The vulgarisation of
modern life has come from the governing class; from the highly educated
class. Most of the people who have posters in Camberwell have peerages at
Westminster. But the strongest instance of all is that which has been
unbroken until lately, and still largely prevails; the ghastly monotony of
the Press.
Then comes that other legend; the notion that men like the masters of the
Newspaper Trusts "give the people what they want." Why, it is the whole
aim and definition of a Trust that it gives the people what it chooses.
In the old days, when Parliaments were free in England, it was discovered
that one courtier was allowed to sell all the silk, and another to sell
all the sweet wine. A member of the House of Commons humorously asked who
was allowed to sell all the bread. I really tremble to think what that
sarcastic legislator would have said if he had been put off with the
modern nonsense about "gauging the public taste." Suppose the first
courtier had said that, by his shrewd, self-made sense, he had detected
that people had a vague desire for silk; and even a deep, dim human desire
to pay so much a yard for it! Suppose the second courtier said that he
had, by his own rugged intellect, discovered a general desire for wine: and
that people bought his wine at his price--when they could buy no other!
Suppose a third courtier had jumped up and said that people always bought
his bread when they could get none anywhere else.
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