"And what there is may be contradicted in an hour's time,"--said Angus--"I tell you, David, when I started working in journalism, I thought it was the finest profession going. It seemed to me to have all the responsibilities of the world on its back. I considered it a force with which to educate, help, and refine all peoples, and all classes. But I found it was only a money speculation after all. How much profit could be made out of it? That was the chief point of action. That was the mainspring of every political discussion--and in election times, one side had orders to abuse the other, merely to keep up the popular excitement. By Jove! I should like to take a select body of electors 'behind the scenes' of a newspaper office and show them how the whole business is run!" "You know too much, evidently!" said Mary smiling--"I don't wonder you were dismissed!" He laughed--then as suddenly frowned. "I swear as I stand here," he said emphatically, "that the press is not serving the people well! Do you know--no, of course you don't!--but I can tell you for a fact that a short time ago an offer was made from America through certain financial powers in the city, to buy up several of the London dailies, and run them on American lines![1] Germany had a finger in the pie, too, through her German Jews!" Helmsley looked at his indignant face with a slight imperceptible smile. "Well!" he said, with a purposely miscomprehending air. "Well! You say 'Well,' David, as if such a proposition contained nothing remarkable. That's because you don't understand! Imagine for a moment the British Press being run by America!" Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I _can't_ imagine it,"--he said. "No--of course you can't! But a few rascally city financiers _could_ imagine it, and more than that, were prepared to carry the thing through. Then, the British people would have been led, guided, advised, and controlled by a Yankee syndicate! And the worst of it is that this same British people would have been kept in ignorance of the 'deal.' They would actually have been paying their pennies to keep up the shares of a gang of unscrupulous rascals whose sole end and object was to get the British press into their power! Think of it!" "But did they succeed?" asked Helmsley. "No, they didn't. Somebody somewhere had a conscience. Somebody somewhere refused to 'swop' the nation's much boasted 'liberty of the press' for so much cash down. I believe the 'Times' is backed by the Rothschilds, and managed by American advertisers--I don't know whether it is so or not--but I _do_ know that the public ought to be put on their guard. If I were a powerful man and a powerful speaker I would call mass meetings everywhere, and urge the people not to purchase a single newspaper till each one published in its columns a full and honest list of the shareholders concerned in it. Then the public would have a chance of seeing where they are. At present they _don't_ know where they are."