Of general and vaguer charges there were many, but they are incapable of proof, and I shall not concern myself with them. With his relations towards the Press I am well acquainted; and though it is not my business to defend Mr Barnett, yet I am so convinced that this kind of indignation proceeds solely from an ignorance of our social machinery, that it is incumbent upon me to show quite clearly how false the accusation was. The men who made it (a salutary fear of the law of libel forbade them as a rule to put it into print), the men who made it, I say, had no other ground than this: they saw that the M’Korio Delta was in the air, they heard the name upon every side; they knew that Mr Barnett would necessarily grow rich upon its development; they saw the Press almost unanimous in its demand for that development, and they jumped to the false conclusion which I have indicated, because their vision had been warped by an uncontrolled and ill-balanced anger against the modern inequalities of fortune. Mr Barnett had not bought the Press; the Press is not to be bought. That Mr Barnett had an influence with the Press, and a legitimate influence, I will not deny; but when I have described that influence I think my thesis will be proved. Let us consider first what papers Mr Barnett owned. Here is the list. He was the proprietor of _Little Ones_, _Boy’s Chatter_, _The Woman_, _The English Country Side_. For some months, in the interval between the bankruptcy of Sir Charles Binsted and the formation of the Agricultural Union, he had also owned the _Farmer’s Friend_. It is incredible that he should have made such purchases with any object of hoodwinking public opinion. He could only have made them as an investment. The very names of the papers are sufficient proof of this. Beyond these he was proprietor of _The Review_. _The Review_ was a losing property; he had been compelled to assume direction of it in payment of a debt, and he was occupied at the date of which I speak in building it up into something of its former importance. He was also part owner (but only part owner), of the rival _Holborn Review_, and the editor, who had been for some time his private secretary, has assured me that Mr Barnett’s name was hardly mentioned in the office. I am confident that he took no interest whatsoever in the _Holborn Review_, save as a financial venture. My readers have but to turn to a file to see that arguments upon both sides were admitted to its pages, and that the M’Korio Delta, even at the height of its fame, rarely afforded matter for more than one article in each issue.