the official subventions to newspapers which are said to be common on the continent.21 But such abuses tend to correct themselves. It is well known that directed to selfish ends propaganda soon provokes a reaction. At the Paris Peace Conference it was carried to absurd limits; and the public, as well as public men, have become correspondingly wary. An interesting latter-day development has been lecturers of a semi-official character. Those from England, who have rather bombarded us since the war, have had for the most part a courteous and attentive hearing. Lord Robert Cecil's advocacy of the League was well received and no doubt furnished good food for public thought, in whatever direction its influence may have lain. M. Clemenceau's visit was also accepted in the spirit in which it was conceived. Members of the American Senate among others welcomed the opportunity for discussion of a great public issue."

22

21 Cf. Barthélemy, op. cit., p. 187.

22 See Cong. Rec., Nov. 23, 1922, pp. 49 and 53.

CHAPTER VIII

PUBLIC OPINION ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

How public opinion is formed in general is a matter beyond the scope of our inquiry. There are some interesting and instructive books on the subject,1 though hardly as many as one might expect. For our purpose it is only necessary to refer to some of the difficulties connected with the formation of public opinion on foreign affairs.

In order to maintain a sound public opinion, three things are essential. The public must have a more or less sustained interest, it must be informed, and its conclusions must be reached mainly by rational processes. It is at once apparent that these conditions are least assured in the realm of foreign affairs. The interest of the public is for the most part weak and intermittent, information is relatively difficult to obtain and is least dependable, and there is a strong play of sentiment.

2

Public interest responds naturally to matters✓ which affect closely the daily lives of the members of the community, and less certainly to matters which touch the imagination. It is self-evident, therefore, as a general proposition, that foreign, as contrasted with domestic, affairs have an uncertain appeal to the general attention. If this needs demonstration, the proof is found in the exceptions.

1 E.g., Lowell: Public opinion and popular government (New York, 1921), and Public opinion in war and peace (Cambridge, 1923); Lippmann, Walter: Public opinion (New York, 1922). See also Bryce: Modern democracies, chap. xv.

2 Cf. Lowell: Public opinion and popular government, p. 53.

There are miscellaneous persons of education who maintain a somewhat constant interest in foreign affairs because it is to their taste and responds to feelings of patriotic pride and interest, but their number in any country is relatively very small. The interests of the mercantile and financial classes, especially of the seaboard regions, are often directly influenced by conditions abroad and the relation of their country to them, and their attention to the foreign field may therefore be fairly well sustained. The regular employment of large bodies of factory workers in England is directly connected with the state of foreign markets, and they evince an interest correspondingly keen in matters which are likely to affect the volume of orders from particular foreign regions. A large element in the population of the United States, the western farmer and rural townsman whom Bryce selected as the characteristic type of our "average citizen,"" have not until recentlysince the opening of the Mississippi River to navigation in 1803-been perceptibly affected in their personal interests by foreign affairs, but the reflex of the situation in Europe on the market for farm products has turned their attention in that direction, and a number of their representatives in Congress have thought it worth while to cross the Atlantic to study conditions at first-hand, whereas only a short time ago such trips would hardly have been thought of.

It is undoubtedly true that the change from national to world economy is arousing a more general interest in international relations. Sir Edward Grigg 3 Modern democracies, 2: 119.

told us the other evening of the lively concern of his Manchester constituents in the progress of the situation in the Near East. Another stimulant to popular interest is the general acceptance of the principle of compulsory military service. The possibility of war now suggests realities to nearly every member of the body politic. Yet interest easily lags. It is necessary to remember that we are in the midst of special conditions. We have just gone through the worst war in history, and there is none who has not been directly touched by it. The world is still in tumult, and everyone is alive to the possibility of further conflict and its calamitous results. Just now, therefore, the public interest in foreign affairs is relatively strong and well sustained, but this condition cannot be counted upon to continue. On the contrary, it is the devout hope of all that the world will soon mend. Then each nation can settle back into a comfortable preoccupation with its own affairs. "For a long time," wrote a member of the French Chamber in an official report in 1903, "we have observed the sort of indifference with which the French parliament looks upon questions of foreign policy and abandons that regular and minute control without which ministerial responsibility is only a fiction. In this attitude it but reflects too accurately the state of mind of a country to which cruel and too numerous lessons have not been sufficient to teach the capital interest of these problems and their reaction upon the prosperity and even the security of the nation.""

Foreign affairs have a special appeal to the imagination undoubtedly. Among the broader masses of a

Cited in Barthélemy: Démocratie et la politique étrangère,

p. 126.

democracy, however, the imagination is stirred only by occasional and spectacular events and cannot be counted upon to contribute to a sustained public J opinion. It must be confirmed that in general foreign affairs occupy a decidedly secondary place in the public mind. They come to the fore only after acute situations have developed or some great issue has been joined. To the vast majority of problems that arise daily in the intercourse of states the body of the public remains indifferent.

It is equally self-evident as a general proposition that the public is less well informed about foreign than about domestic matters. The element of direct observation is almost altogether lacking. Foreign affairs lie in the "unseen environment," and knowledge of them must come through media which are operating under the same disadvantages of distance.

The principal channel for current information is the press. It is difficult to speak in measured terms of what the press is doing. Its system of gathering information the world over and relating events almost as they happen is one of the monumental achievements of the age. We must note, however, deficiencies in respect to foreign affairs which are not for the most part the fault of the press but exist in the nature of things.

Though there is a highly developed sense of public duty in the newspaper profession, the publishing of newspapers remains a commercial enterprise. Readers are needed to build up advertising patronage, and readers are obtained by interesting the public. The comparatively minor and sporadic interest of the public in foreign affairs is therefore reflected in the subject matter of newspaper columns. A classifica