The Press. — London, England, 1857-03-28 00:00:00

F MARCH 28, 1857. fittrature. The Press and the Public Service. By a Distinguished Writer. London : Routledge. WE fancy that it would not be difficult to identify the " Distinguished Writer "---a less arrogant nom de plume would have been more judicious—who has issued this volume. But we forbear any attempt to raise the veil from his features, as the main object of his volume is to insist on the right of an author to remain anonymous as long as it pleases him. The book is a protest against any assumption of authority tending to compel an author to acknowledge what he may have good reasons for declining to avow. We gather from the preface that Lord Clarendon having good reasons, as he con ceived, for suspecting that some gentleman employed in the Foreign-office was the author of a certain publication, required him to clear himself from the suspicion, first by an un• equivocal statement made on his honour, and secondly by affidavits of the publisher and editor of the work. The " Distinguished Writer" contends that Lord Clarendon ex ceeded his duty in this matter, and that if his conduct were to become a precedent for the guidance of high officials in future, it would be productive, not only of inquisitorial pro ceedings, highly injurious to the position and liberty of servants of the Crown, but of the most serious injustice to parties who might be unable to clear themselves from the sus picion attached to them. In a series of amusing chapters he quotes numerous instances to prove that the practice of anonymous writing has been sanctioned by some of the highest names in our political and literary history ; and he endeavours to establish, though with less success, the moral right of writers to positively deny the author ship of publications which they are unwilling to own. The statement of his case is of sufficient interest to be given in his own words : The principal .Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has recently asserted his right to question persons in his department respecting their supposed connection with anonymous publications. This Minister has further maintained, that, in conse• quence of secret information confidentially communicated to him, a suspected person may be called upon to furnish conclusive proof to satisfy his lordship, and to enable his lordship to convince others that such person is not in any way connected with anonymous works attributed to him, either as the author or one of the authors ; or by having furnished materials for the works to any other person, or in any other manner whatsoever. The evidence required by the principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to establish these negatives, must comprise the distinct denial of the supposed author, cor• roborated by explicit declarations or affidavits from the publishers and editors of the anonymous works in ques. tion. In the event of the suspected person being unable to ob tain affidavits, or declarations, from perfect strangers, who may be interested in concealing the real author or authors, or who may not even be acquainted a ith him or them, the suspected person will be deprived of his profession without any form of trial. He will be punished by the degrading sentence of dismissal from his employment, and he will be declared incapable of holding any other appointment. It is now sixty-five years since Mr. Fox asked whether it was agreeable to the law of England that the onus in cases of libel should lie on the person accused, to prove his innocence, and not on those who accused him to prove his guilt? The noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs is the first British statesman who has yet answered that question in the affirmative. In a recent case the proofs demanded by his lordship were actually obtained ; but the matter appeared seriously to affect the interests of publishers, editors, and men of letters. It appeared likely to furnish a most hurtful and dangerous precedent. It has therefore become ne cessary for their future guidance to bring the subject under public notice. It is evident that a strong case may be made out against the exercise of any such authority as Lord Clarendon is here charged with having assumed. The suspected writer might indig nantly refuse to give the disclaimer required from him, though perfectly innocent of the charge; and an editor or publisher might still more probably refuse to supply that nega tive which would be a clue to the real writer. Under such circumstances the prospects of an honourable man might be blasted, and the head of a family in prosperous circumstances might, in a moment, by the caprice of his superior, be degraded to destitution and dis- THE PRESS. honour. This is the side of the case supplied by the " Distinguished Writer." But there are obvious limits to the rule he endeavours to lay down. We may suppose that the head of a depart ment—more particularly as in tho case of the Foreign Department might have strong reasons for suspecting that one of the officials betrayed the confidence reposed in him, either by revealing matters which it was of the first importance should be kept secret, or by dis crediting the gentlemen with whom he was associated, and thus casting contempt on the service. What in such a case is the head of the department to do? His duty would com pel him to make some effort to discover the offender, and he must, in the first instance, act upon suspicion, as it is only by suspicion that guilt can be tracked and brought to light. It is true that no man should be required to convict himself. The plea of " Not Guilty" holds good until a strong presumption of guilt is established, but no longer. For if the accused then fails to explain the circum stances which tell most strongly against him, it is presumed that he has no valid defence, and the verdict goes against him. In the cases supposed by the " Distin guished Writer," a call upon suspected parties to clear themselves may not be a call to prove a negative, but a call to disprove a strong affirmative. And we are inclined to think that the proper check to an abuse of that power which must be intrusted to the head of every department must rather lie in his character, and in the vigilance of opinion, than in any rule which can be dictated. As a general rule, it ought to be held 0), that no official should be so much as questioned con cerning any writing or publication which does not immediately relate to his official duties, and expressly impair his usefulness as a public servant; and (2), that he should never be re quired to stand on the defensive—that is, to affirm or prove a denial, unless the suspicion against him is as strong in degree as would justify an indictment in a criminal court. On the more general principle of the moral right of an author to repudiate his produc tions, some curious instances are given in this volume. The positive denial by Scott of the authorship of the Waverley Novels is well known. Sydney Smith denied the authorship of " Peter Plymley's Letters," and with bois terous fun charged them on Dugald Stewart; Swift denied "Drapier's Letters," and Johnson conceived cases in which a man might fancy that he had a right to deny his writings. These examples, with the author's ingenious reasoning upon them, fail to convince us. The proper ground for a writer to take is—to refuse to recognise the right of any person to question him on the authorship of a particular publication. Such questions should invari ably be treated as impertinent, and as an un warrantable interference with that privacy of action which every man has a right to main tain. It may be said that the refusal to deny would be construed into an acknowledgment. We do not see why it should be, and it cer tainly could not he, if the rule we have pre scribed were generally acted on. Mere imper tinence is to be resisted, not in any way to be submitted to. 311 paper writers and public servants. So were Lord Mans field, Lord Cowper, and Walpole. Trenchard, Commis sioner of Forfeited Estates in Ireland, wrote " Cato's Letters." Blackstone was solicitor to the Crown when he attacked Mr. Grenville in an anonymous pamphlet. Weston and Draper were both small officials. Charles Lloyd and John Roberts, two of the reputed authors of Junius, were Treasury clerks. Nearly all the thirty imr sons suspected of having written those letters were officill men. . . . Edmund Burke wrote for the Innuat Register while private secretary to Lord Rockingham. Many of Johnson's political works were written after be was in receipt of a pension. Lord Grenville charges Pitt with having "furnished information, for his own purposes, to the papers." Lord Temple wrote for the North Briton. Lady Hester Stanhope says that Pitt used to complain of Canning for " repeating his conversations to people who published them in the Oracle." Lord Camden was sus pected of betraying the secrets of the Cabinet to Lord Chat ham, who published them. James Mill, who attacked the Hon. East India Company in his" History of British India," and who was also a writer in the Westminster Review, held a high appointment in the Company's service. Lord Abingdon was tried for libel. Nearly all the founders of the Quarterly Review were men in office. The conclusion of the writer is, that a public servant should be left entirely free to publish what he pleases : Is there any man in power among us who ventures plainly to declare that all books written by gentlemen in the public service should be licensed by some member of the Government for the time being?—that the old device of the Inquisition should be revived to purify the public service of every original thinker? If so, who is to be licenser? Who will accept the office which Mabbot threw up as illegal two centuries ago? Where is the man of nice judgment to be found who shall tell us what books may be written and read in safety, and what books may not? What salary shall he have whose judgment is sup posed superior to that of the whole nation? Who is to draw the precise line where a book is, and where it is not, hurtful to the cause of good government? And why are the people presumed to require the assistance of this strange functionary to prevent their being led astray against their owu interests? Who shall warrant the justice of a party intrusted with a duty so delicate? Shall books be revised by the very men interested in concealing the truth? if so, the public service must become another name for dishonour and slavery of conscience. Progress and re form will be impossible. The principle laid down will virtually provide that no official shall give serious atten tion to his profession, or attempt to devise improvements for the public good, and that he mast submit his judg ment in all cases blindly to his superior. Admitting the force of this view, common sense still affirms that there must be some discretionary power in the head of a depart ment to prevent officials from taking advantage of the opportunities they possess to prejudice the public service. That power, according to circumstances, may be exercised in a most tyrannical and unjust, or in a most moderate and salutary manner. To prevent abuse, it should be strictly confined within the limits we have attempted to prescribe. The following paragraph shows the natural effects of long-continued Liberal rule : All the highest posts in the public service are in posses. sion of a few families. Subordinates, who do not belong to those families, revolt against the labour which is not deemed worthy of its hire. Reform must be at last brought about by such revolts, if the) are no: put down ; and if they are to be always violently suppressed, let us in mercy at once by law declare that all our principal offices are hereditary. This is really the case. Every place of power, dignity, and emolument is an appanage of a few families, who may be numbered on the fingers of a single hand. There is by no means any undue favour shown, as is popularly supposed, to the nobility. Everything is in the power of a few jobbers. It is not against the Lords that the people should murmur; the Lords have generally been far more liberal and honest than the Commons. The Lords have done more than yeoman's service in the State. The Peers first allowed the publication of their debates in Parliament, and a hundred times in our history have shown themselves the most incorruptible body of gen. tlemen in the land. It is well that every family in the kingdom also, patrician or otherwise, should have a fair chance of public honours; but it is not right that a few families should monopolise all the chances, for a few families cannot monopolise all the merit. When the desire for concealment is so strong as to lead a writer to shield himself under direct falsehood, it is a proof, in these days at least, that he has placed himself in a false position. What right has any man to conduct himself in such a manner as to render a direct lie essential to his safety or his interest? We should like to know more of the particular case mentioned by the author at the com mencement of his volume, as without details it is impossible to pass an opinion on Lord Clarendon's conduct. The volume exhibits great readiness and talent, of exactly the kind (there can be no harm in saying) which mark the productions of that "distinguished writer," " The Roving Englishman." On another question raised by this author there can be, we imagine, no difference of opinion. He contends for the right of public servants to express their sentiments freely, and he shows that some of the most distin guished contributors to the press have been official men : The first London newspaper was edited by a clerk in the Histoire de Washington. By Cornelis de Witt. office of the Secretary of State. All our public men since the Revolution have been mixed up with the Press, from Paris ; Didier. Halifax and Somers to Pitt and Canning. For nearly two M. DE Wirr, if we mistake not, is a descendant centuries the Press has furnished the real battleground of all of the great Pensioner of Holland of that State questions. It would be absurd to ignore this. Locke name ; and as there are many points of simili was a public servant. Swift held Government preferment when he wrote " Drspier's Letters." Atterbury, Prior, tude between the Pensioner and the founder Addison, Steele, Palteney, and Bolingbroke, were all news• 8 of the United States, it is natural that be I