Westminster Corridors
It being manifest that the Interests of free Men require and depend upon the vigilant and anxious jealousy of a free Press, the present discontents in Grub Street will be neglected only by those for whom catastrophie must be immediate and tangible to be real; viz: Ministers of the Crown, the General Publick, My Lord Stokes, of al. Yet the causes of these disturbances are remote, various and not easily to be compassed.
It hath long been a tradition that Place and Position in Grub Street should be no Surety of Ability. Some, assuredly, win these Ribbons by dint of Wit, Application, Facility, or powerful Intellect. Others, altogether lacking in either publick or private Virtues, enjoy them through the accidental Caprice of Fortune, yet would secure their comfortable oossessions of these Emoluments by erecting Barriers to Men of Talent joining their company. Wherefore, many years since, these wary and covetous Hacks established a national combination of Scribblers and loudly asserted what was clearly absurd, that the Practice of Scribbling was a bona fide Profession, requiring a long and rigorous Training. In pursuit of this Bedlam Logick (and Nonsense breeding still more Nonsense), they contrived by backstairs Influence, clandestine Pressure and open Threats to withdraw what they were pleased to call their professional services, that not even Adam Smith be hired to write of Oeconomick Matters, unless he had endured three years on provincial Journals, and also that Short-hand be accounted a more vital Qualification for discoursing on the most arcane Topicks than Knowledge, Judgement, etc., etc.
Had matters lain there, and the Hacks, having preserved their jobs of Lucre from Risk of Competition, returned to their customary diversions of Drinking, Whoring, Carousing, etc. no harm but an Injustice had been done. Alas, a new Puritan Faction had arisen among them. composed of Men who, having perused the teachings of Dr Marx with more Enthusiasm than Understanding, declared it shameful that the Publick Prints should be the Property of a few,wealthy Men, not of themselves, and that a true Version of Liberty would ensure that none should scribble for Payment outside the Ranks of the combination. All would then be subject to its disciplines — not even Editors, by a recent Decision, being any longer exempt from its insolent domination.
Into this imbroglio stepped Mr Secretary Foot, himself a former Hacl and Pamphleteer (of notorious Bile and Inaccuracy), a Humbug and Pharisee on the Topick of 1.iberty, knowledgeable in the writings of Hazlitt and little else, and a near connection of the most dogmatical among the Scribblers. Upon his favourite Principles of subduing the fractious independence of Merchants (would to GOd it were true that the fault of our Merchants were too much spirit!), and of subjecting all Orders in the State to controul by Statesmen and Workmen's Combinations, he bath lately brought forward laws to enable the National Convention of Scribblers to exclude all others from access to the printing press, and ttohetrbeebfyatnoatsick nuffcoabuatiOpinions that are offensive And now 'tis said, that Mr Secretarya.Feonodt: meeting lately with Editors to discuss amendments that would alTaw Editors to direct their Journals, doubtless recalling his own editing of the Tribune, declared that there was but little distinction between the Press and such industries as sewerage. In like manner did John Wilkes, by then a partisan of Order against the Mob, reprove a Lady who had raised the old cry of "Wilkes and Liberty", Having served is purpose, the cry of -Foot and Liberty" is similarly abandoned by the Minister.
Tom Puzzle
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