Mr. Balfour made a speech on Wednesday at the annual
dinner of the Newspaper Society, in which he actually con- trived to say something on the exhausted subject of the Press, which was at once new and true. He said that in this country, what with advertisements, which of course depend on cir- culation, and circulation which depends mainly on news, the great journals were practically "endowed," and could often support particular opinions which were not those of their customers. They could, for instance, he said, censure strongly tbe practice of gambling on races and athletic events, yet publish every day the state of the odds, a contradiction between practice and precept, of which he rather approved. We confess our approval or disapproval would be regu- lated by the motive for the censure. A journalist might honestly record the odds as items of news if he only thought betting inexpedient, but hardly if he considered it immoral. It is quite certain, however, that journals are "endowed" in the way Mr. Balfour described, and that the fact has a great accidental influence on politics. Politicians judge opinion chiefly by the newspapers, while very often the newspapers are reflecting the opinion only of those who write in them. There are heaps of topics—almost all religions questions, to begin with—upon which the daily journals do not reflect average opinion even approximately.
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