The kind of way in which such conditions tend
toward war might have been illustrated, if Mr. Hobson
had been writing at a later date, by various more
recent cases. A higher rate of interest is obtainable
on enterprises in an undeveloped country than in a
developed one, provided the risks connected with an
unsettled government can be minimized. To minimize
these risks the financiers call in the assistance of the
military and naval forces of the country which they
are momentarily asserting to be theirs. In order to
have the support of public opinion in this demand
they have recourse to the power of the Press.
The Press is the second great factor to which
critics of capitalism point when they wish to prove
that capitalism is the source of modern war. Since
the running of a big newspaper requires a large capital,
the proprietors of important organs necessarily
belong to the capitalist class, and it will be a rare
and exceptional event if they do not sympathize with
their own class in opinion and outlook. They are
able to decide what news the great mass of newspaper
readers shall be allowed to have. They can
actually falsify the news, or, without going so far
as that, they can carefully select it, giving such items
as will stimulate the passions which they desire to
stimulate, and suppressing such items as would provide
the antidote. In this way the picture of the
world in the mind of the average newspaper reader
is made to be not a true picture, but in the main
that which suits the interests of capitalists. This is
true in many directions, but above all in what con-
cerns the relations between nations. The mass of the
population of a country can be led to love or hate
any other country at the will of the newspaper proprietors,
which is often, directly or indirectly, influenced
by the will of the great financiers. So long as
enmity between England and Russia was desired,
our newspapers were full of the cruel treatment meted
out to Russian political prisoners, the oppression of
Finland and Russian Poland, and other such topics.
As soon as our foreign policy changed, these items
disappeared from the more important newspapers,
and we heard instead of the misdeeds of Germany.
Most men are not sufficiently critical to be on their
guard against such influences, and until they are, the
power of the Press will remain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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