NF (1939) Fifty Essays by George Orwell

Author:George Orwell [Orwell, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

And what makes the police decide to arrest one man rather than another? However it may be with the magistrate, I find it hard to believe that in this case the police were not influenced by political considerations. It is a bit too much of a coincidence that they should have picked on people selling just those papers.

If they had also arrested someone selling TRUTH, or the TABLET, or the SPECTATOR, or even the CHURCH TIMES, their impartiality would be easier to believe in.

The British police are not like the continental GENDARMERIE or Gestapo, but I do not think [sic] one maligns them in saying that, in the past, they have been unfriendly to Left-wing activities. They have generally shown a tendency to side with those whom they regarded as the defenders of private property. Till quite recently "red" and "illegal" were almost synonymous, and it was always the seller of, say the DAILY WORKER, never the seller of say, the DAILY TELEGRAPH, who was moved on and generally harassed. Apparently it can be the same, at any rate at moments, under a Labour Government.

A thing I would like to know--it is a thing we hear very little about--is what changes are made in the administrative personnel when there has been a change of government.. Does a police officer who has a vague notion that "Socialism" means something against the law carry on just the same when the government itself is Socialist?

When a Labour government takes over, I wonder what happens to Scotland Yard Special Branch? To Military Intelligence? We are not told, but such symptoms as there are do not suggest that any very extensive shuffling is going on.

However, the main point of this episode is that the sellers of newspapers and pamphlets should be interfered with at all. Which particular minority is singled out--whether Pacifists, Communists, Anarchists, Jehovah's Witness of the Legion of Christian Reformers who recently declared Hitler to be Jesus Christ--is a secondary matter. It is of symptomatic importance that these people should have been arrested at that particular spot. You are not allowed to sell literature inside Hyde Park, but for many years past it has been usual for the paper-sellers to station themselves outside the gates and distribute literature connected with the open air meetings a hundred yards away. Every kind of publication has been sold there without interference.

The degree of freedom of the press existing in this country is often over-rated. Technically there is great freedom, but the fact that most of the press is owned by a few people operates in much the same way as State censorship. On the other hand, freedom of speech is real. On a platform, or in certain recognised open air spaces like Hyde Park, you can say almost anything, and, what is perhaps more significant, no one is frightened to utter his true opinions in pubs, on the tops of busses, and so forth.

The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion.

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