In the stead of the Delanes and the Northcliffes, we have control by self-seeking millionaires with a megalomaniac itch for interference. A dozen years ago, the spectacle of a newspaper proprietor expressing on the front page of his principal organ his entire disagreement with the opinions of his dramatic critic on an entirely undistinguished play would have been incredible. Such an outrage on taste is symptomatic of the dictatorship by the new Overlords of the Press. Here we have yet another manifestation of the amateur’s conception of journalism. Anyone, thinks the modern proprietor, can be a dramatic critic, a musical critic, a literary critic, a Parliamentary correspondent, an editor, especially if his name be known to the public in a capacity entirely unrelated to journalism. If he be a peer or possess a courtesy title, then he is the beau ideal of journalism.[6] [6] “Anyone can write leading articles,” the author was once solemnly assured by one of our best-known editors. He was neither endeavouring to be humorous nor to be cynical; he was merely expressing what the Conductors of the Press themselves think of the Press which they conduct. Amateurishness and the love of interference also combine to give us the ponderous signed contributions with which newspaper proprietors regularly favour their own journals. Whether these articles are in every instance, or in any instance, actually written by their signatories, is a matter with which I have no immediate concern. But they are significant of the driving forces behind the modern Press Trust; they exemplify the rôle of the Press as an engine of propaganda, self-advancement, and self-advertisement, for its millionaire owners. To quote Mr. St. John Ervine: “We know there are certain demented millionaires who own newspapers and will write for them; and when one of these men writes an article, the staff hides its head and goes about the rest of the week explaining it away. We (the journalists) are the paper. We are the goodwill of the paper, and when they sell a paper they sell what we have made. When they sell what we have made and say ‘We don’t want you any more,’ we should be regarded as the first charge on the price of that paper. We have known proprietors who have ruined papers. Such a man should be in gaol for ruining a good business.... Editors used to put the proprietors of newspapers in their place, and there is no reason why it should not be done again.” Mr. Ervine, it may be added, made these remarks at a meeting convened by the Institute of Journalists on December 11, 1926, under the chairmanship of Sir Robert Bruce, editor of the _Glasgow Herald_. His remarks were, of course, boycotted by the leading organs of the Press Trust. IV _The Mannerisms of Stentor_