Star. — London, England, 1819-12-24 00:00:00

should distinrsish between the erimi litious, and the res?ectable part of the Press. then was, to make the law efficacious for T ression of the horrid evils which arose out infamous part of the Press. The whole of ,itical part of the Pres; now rested in, and was Tally confined to the Newspapers. In these a l ete revolution had taken place within the last years; and in that period their importance had -4 in a most astonishing degree. The persons mg the daily Press had, within that time, a great degree of authority over public Being a source of great emolument, they jrl drew to them men of property, as well as t, Parliament, therefore, had the power of k g these conductors of the Press their friends. g ht make enemies of them ; but could not de them. Men of the first talents were engaged lucting the Press, and it remained to determine they should be made the auxiliaries or the ,of the Government. The circumstances tlidrew men of talent and liberal education to 'induct of the Press, produced a constant im it in Public Journals. During the last years he had witnessed the progress of this cement ; he had witnessed an improvement in an improvement in political thinking, and in ity. He knew one case exactly in point. It rat of the conductor of a Public Journal, who glowed that profession for the last forty years, tore of whose occupation made it necessary for rays to write in a hurry, who wrote in the of party, who was continually exercising a almost despotic over the feelings of his readers, As himself invisible, and who, by evading the might have wounded the feelings of numbers. in individual, possessing such power, and hav itch temptations, was never charged with wound . feelings of any body, never was prosec ted ;rate slander, nor ever convicted of a public nring the space of forty years, that he had ' , aged in-the conduct of a Public Journal.— Act put it to Gentlemen, whether they be , that men in any other part of Europe would passed through so trying a period as that Gen , had passed through, with such freedom from !, and such unsullied integrity ? He did not :e to say, that the Gentleman to whom he al , was the Editor of The Morning Chronicle. erely quoted him as an instance of that cor and that sense of honour which had grown all, and had distinguished the Press of the pre day, and which it ought to be the policy of that to cultivate and cherish. Such a conduct on tart of the Parliansapt would be the most power ngine for conciliating the whole country. He I on the House to consider the manner in which rsons connected with the Press of London had y conducted themselves towards those common mies of mankind, against whom the enactments the present Bill were directed. There never was splendour and vigour of talent displayed on occasion than that with which those men at al the enemy the House now contended against: rr as the very safety of society was concerned, he intained that civilized society never had more advocates than those journalists ; and were those -Able men to be thrown into the same scale wretches who recommended the committing of Ulage and murder? Were the best supporters of lernment to be rewarded by being placed on the level with its enemies? Were they, without fault on their parts, to be rendered liable to most and ignominious punishments? Were they to cofounded with the most infamous miscreants in tuntry ? He appealed then, not to the gene !, but to the prudence and policy of the House, asked whether these men ought not to be treated t kindness? That House could not change the of society,. they could not arrest its progress; course of human affairs proceeded from causes were independent of legislation. The Press now .i,ed a power which could not be taken away d sa. That House might exasperate or conciliate co-iluctors, and it remained to determine, which wisest course to pursue. There was one pro , in the Bill before the House, which required . all persons conducting Journals should enter into recogaizances that they should not publish libels. What, he asked, would be the consequence of thus aiding men of honour and character with mis its and murderers? The consequence would be, !rive from all Newspapers that character and pro -1 which were now best calculated to ensure the cafe and proper conduct of Newspapers. This cha racter which belonged to the Press, was contrived nature and by circumstances, which that House curd not change,, but might drive away. The Bill tow before the House would drive away men of great ar,:ing, men of talent, men of property and cha 7ter, from the conduct of the Press; Ad these . always the best securities for its good conduct. But mark what would be the consequence of this change:--men of desperate ambition —fanatics in litics, and without character, would have the con :t of the public Press—of that great instrument in which the safety of society depended. If the .ouse wished to contrive the most effectual means of Putting the safety of society in danger, they could not do so more effectually, nor could hey more effec tusily produce a general distrust of the laws, than by enacting a clause that went to put the best men in the country on a level with the worst. The Hon. and Learned Gentleman concluded with moving his first Amendment, to insert the words " maliciously and advisedly." Mr. CANNING declared he never listened with more pleasure to any man in that House, than he now did to his Honourahle and Learned Friend, but at the same time he could not agree with him in the', emcirtsion he wished to draw from his reasoning. 1i there was any thing to be regretted in his elo-1 Tint speech, it was that part of it which alluded tol , the power possessed by the Press of the country ; by loch he laid a basis for his motion that was much too wide for the object, and which certainly created lonte alarm in his mind. The alterations, proposed by his Learned Friend might be harmless, were it hot for the warning voice with which they were re quired. lle wanted that House to surrender its judg ment to a certain unknown and invisible power, and to make an alliance of homage to the daily Press— ( H ear,heer ).—lf he were called on to determine either , Nf these alternatives, whether the country was . to be put to hazard, or be saved by the expedient of -,4 li , onour able and Learned Friend—he must tide on yielding nothing to fle tone of his intingds tion—(Hear, hear).—ale would go no farther than thc definition just given of the power with which the House was called on to form an alliance ; and he would ask the House whether, after hearing of the clouds and darkness in which that power was en veloped, and never knowing how soon its bolts would dart down upon them, they must not conclude that, instead of enjoying the freedom, they should be suffering under the despotism of the Press ?- 1 (Loud cries of Hear, hear).—He objected to many kinds of despotism ; but he never would submit to a despotism that was to act with the secrecy of a Vene tian tribunal, and to strike with the certainty of the Inquisition. He was not disposed to differ generally From his Learned Friend, in the character he gave of the Press ; and he believed the individual con ductor alluded to deserved the character given of him. But he would not say that the daily Press was free from blame ; for he had very lately read in a daily paper a quotation from a pamphlet which re commended assassination ; and the passage so quoted was not accompanied by any condemnation. But I whilst he was prepared to give the Press generally due merit, he felt it necessary to state a few excep tions from the general panegyric, as a justification of the opinion he held upon the motion of the Honour able and Learned Gentleman opposite. True, he had confidence in the integrity of it ; but he would ask, was it in such times as the present, in that condition, as would take it out of the operation of the general measures, which were deemed necessary to be re sorted to ?—(Hear).—ln legislating upon great ques tions, which affected the whole community, was Par liament to be directed from its straight forward course, by an attention to individual interests? (Hear, hear). . Did the Committee forget the peculiar circumstances under which they were now acting? But with regard to the position laid down by the Hon. and Learned Gentleman, that when any new power was created or discovered in the moral world, that then there was a tendency to repress and tame it, he was at a loss to see how far the argument upon that was intended to be carried. One thing he would say, that when a great explosion of nature took place, which was likely to bury the country in ruins, it would be the more prudent way, rather to fly from it, than throw our selves prostrate under it. The power and influence of the fins, he contended, had been greatly magni fied. He was not prepared, indeed, to deny, that its tone had increased tenfold in force, compared with what it was, but to what cause was this to be attri buted ? Was it not to the facilities held out by the Press, which was the organ of it? ( Hear).—He was not one of those who saw this accumulation of force with regret, or who would arrest its progress ; but he never would consent to give up the right of legis lation in this House, nor concede any point of the majesty of the law, to purchase conciliation with this organ of public opinion—(Hear, hear). —It was true, that too much solicitude for conviction often de stroyed the effects of punishment, and perhaps there was some truth in the Hon. and Learned Gentleman's observations upon the definition of crime, in the, clause to which he objected. At the same time he should strongly oppose the striking out the obnoxious words in the clause ; kir there was a great deal of difference in adding to the definitions of an offence already stated, and striking out any words, for that would be, pro tanto, making the Bill less operative to a particular class of crime: Another objection occur red to him, as taken by the Hon. and Learned Gentle man, which was to the length of the definition.—upon this he would say, that whatever ether good qualities the Amendment might have, it certainly was riot cal culated from its conciseness,.to remove the objection. Take it in any shape, in its length, whether mea sured by syllables or words, by weight or by mea sure, and he was persuaded it could not claim much superiority as to shortness, in a competition with the wording of the present clause—(A laugh). How 1, ever, he was not indisposed to act upon the sugges tion of the Honourable and Learned Gentleman, and he had no objection, in order to make the Bill more clear, to adopt his definitions added to those that were already in. The definition he would shorten, but never would he disgrace the Bill, by erasing the very material words as proposed. He would ask the Committee to look at these words? The motinnnow was, to leave out the words, 4 , any libel whatever, on the Constitution, the person of the King, his succes sors, the Constitution or Government of the King dom, and both Houses of Parliament"—(Heer). Was it proposed then to make this no offence? Why, it appeared to him, from the reasoning of the Honour able Gentleman himself, that the Press should raise its head against the omission. What ! leave unpro tected that Constitution, that sacred person of Ma jesty, and those rights of both Houses of Parliament, which, in the words of the Honourable Gentleman, those connected with the Press venerated so much?. He was persuaded they did venerate them, but were their rights so unimportant as to be left entirely to their guardianship? Had Parliament no duty to dis charge ? or rather, had not every Member in that House a severe responsibility upon him ?—(Hear). —Perhaps, with the same dispositions, Parliament , when compared with the Press, fell short when their powers and faculties were measured. True, it had sot all the advantages of mystery. There was no, cloud to shut out the eyes of obtruders ;. all its acts were public, and what was said at night was, in a. few hours, capable of being conveyed to the farthest corners of the Empire. Yet, with all these advan-, cages, he would never conciliate the Press, but trust to Parliament alone to preserve the Constitution—, ( Hear, hear). The Right Honourable Gentleman concluded by saying, that he was inclined to adopt the Amendment as far as it purported to extend the operation of the Bill to offences, which it did not re cognize before—(Hear, hear). Lord FOLKSTOUL denied that his Honourable and Learned Friend Sad held out any threats from the influence of the Press, which could call from the Right ilonurable Gentleman opposite a display of the sacrifices which- he would make in defence of the liberties of that House. He was sure, if there was a necessity for it, every one of his Honourable Friends about him would say as much. It appeared to hula that the only object of his Honourable and Learned Friend's motion was to apportion the punishment, and apply the punishment in the proper place. He was sorry to see the use which bad been made of his Learned Friend's Amendment, which, as the Bill itself was proposed to be left untouched, would be only adding to * the absurdities in it. The Noble Lord 'then made same remarks tipad some of the other clauses in the Bill, particularly upon that authorizing the search, and that which imposed banishment, which, he contended, had not been sufficiently ex plained. He would ask, what would be the situation of a man who, to a foreign country, at war with England, had been obliged by conscription laws to fight, and had been taken prisoner—was he to be hanged for high treason ?—(Hear hear). This, he contended, would be the case, unless his allegiance waitut off, which Legal Gentlemen on the other side had said was not contemplated by this Bill. There was also another inconvenience, for it would happen that a man might not be able to raise money enough to leave the Country, and by staying, he subjected himself to the penalty df death. Besides all these, it would dispose the Press to favour foreign countries, not knowing how soon they should be obliged to be come inhabitants of them. After all, he was of opi nion, that its great effect would be to check the pro gress of education, and the dissemination of useful knowledge. Sir J. MACKINTOSH replied. His object was to recal the Committee to the importance of his mo dein, after the very able address of the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite had almost disposed them to for ' get it. The Right Hon. Gentleman, however had a considerable advantage over him, from the part which he was to take, for the vivacity of invective belonged to him who attacks, whilst to the defend ant nothing was left, but the dry sparks of reason.— He could only wish, that it had been employed in a better cause, for talents much inferior to his would have been capable of rousing the dormant feelings of a popular assembly, and stimulating pride, under pretence of privilege, which was so easily acted upon. However, he could not but observe that de clamation was the only answer, which the Right Honourable Gentleman made to his arguments. — He (Sir James) had taken a plain and straight forward course. All the arguments which he advanced, were grounded on the propositions, that the evil was confined to one class of writers, who alone, he contended, should be affected by the Bill. In that, the Right Hon. Gentleman seemed to con cur with him. Another class, he argued, should be 'exempted, and in that also, it seemed as if the Right Hon. Gentleman was not disposed to differ from him. Yet, after all this, the conclusion he would have the Committee draw, was, that he was for sur rendering up the privileges of that House—(Hear). ,That was not his intention, he again repeated ; all he proposed, was to avert from the meritorious man, a measure which was not called for. He wished that the distribution of punishment should be made here, as justice demanded, and that those who were really guilty should be the only objects of punishment.— But he could not timely listen to a charge of being indifferent to the privileges of that House. No man' tould be a greater advocate for them : for, in truth, he considered them a great part of the bulwarks of our liberties. No man was more forward, when there was a real necessity, or the apprehension of dan ger—if he should have the misfortune to see a sacri fice really required in their defence ; if he was des tined to see them fall he could say— Iliad dneres, et gamma aureate meorom; Teeter ta ee‘eati v canny, nee Was, nee ul4* Vttavaie aims Damao ; et. si fate raiment Ut caderem, atavism mans!. (irear,km). He (Sir-Jame-.) thought, at the same time, it was a measure of justice and policy to make some conces sions in favour of the innocent. At least, his argu ments, deserved an answer, and the Right Hon. Gen tleman, before he launched into that splendid strain of declamation, should have proved to thiCommit tee, that all classes of persons connected with the Press were alike obnoxious to punishment—(Hear). But the Right Hon. Gent. seemed to be in a state of great alarm. He was at a loss to account for the cause of it. There were many kinds of fear, but this was the most unaccountable of all. He remembered a saying of the late Master of the Rolls, upon an oc casion like the present, which would not be unseason able now to make use of. Sir W. Grant, in speaking of fear, said, " I am an enemy to all kinds of fear, but the most foolish of all is, that of being thought afraid l"—(Hear). — The Learned Gentleman then proceeded to explain the arguments upon which he had founded his Amendment. He denied that he had courted the daily Press, and that he ever intended to hold it in terror over the House, with a view to in: fluence its decisions. He had asserted that there were distinctions to be made in the characters of the persons connected with the Press, and it was impos iible for him to support his argument without it. No reply had bean made to this by the Right Hon. Gen tleman, in his impatience to reach the splendour of gu s i " Desperat traetata aheseere posse, retiaquit." He (Sir James) had endeavoured to spew, that con founding al in one tido was the surest way of making the Bill inefficacious in its object. But he again de nied that he had talked of the influence of the Press as an argument to overawe the House. If there were any thing like personal fear, it would indeed be dis graceful to conciliate the Press; but when the ques tion was, whether a body of men, of good characters and good conduct, were to be attached by one course more than another, he apprehended it was good po licy, and not fear, that would point out the line of conduct which the Committee ought to adopt. He concluded by saying, that the Right Hon. Gentleman t opposite had advanced nothing to induce him to abandon the Amendment which he had the honour of proposing, and that whatever might be its fate, he was persuaded it was a measure of prudence aad ex pediency to adopt it. Mr. CANNING submitted to the House, whether hi had not fairly and faithfully represented the senti ments of his Honourable Friend? He wished to set himself right in the estimation of the House, and to set his Honourable Friend right in his own recollec tion. He would appeal confidently to House, whether, in considering the arguments of his Honour able Friend, he had not attributed to him exactly the expressions which he had used? Did he not take the very word deletion horn his Honourable Friend, as applied to the dom►nion which bad been exercised by means of the Press? Did he not give the picture of a person exercising a power unbounded over thy pub lic mind, through the medium of the Press? Did het not speak of that awe with which the Public looked up to this•extraordidary ad mystic personage, the , description of which reminded him of the .passage in which King Evandef &Scribed the Genial that haun . ted the sits of the ?arpeiau llock i to the awe-settak . • peasants i 4. Amiss tram dredunt se ddisse Jovem; dam wise dgrantsed " JEgida amcuteret demo nimbosque deret! " The House would reniember that the clonds were - not wanting to perfect-the resemblance—(Hears hear)4 And was it possible for any one to be at a loss to find out who this nescio quit deus was—this power, however, enveloped hi awful concealment? With' respect to the proposed Amendment, he could not admit it, nor could he consent to alter the necessary provisions of a Bill, because some innocent persons may fall. Much had been said of the fears which the Legislature ought to entertain when it Was enact , ing particular measures. There were various kinds of fear : there was a provident fear, which eau• tiously prepared a security against danger, and this was the fear which he wished to inculcate on the House. There was another fear, or, rather, fascinai tion, which led the victim into the jaws of the mon ster who devoured him. Mr. BROUGHAM was in favour of the Amend ment, and stated his utter objection to the punish• ment of banishment for the second cffence. He said, it was precisely the same as transportation in this sense, that in consequence of a compact which ex isted among the Sovereigns of Europe, to allow no person from the dominions of one into those of the other, without a passport from his native Govern. ment ; a Secretary of State had it in his power to re fuse an individual banished from England a passport, and consequently to deprive him of a residence in any of the European countries. What was this in effect but the worst sort of transportation ? To add to the grievance, the persons who might be supposed to be the objects of this punishment were, generally speaking, very far from being in affluent circum stances. There was another objection—namely, the consequences of sending political writers out of the country, imbued with a hatred and a resentment against this Government. He was not stating an imaginary case—for he would ask, who were our bitterest enemies in America during the whole , of the late war? They were the Irish exiles—(Hear!)--. In Paris, too, they who were banished from Ireland, during the unfortunate rebellion there, were the most active, the most persevering in their hostility to this country, whether as assisting in the military prepa rations, for the invasion of Great Britain, or in con. ducting Newspapers, which continually laboured to hurt the character of this country. But it was mar• vellous enough that while the Hon. Member indul ged in declamation against the licentiousness of the Press, no one was found to notice the traduction of private character which prevailed to such an excess, during the last ten years. In fact, there appeared to be in the Public abase appetite for private slander, and there were not wanting individuals base enough to pamper it. He was delighted, indeed, to find that the good taste of the Public had succeeded in put ting down two periodical works, the Editor of one of which was singled out for the patronage of the Noble Lord opposite. The works he particularly alluded to were The Satirist and The Scourge. The former li t had been his professional duty to examine ; and he should say, that fouler and more filthy slander was never heaped together than was to be found in that most detestable publication---(Hear). That filthy work held out the most private parts of the private life of individuals to public observation. In one instance, there was a picture added to illus. trate the odious history of what was said to have passed in the chamber of one of the most distin guished ornaments of the Peerage. Yet the Editcir of this abominable publication was rewarded with the place of Consul, in New England too, where purity was as much prized as it was in any other part of the world-. This, to say the least of it, was a great piece of indiscretion. The Honourable Mem ber concluded, by animadverting on the remark of an Honourable Member on a former night, relating to the education of the People. Lord CASTLEREAGH said, that no one was more disposed than he was to join in the reprehension of that systematized attack on private character, tb which the Honourable Member alluded. . But he submitted to the House, that the Honourable Mem ber had not treated him fairly, when he abstained from stating a very material fact, with respect to the appointment of Mr. Manners, Editor of the Satirist, to the office of Consul. The Honourable Member would recollect that he (Mr. Brougham) had formerly put a question to him (Lord Castlereagh) with re spect to this very individual, upon which inquiry was made, and the result was certainly not such as to in duce him to advise the removal of this individual from the appointment. Until the question was put to him at the time, he never knew any thing if lilt. Manners previous life. Mr. BROUGHAM admitted that the person- was appointed before he asked 'any question of the Noble Lord ; but was it not true that, after the inquiry, the Noble Lord confirmed that appointment? • Lord CASTLEREAGH said the fact was lo; blit the inquiry, strict as it was, furnished no gronud to justify him in setting aside the appointment-4 Year). Mr. SCARLET' supported the Amendment, and argued to prove that the definition of libel contained in the Bill might include cases that were innocent and inadvertent, or even laudable, as well as those which were really of a criminal character. Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH requested to know why the example of the Act of the 96 th of the. King `had been departed from in the present Bill ? In that 'Act, the words " maliciously and advisedly" were used before " writing and publishing." The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said that the Bill now before the House did not introduce any new of fence, but only went to enact an accumulative pu nishment for an offence well known to the law. The words proposed by the Amendment were not, there fore, necessary, or could serve to imply a doulaupon the law ; besides the word " maliciously" must of necessity be introduced into all indictments for libel. Mr. SCARLETT said, that be recollected when it was customary to insert - the word " falsely" in in dictments for libel ; and he hoped that the word " ma liciously" might share the same fate during the of* Ice of the preterit Atterney-General. f After a few words'more from Sir JAM'S ?doom. tonne, Colonel ELLISON, the ATTOSNZT.GINISLAL, and Mr. SCAILLIITT, the Gallery was ordered to be cleared ; but the Amendment walk subsevently no. 'retired without a division. . • • • • • • Mr. DEAIMAN oppookt the daseetailiell ado- t a w which s editious, 'object the suppressio the in famo P' :• ` ; :pally col Ls te revol ..,c ve.115 ; .used in a L acing th aired a Fi ; Mir. Beii ally drev •, t i esi t. 'trig these m i g ht mak them. c onducting et they 'es of t kb drew conduct C nem is y years anvemenc . i ts, an ire ,Aitv. I/ that Of t followed nature of ihcays rit. of par -ver almos hn si as hire ' irc, might 'et indi ;such tern • :!te feelii ;7;•II% ate SI Zi, during engage would I d that r , ve passed n had ce, and state s J. was le merely :;ms anc with, all day, a 'Dose to a part of engine ed on ti persons ely cond mies of f the pre! ore spiel rr occ,ssi acked the si t.tr as I cintaine, tic aivol .spectabl with wretc pillage and liorernme stme leve nc fault and animal ae count] risky, bu rad asked rich kind state of si the course that were fluses,ed from it, its c07,..1a Nis the v vision, in that all p ttcogniz What, h a confounc creams a to drive petty wt Life and ratter by natui could nc now bef • learaing ratter, I were all But ow I • change politics, duct of bpon House putting 1 do so wally by ens in the , and I A , r int and ac I Mr. more now ( I at the rb tooth hi le the se the pi 1% IOC! 4111 IA a' some by hi hot fi quire •. nient tom (Um tithe to 1,, ••,4 .1 1 1