Yet that is the underlying assumption of much of our social life. We emphasize opinion which satisfies those in power, we discount opinion which runs counter to it; above all we take it for granted that silence and consent are one and the same thing. Every one of these attitudes is a blunder; especially is it a blunder, for which we pay heavily, in matters of social importance. It is extraordinarily dangerous, for example, to assume that English public opinion disapproved the General Strike because Mayfair was indignant, the _Morning Post_ hysterical, and Sir John Simon coldly hostile; for Mayfair and the _Morning Post_, even with Sir John Simon, do not constitute English public opinion. Our difficulty is that they will be taken to constitute it when it is to the interest of government to do so. Such an equation is serious, and may well be fatal, to any who think of social peace as a thing really worth while to preserve. We must remember, too, what goes along with a process of this kind. Those who lament the ignorance of public opinion too often forget that in an unequal society it is necessary to repress the expression of individuality. Every attempt at such expression is an attempt at the equalization of social conditions; it is an attempt to make myself count, an insistence on my claim, an assertion of my right to be treated as equal in that claim with other persons. To admit that I ought to have that freedom is to deny that the inequality upon which society rests is valid. And, accordingly, every sort of devious method, conscious and unconscious, is adopted to prevent my assertiveness. The most subtle, perhaps, is the denial of adequate educational facilities; for what, in fact, that does is to prevent me from knowing how to formulate my claim effectively, and unattention is the price I have to pay for my ineffectiveness. My claim, then, however real or just, because it is clumsily presented fails to secure the consideration it deserves. Or, again, the view of a group may be simply discounted where it fails to please the holders of power. We are impressed, for instance, when we hear that a government, say that of Mr Lloyd George, is solid in its determination not to give way to the miners; we assume a careful weighing of the facts and a decision taken in the light of their total significance. But when we hear that the miners are solidly behind their leaders, we feel that this is a clear case of ignorant and misguided men being led to their destruction by agitators enjoying the exercise of power. The whole machinery of news-making is directed to the confirmation of that impression; and the chance that the miners’ claim will be considered equally is destroyed by the weight which unequal economic power attaches to the case against that claim. The opinion represented by the miners is not objectively valued. It is the victim of a process of valuation the purpose of which is to prevent, so far as possible, an alteration of