Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-07 00:00:00

THE REFORM CLUB AND THE PRESS,

THE success that attended the inauguration dinner
of the Reform Club, which took place on Tuesday
last, has afforded the Saturday Tory papers another
opportunity of showing their love and peculiar
aptitude for " enormous lying." When a journalist
abjures reason and argument, and adopts violent
abuse, personal slander, and unscrupulous as-
sertion as his weapons, it may be taken as
very strong evidence, that he feels not only
the weakness of his position, but the strength, the
power, and even the justice of that which he so
violently and unscrupulously attacks. Hard names
and course epithets are, however, but poor substi-
tutes for truth, reason, or logic. For ourselves, we
have little to fear from such attacks as were insidu-
ously interwoven with the ridicule and abuse
showered upon the new movement in both the
weakly organs of the constitutional association on Sat- 1
urday. Our "obscurity" is strong enough to enable us
to forgive their malevolent feelings, and laugh at the
impotency of the poisoned shafts they would direct
against us. Those who know the NORTHERN TIMES
know its
principles, and recognise in them the same
independent spirit of Truth and Justice which has ever
characterised it. It set out as the advocate of pro-
gressive reform, untrammelled by party ties, ready
to adopt any measure of political or social amelioration
no matter from what government it came,—open to
accept the good, and reject the bad, whether pro-
posed by Radical, Whig, or Tory. Dare the ifail
declare its independence as fearlessly ? Until it doe.

let it cease to attack those who are more

requires it

THE NORTHERN PINES, MONDAY, MARCH f, 1859

honesi than himself. " But," says this paragon of
political viitue, this saintly lordling of the Press,
this most scrupulous disciple of truth, "We re-
member how intense;: we chuckled when the
NORTHERN DAILY TIMES--which was notoriously
originated on what were called neutral principles'
—astonished the groundlings by declaring, as it did
only the other day, that it would be what it always
had been, the temperate but decided exponent of
enlightened Liberal-Conservatism."
"We chuckled." Indeed ! did " we"—at what ? At
the announcement, that the NORTHERN TIMES would
continue what it " always had been, the temperate
but decided exponent of enlightened Liberal-Conser-
vatism." No. What then ? Because "we " fancied
"we " had caught it in political apostasy, and so
"we chuckled intensely." In order that this
" Leviathan" of the local press may have some
pretext for the charge he invents, he concocts a
deliberate falsehood. He says, the NORTHERN
TIMES was " notoriously originated, on what are
called neutral principles." Whether such was so
or not, we leave the reader to judge
from the following, which we extract from the
original prospectus, as published in the first number
of our journal :—" It shall be our endeavour, by the
timely and vigorous support of every Reform which
the inevitable progress of the Nation, and the con-
sequent knowledge of social science, may render expe-
dient or even necessary—by the wise and firm advo-
cacy of a higher, wider, and more effective Educa-
tional regime—and by strenuously urging on the
consideration of the Governing Classes, the absolute
necessity that exists for an immediate and progres-
sive extension of the franchise."

We started, then, as the advocates of progressive
reform, and we continue the staunch supporters of
" Liberal-Conservatism ;" or in other words, support-
ing such changes in the constitution of the country
as are calculated to benefit the great majority of the
people, but at the same time conserving those prin-
ciples of it which give strength and security to the
nation.

So much, then, for what may be considered as per-
sonal to ourselves. As for the Reform Club, little
need be said. It is an accomplished fact, an associ-
ation whose influence these Tory prints know will, at
no distant date, be powerfully felt, and hence their
ridicule, malignity, unblushing perversion of
facts. Writers who misquote the remarks of
others, and distort sentences for the purpose
of conveying different impressions from those
intended, are unworthy of notice. It must
be a satisfaction to the promoters of the Reform Club
to know that the success which has attended their
labours has excited the enmity and censure of those
whose praise would be damnatory, and that,
although circumstances rendered it impos-
sible for some of the leaders of the liberal
party to be present at the Inauguration Dinner, on

Tuesday, they are heart and soul with the movement,
as will be seen in due time and when the occasion