thinking—“Sutor ultra crepidam” government is in full action. “Well and good; the quadrature of the political circle is found,” thought I; but there is a line in the article (p. 655) which makes me shudder: “The editor must interest the reader, or he ceases to be read.” The ruler ceases to govern; he was not amusing, he was cashiered; he was found unequal to his duty. I am told besides, “He (the editor) must therefore, often sorely against his will, write on topics about which he cares nothing (and about which he cannot, must not, care if he is a serious man—as a gentleman, may I add?), because if he does not the public will desert him for his rival across the street.” It will desert him if he is not a valuable transcript of yesterday’s words, thoughts, and deeds. The day before yesterday is as the date of the deluge. Unless the editor is up to the time, he loses votes and halfpennies.

Now, what is the meaning of all this? Let us try to get a clear insight in the “laboratory of public opinion.” Let us take two editors, both equally clever, equally up to the date, equally averse to the idea of losing their influence and to starving. One of them is an honest man, the other a scoundrel. They are both influential men, having readers and popularity. Now, the first begins to see that people become selfish, more and more greedy of base pleasures, more and more reluctant of hard, honest work. He sees, besides, that commerce is bad—no trade, no money; that the overwhelming majority of the people realize their physical strength, and begin to be dominated by Socialistic dreams of division of property, by hatred of the wealthy minorities and their advantages. The editor understands quite well that his readers, discontented with their position, would be anxious to find in his paper a protest, a justification of their hatred of the wealthy minority. Surely the honest editor cannot obey such wishes, can he? Is it not his first duty to say, on the contrary, that hard work is compulsory on every one, be he poor or rich, humble or elated? The rival editor, unscrupulous and unprincipled, on the other hand, will certainly use all the means he has to put oil into the fire and do no end of harm. Can anything be more easy than to please human weaknesses? Which of the two editors will gain the field?

But the imperious necessity of amusing the reader is not less serious: it deserves even more blame than the exhortation to rebellion against existing law. To debase people, to lower their moral and aesthetic level, is more dangerous than to give them fire-arms. The endeavour to amuse and vulgarize human nature rapidly lowers the moral level of the readers. Great, lofty sarcasm, like that of Molière or Swift, did not only amuse, it was a kind of preaching of its own. It made the reader ashamed of his weaknesses; it improved him. A representative Government is composed of men who have to be very careful, very diplomatic with their constituency; they have to kneel before their voters, and they have to praise their own merits at the expense of their opponents: a curious way of following out Jesus Christ’s command to love one’s neighbour as one’s self. And that horrid performance of puffing up one’s оwn superiority takes place every six years—when it does not occur every other year, as it seems to become the fashion of late. After exhibiting his existing, or absent, qualities, the would-be M.P. has to flatter his new masters—a moral bribery more fatal than any other. If anything соuld be called the “wine of demons,” flattery should be designated by that name. Now, as you say, an editor has to be elected every day. Fancy to be obliged to amuse and bribe every day! It is monstrous—monstrous!

You may accuse me of pessimism, of exaggeration. You may well say that there is still in our soul a certain amount of good which cannot be destroyed even by the worst of Governments; that uncontrolled liberty must finally lead to progress. Facts do not corroborate such optimist views. Remember that, unfortunately, we have to deal with a generation brought up under many bad influences. Everything is vulgarized; so much so that you often meet people already unable even to feel the danger that surrounds us. Aristocracy itself, de gaieté de coeur, becomes snobbish; real dignity disappears. People are ashamed of being themselves; their objects in life are mean, cowardly, selfish; people who have an ideal, a God to worship, are described as maniacs, if not downright madmen. Enthusiasts who die for an idea are laughed at. Deep knowledge, hard work are shirked. We insist upon having everything gratis! That tendency is our ruin. In good old times there was a craving for reaching some true superiority. “Every work fears its master,” says a Russian proverb; and that fear was a healthy element of improvement. May I recall an old little German story? There was an undergraduate who had to pass his final examination and get his doctor’s degree, which did not prevent his having a bride. “I am ready in different branches,” said he, in taking leave of her: “it is for you to decide whether you want to be a Frau Doctorin in law, mathematics, or medicine.” Few young students would venture nowadays to put their fate into the fair hands of their beloved as to choice their speciality.

But whilst our energy for work is decreasing, every part of human knowledge naturally becomes every day more complicated. Take politics, for instance; they require more and more special training, and a very minute division of work. But what happens? Instead of dividing it among specialists, the difficult task of governing is given up to the first good or bad man. Everybody fancies, no doubt, that he is fit for deciding; still, what can a person decide who has not even an opinion of his own special concrete fact? An editor is necessarily to the voters what a barbet dog is to the blind; but if such is his position, how few, how very few, deserve it? How carefully editors have to be chosen; but who is to choose? There is another feature of present journalism which to us Russians is very repulsive. Newspaper writers generally conceal their names whenever they venture to be outspoken. Formerly there used to be a moral and legal responsibility, which naturally was a great check against endless mischief, against meddling with private life. Now, people dine upon lying and sup upon scandals. In Austria, Germany, and France papers often belong to large companies. Let others explain the origin and meaning of what is graphically called “Reptilien-Fonds.” I venture to say it is something which does not raise the level of Continental journalism. Every honeymoon is sometimes attractive and pleasant. The honeymoon of Liberty in France was good. So will it be, perhaps, with the government by journalism. However, that won’t last.

I stop! Have I not trespassed on your patience too much? Will you pardon my vehemence? Unfortunately, it is not to be helped! One has to be what one actually is, always true to one’s self. To mince one’s words, to conceal, to deceive—no, no!

“Aux moeurs de l’occident

Laissons cette bassesse.”

O.K.

1. No wonder that the struggle for life theory in natural science—originated in England, and still more natural is it that its best, its most gifted, opponent should be one of the foremost men of the old Muscovite party—Dunilevsky—who unfortunately died a few months ago.