THE FARMER IN POLITICS 139 



the former, "and take a Grit paper instead? 

 Then you would get both sides of the question 

 and could form a better opinion on any issue." 

 The answer was full of meaning. "Oh," said his 

 friend of the two Tory papers, "it is just this 

 way. Suppose you and I cannot agree on some 

 matter and we call in a third party to settle the 

 dispute. If I tell him all truth, and you tell him 

 all lies, how is he going to make a just decision?" 



Thus the influence of the party press was at 

 times supreme in moulding public opinion. 

 Each party was fed by its press with the partisan 

 views calculated to stimulate narrowness, and 

 suspicion of the other party. So great was the 

 efficiency of the press in carrying on partisan 

 propaganda, that issues could be camouflaged by 

 raising cries of race and religion. As an example 

 one might take the general election of 1911, 

 supposedly fought on the issue of reciprocity, 

 but really on the score of race and religion. 



But once let that unbounded confidence in the 

 press be shaken and a new order of things was 

 sure to result. Let the masses of the people 

 begin to think for themselves and woe betide 

 the party heeler. There comes to mind a 

 noted saying of Sir Wilfred Laurier, "The people 

 must be heard, trust the people," and another of 

 Sir John A. Macdonald in which he speaks of the 

 rural people as the "great steadying influence." 



