The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-06-13 00:00:00

ZTly 012scrtnr.

SATURDAY, JUNI.; V 3,1868.

THE NEWSPAPER PRESS.

The anniversary festival of the Newspaper
Press Fund was held tinder circumstances Which
direct apeeial attention to the position which
journalism has now attained in the United King-
dom. The meeting, was a significant and a sug-
gestive one. In the presidential chair was the
if C unbridge, Commander-in-Chief of
the army, and cousin of our gracious sovereign ;
and he was supported by Prince Christian, hue.
hand of one of the Queen's daughters; and a
large number of men eminent in the ranks of
the public service, of art, and of literature.
The press ittclf wee well re r •amted IT a lum-
ber if gentlemen who are engaged in the prar-
tical won% if the fourth estate ; and thus there
orrs est thli.thed, without fortual:tv, and in the
711,,5t isift v, iv posible, an alliance between
une of the big:test in the land and thot army
of writers and workers which form what is etil•
phatically called " the press." Such an occsion
ought not to pass unnoticed.
The Duke of Cambridge, speaking of the
array, navy, and volunteers, point( d out that
these bodies on the one hand, and the press on
the other, have mntotol interests. "We have
fermi] in modern titers," he said, "that it is oc-

coptiitile to the piddle, and agreeable to the
Lti•neral reader, to know front day to day, and
from hour to Icier, all that is pi! sslng liround litsi
ia the nMitary and naval world." The Duke, of
coarse, specially referred to those correnponii
Ii its iaho have recorded the pregt.tss of some
of the greatest conteids iceorded in history.
such, fir instance, as the anrZcsn war, the
Indian mutiny, the Austro-Italian war, and the
war between Prussia and Austria. It is now for
the first time that a Commanderdn-Chicf "Rose
language of this kind. Till very recently our
admirals and gill rob hell very difforent opini-
ons, and no doubt the country generally would
have thought it very dangeroas had the fleets of
Nelson, or the army of Wellington. had its ape-
clid correspondents to record the current history
!of the tie it IViViA in which these heroes were
engaged. Pat we have changed all that; WA
in any wars into whiiih we may yet he unhappily
drawn we may lin,k for the presence of •• the
"as VlTtlillly as for commanders. This
great change is remarkable; but more remark-
A& is the official echno 411i:figment of its desir-
ability, whiell marks :In advance in the character
ml po-iition of oar press which cannot well be
over-ret•id. Field-Marshal General Sir John
Burgoyne, who also speaks with the weight of a
high official position, paid another valuable tri-
bate to the press. " The pen," he remarked,
"is the net rowel fill weapon that can be
wielded. ink from it has more inchwnee,
rec!:ars, on the fate of mitions than the floc ing
' of i&oti en the; fill of battle, and, therefore, I
!sic ice that we Fire both actuated by the same

Indirectly here is a warning to the
press, and some partions of it may take the re•
mark as a relrdr When power is great, respon-
sibility is ercat ; and the press is hound by its
duty to God, and Teen to lift up its voice for
pace, and use is utmost ends to save us from
the horrors of war. We believe that the ,ereat
majority of the press throughout the world, and
certainly that of our own country, uses its influ-
ence en the side of peace; but there are lime
:ma there exceptions which are to be deeply re.
gretted. For a journalist EAU), or without
adequate reason to kdvocate war, or say anything
which mry unnecessarily inflame the passion of
nation against nation, is to belie his true voca-
tion. The press ong,,lit to be, and RS n rule it is,
the great pacificator of the world. It promotes
international knowledge, removes the prejudice
of nation against nation, mid proves to the
world Oct we are all members of one great
family, .childran of one common Father, and that
war is an affliction and a curse. Dot the press
of modern times does an immense service to hu-
manity in recording the horrors of war when
this affliction falls on any part of it. The world
is now-a- bays no less called upon to admire the
prowess of :unties and fleets, than the suffering.
the desolation, and the carnage they produce,
and it is beyond question that this must have
consider :al: weight in the scale of peace when
next peace and war shall tremble in the bah
-

puj.iscs.

Tile Duke if Cambridge well said that "the
power of the press is one of the new features of
ens sge." The press is now an old institution,
hot the poirer of the press is of comparatively
modern growth. Broadly speaking, it may be
safely said tiat from the time of its birth the
press recently was at war with the State and
with successive governments. At first journal-
ism was a pour, weakly thing, despised as a
powerless innovation; but it slowly grew and ac-
quired struinth,a Oil then Is ings AO governments
li,Jan to think it might be dangerous ; HO it was
cribbed, (min red, and confined by narrow-minded
laws, burdened with oppi-essive taxation, har-
assed by prosecutions on the slightest pretext.
Governments, for some two centnries at least,
acted, in iveordance with the petty policy which
S vage Landor It embodied in an aphorism :
" Childrt ii fir the dark ; men fear the light.-
B7it throughout the log and cruel conflict be-
ta eon governments and the press the moral vic-
tory was always on the side of the hater, and ul-
tinuttely moral and material victory er mmed its
cautimmos struggles. Within but a few years
past leirdens have been snecessively removed,
tool there is at this moment no serious impedi-
ment to the starting of it newspaper, and no
legal difficulty in maintaining it except that the
law of libel has yet to Ito placed on It more equit-
able foundation. In talent, in honour in com-
mercial probity, in its relations to government
and to people, the press of our own country not
only nobly contrasts with its own infancy and
youth, but with the press of the whole world,
with the singlo exception of America; and even
here, let the coupon run be full and fair, the
British press has nothing to be ashamed of.
Without comparing our own with the press of
other countries, however, and looking at it
merely in couaection with the people of Great
Britain, we may well he proud of it. Lord
Houghton (who, as Mr. Monekton Milnes, was
known as a graceful poet and an occasional
journalist) remarked: " I above all things value
tne press of this country because I believe it to
be tlw opinioa of this country, the serious sec.
ond thought of the nation." Manymay dispute
the aceuracy of this eharacterisation. The ink.
petitosity of modern journalism does not always
present " the serious Second thought of the na-
tion," but on the whole we believe that Lord
Houghton is quite right. And if so this bears
Out the truth of the remark we have quoted from
Sir John Ibirgoyne—that the pen has more in-
fluence on the fate of nations than the flowing
of blood on the field of battle. Or we may put
the same idea in the words of the bite Lord Pal-
merstou " ()pinion is grouger than armies.',

c.otti