The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

EXAMINER.—The Great Fight! Which is the ,
Great Fight of the week, the Great Fight between
the American and the Englishman. or the Great
Fight bet ween Mr Cobden and the Times? We give ,
the preference to the latter, but heartily wish
neither had taken place. For the encounter, it is
enough to say that Mr. Cobden was angry and the
7 hazes cool.. And when any man sits down to write
in an angry mood he ought to know that he will be
answered with all the advantage of coolness, his
adversary avoiding his fault and profiting by it.
Then as to the merits of the quarrel, it was one by
adoption. Now, a man whu is childless may not
unnaturally adopt another's child; but Mr. Cobden,
pacific as he may be in purpose, is not so quarrelless
as to be driven to adopt another's quarrel, and espe-
cially the quarrel of the most pugnacious character
of the time. Indeed, when a man feels moved to
take up the cudgels for another (who is apt enough
to resort to them on his own b,:half), he ought to
ask himself the question whether his real object is
to vindicate his friend, or to assail a third party ;
and he may be sure that the latter is his true mo-
tive if he finds in himself a disposition to employ
terms of abuse which prove nothing but ill will. In
matters of this kind, as Sancho Panza says, "every
tub should stand on its own bottom, every herring
hang by its own head." Gay, too, advises well
against interposing in quarrels, and Mr. Bright can
hardly be pleased to fad his friend more touchy
about him than he is about himself. To take a
quarrel out of his own hands, his staff of life, is in-
deed like taking the bread out of his mouth, and
certain we are that he thinks he could have done
the thing much better himself, and probably
he could. The matter of complaint was
a construction, that an argument went to
a division of land amongst the poor; but
why was the question of the fairness of a con-
struction to be extended to the question of anony-
mous writing, and to personalties not boldly out-
spoken but insinuated, betraying the willingness to
wound together with the fear to strike. The cha-
racter of the limes is of by far too mixed a nature
to be disposed of by unmixed vilification. Many
faults may be found with a journal wielding so great
a power, but if it deserved the character given to it
by Mr. Cobden its existence would most gravely
impeach the intelligence and morality of the British
public. Mr. Cobden more measured would be more
forcible and effective; and if av,.! might presume to
offer a word of counsel to one we sincerely respect and
esteem, it would be to mistrust impulses of intense
indignation, which in some temperaments proceed
not from the judgment, but long-nourished preju-
dice and exaggerated imagination. Johnson ad-
vised a young writer to read over carefully what he
had written, and when he came to anything he
thought very fine, to strike it cut. We would ad-
vise Mr. Cobden to do the same when he comes to
anything very angry. Had he been schooled in
anonymous writimg, instead of trusting to the au-
thority of his name, he would have learnt to rely
for effect only upon facts and reasoning, not upon
words of sound and fury signifying nothing but the
vituperative.
SATURDAY REVIEW.—In these days of indiffer-
ence and apathy, it must be some satisfaction to a
writer in the limes to have made a veteran public
man like Mr. Cobden, who ought to be thick-
skinned, so particularly angry. The readers of
the Radical journals are accustomed to be lashed
into a fury, and no doubt feel a pleasing ex-
citement in the process; but even they
must have been startled at the list of forcible
epithets which caught their eyes as they
glanced down Mr. Cobden's letter. " Gross
literary outrage," " groundless and gratuitous false-
hood," " foul libel," " calumny," " pre-eminent un-
scrupulousness," "slander," "servility," "corrupt
advantages," " traducer," "calumniator"—here is a
catalogue of gems. Surely Mr. Cobden must be
composing a philological work upon the vocabulary
of the New York Herald, and A as incautious enough
to write to the limes before he had got the results
of his studies sufficiently out of his head. Other-
wise we shall be obliged to assume that he was very
deeply wounded by that passing sentence of the
limes; and no doubt he has been quite long enough
in France to know whether it is truth or falsehood
that wounds the most. If it be only the truth that
wounds, the remarks of the Times must haa e been
very true indeed. Mr. Cobden must have been
goaded into a state of ungovernable fury to have
been able to blind himself to the absurdity of the
exhibition he has been making. A skilled con-
troversieist, who can only answer a grave state-
ment of opinion by calling his adversary names,
must be in very evil case. Mr. Cobden ought to
have been above the vulgar claptrap of railing at
the anonymous character of the public press. Its
assertions are made openly ; if they are false, they
can be refuted with ease; if they are true, their
truth would be neither lessened nor increased by
the affix of a name. Tile moral character of a state-
ment depends on its own intrinsic truth or false-
hood,s
not upon its authorship. Mr. Cobden aaPPtrbre
to be of a different opinion. His
viewseems long
that any license of calumny is
permissible, 1. t who
as the author of it gives his name•
undertakes to reform the tone f A umbiri: writinglB
might usefully begin the greattiownOsrkilby
of corruption,
abstaining
himself from vague insinurauve,
but does not even
which he not only cannot pt
-e of round, uucompro-
venture to describe. the

mising, abusive denial is a very valuable art to pos-
sess. It is very difficult to disbelieve in the sincerity
of a man who has really contrived to work himself up
into a rage. But he should not work his powers in
that respect too hard. Mr. Cobden is likely to have
plenty of opportunity for the useof them, especially
now that Mr. Bright has become desperate, and
will let the cat out of the bag upon all occasions. It
must be very aggravating to have a companion
tacked on to you who, like Moliere's L'Etourdi,
always will tell the wrong truth at the wrong mo-
ment. We can pardon some irritability in Mr.
Cobden's mind at the discovery that his colleague's
imprudences have not passed as unobserved as per-
haps he hoped. But he will only damage himself by
such letters as that which he printed in the Daily
News of Wednesday. Like a fish that palls, he is
only fastening himself further upon the hook. It is
safe, up to a certain point, to count on the well-
known maxim that the British public abhor small
print ; and if he would leave them alone, Mr.
Bright's speech might pass quietly into oblivion.
Bat, of course, if he will provoke them to it, a cer-
tain number will refer back to the report of what
took place at Rochdale. Any that do may possibly
admire the courage of Mr. Cobden's denial, but will
not extend their admiration to any other mental or
moral qualities it may disph y. Whatever discou-
raging reflections may have occurred to Mr.Cobden's
mind, they are no reason for writing a letter full of
Billingsgate. He should take a lesson from his
friends the Yankees, who, if they do occasionally
lose a battle, are never so foolish as to admit it. By
his own and his friend's indiscreet candour, he has
done an injury to his cause which it may be difficult
to repair. But it is only adding tolly to folly to
admit his consciousness of his blunder, and of its
disastrous consequences, by such a letter as that
which he has just published.
SPECTATOR.—When Mr. Cobden takes up the
gloves for an old friend and colleague Mr. Bright,
he is not only guilty of a work of supe-
rerogation, but of an error which he, as au
economist, ought to feel more keenly still, a very
mistaken division of labour. In challenging the
Times for his burly fellow-labourer, he not only
goes up, like David, to an unequal battle, but,
unlike David, goes up to his unequal battle on be-
half of a Goliath, and a very willing and able
Goliath, as well as against one. This is a sad mis-
take. There is a kind of intellect which is stimu-
lated and strengthened by the animosities of the
combatant, and there is a finer and more delicate
kind which is paralysed and perturbed by them.
Mr. Bright's is of the former, Mr, Cobden's of the
latter kind. Mr. Bright's intellect is, as it were,
the mere instrument of a very powerful charaeter.
Mr. Cobden's is a delicate scientific apparatus, which
is disordered, or even utterly spoiled, by the excite-
ment of a personal affray. Mr. Bright deals blows
with a heavy hand and takes them with an equal
mind, though not without some perceptible increase
of force in giving back again to his antagonist, at
the first suitable opportunity, "full measure, pressed
down and running over." He seizes the fitting
moment, and speaks of his great enemy in the press
as " Privilege with blatant voice" proclaiming
falsehoods to the British people, and probably the
blow not only took a stinging effect, but is partly
accountable for the certainly very wilful misrepre-
sentation of Mr. Bright's and his colleague's views
on the land question which has excited so deeply
Mr. Cobden's wrath. Mr. Bright's mind is not
ruffled by combat—it is just heated thereby to the
red heat of successful oratory. But Mr. Cobden's
intellect is quite of another kind. More limited, but
far more delicate and flexible than Mr. Bright's
within its narrow limits, it is only deranged and con-
fused by anger. Unlike the cuttlefish, Mr. Cobden
blinds not his pursuer, but himself, by those moral
secretions which a threat or a thrust provokes. His
fine intelligence (which is a certain limited field,
and working under tranquil and unimpassioned
conditions, is almost unrivalled in its way) is
rendered turbid, nay muddy, and worse than useless,
by irritation, and his personal onslaughts are often
made not only without judgment, but without sense.
He loses one of his keenest powers, the perception
of reason and consequent, puts forward as the case
of the plaintiff what is really the only excuse for the
defendant, and altogether, not unlike Mr. Winkle,
when volunteering his eager and injudicious evi-
dence for Mr. Pickwick, contrives to strengthen his
opponent's case as touch as ill-advised and blunder-
ing zeal can ever do. Mr. Cobden begins his savage
reply to the Times by protesting with justifiable
indignation against its representation of the Roch-
dale orators as advocating a confiscation of the land
of the rich for the benefit of the poor—a protest
which we ourselves were the first to make. He goes
on to say that the pre-eminent unscrupulousness of
the Times, " which places it in mordid contrast with
the rest of the periodical press," is mainly due to
its writers' reliance " on the shield of an impene-
trable secrecy," and then immediately proceeds to
explain that, in the case of the Times, this reliance
is peculiarly foolish, because everybody, in the politi-
cal world at least, knows who is responsible for its
articles. Here we find one of the most acute logicians
in public life, first ascribing a peculiar and " pre-
eminent" unscrupulousness to a privilege which the
limes shares with all its contemporaries, and then
explaining that every other paper is far more secure
in its possession of that privilege than this pre-
eminent offender. In other words, Mr. Cobden
lays down the premises which would prove all the
press unscrupulous, except perbaps the limes, and
then appears to congratulate himself on having shown
why all the other papers are so much less unscrupus
lous than their great rival. So keen a logician as
Mr. Cobden could never have written such an argu-
ment as that, if his mind had not been clouded by the
fever consequent on intellectual mosquito-bites. Mr.
Cobden's imagination and theoretic power are only
fit for acting impartially on very simple matters, of
which he really holds the key or fundamental prin-
ciple in his own mind. When he attempts to apply
the same method to his own personal pangs, hesanly
makes a really fine intellect ridiculous, and a femi-
nine temperament sore to disease.
LONDON RETIEN.—Mr. Cobden's quarrel with
the limes is another instance of those faults of
temper which disfigure the political career of him-
self, of Mr. Bright, and of their friends. The re-
cent speeches of the two great Free-traders hap-
pened to contain a considerable quantity of unplea-
sant and ugly complaints directed against the
owners of landed property. Show Mr. Bright or
Mr. Cobden a great landowner, and it is like show-
ing a bull a red flag. They cannot abide the sight,
and make no scruple of saying so. The remarks
made by both gentlemen at Rochdale were reported
at great length in the leading journal, and with
unimpeached accuracy. Two long articles followed
the next day and the day after, devoted to a criti-
cism of the opinions propounded at the meeting.
Exception was taken by the writer to Mr. Cobden's
and his friend's attack on the present system of
tenure, as meaning nothing more or less than
anarchy or revolution. "Is not your language,"
said the Times, "an incentive to working men to
look over the fence of the neighbouring proprietor
and learn to think that they have a natural right to
a slice of the soil ? When coupled with political
appeals in favour of reform, is it not holding out an
agrarian law as the result to be gained by a reduc-
tion of the franchise ?" Such was the argument of
the Times. It is possibly not altogether conclusive,
because Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden would pro-
bably reply that they did not mean that landed
property ought to change hands violently, but that
the law should put facilities in the way of its
changing hands more easily. Though not conclu-
sive, the argument was not, however, unfair or in-
appropriate, because the masses whom Mr. Bright
and Mr. Cobden work upon are, perhaps, not logical
enough to draw fine distinctions, and often accept
inflammatory language for more than it is worth.
It was, in fact, a forcible and rhetorical way of put-
ting the dangers and absurdities of such a mode of
working mob. Finally, lest injustice should be
done, the Tunes invited Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden
to explain themselves more clearly if they did not
wish to be misunderstood. The first thing to be
remarked is that Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, who
object to strong language when applied to them-
selves, do not seem to mind applying it to others.
What the limes said of these gentlemen may or may
not be plain and rough speaking, but it is certainly
not a bit more plain or more rough than the lan-
guage they are themselves in the habit of dealing
out to those whom they dislike, at large meetings
in Birmingham, in Rochdale, and at similar places.
Rhetoricians who use invectives as a kind of French
polish for their political victims must expect to be
treated upon the same system ; and that throwing
of stones is a mode of warfare not altogether unbcon-
genial to Mr Cobden, is plain from the hearty: use
he gives the limes. He cannot henceforwar pre-
tend
rnrdu pmt
ai o n
w we
m awithmust
n bdaeacrevnec decency
that
bem rm. mealy-mouthed. yb -dme
no u?tahoedndo.
to open its
if the Times has naturally decsl t Secondly,
pPreorp°lrnnieetinrsoa columns to accusations
'illoowpfnolitical controversy
charged
Idtirisectnloytaupsounailt
agers. man
l t
areitsh
eci.orn limitstt)
o°
awn within hion
Disraeli
impute motives vehoyswalaes, oprostsoibclaellfonraes.Years
have gone by
issin;ci‘ lats'Connell as a Yahoo. Mr.
to describe ..arixe-
Vipers
and snakes and ruffians
.are only to be found in
thereuantiu
which those who wish their letters
news-
paperly and
to appear must confine
authorsrightly
oufntdheersatgooedatjh
denunciation. The next remarkable fact con-
nected with Mr. Cobden's communication is that
it is pure invective
and nothing more. He does
not discuss the question
one or not. He simply and
whether the interpretation
deliberately put on r. Bright's speech be the true
re! or ts with
tab Pis olito
dspe-
cies of cursing. swearing. All
without communicating with Mr. Bright him-
self," Now, there ere occasions on which it is right

and lawful to be wroth on account of injustice done
to a silent friend. But these are usually occcasions
on which the silence of the friend is compulsory.
Otherwise, the friend himself is the proper person
to tell us whether his language has been miscon-
strued or no. The question at issue can hardly be
said to be, what meaning is to be placed on Mr.
Bright's language. That is a matter purely of opi-
nion. The Times thinks one thing ; Mr. Cobden
thinks another. The truth, we may well imagine,
lies somewhere between the two. The real question
here is whether, on so slender provocation, Mr.
Cobden has a right to fling aside all ordinary con-
ventional restraints, and to attack the editor of a
newspaper—it may almost be said by name—in a
most extraordinary and unjustifiable manner. We
regret the whole matter for the sake of Mr. Cobden
himself. The journals who published his diatribe
did not consult the best interests of Mr. Cobden or
of progress. Mr. Cobden is too great a man; he
has done too much service to the country and indeed
to the world for any one to find gratification in such
a scene. It is on many grounds deplorable, and
most deplorable perhaps because it exhibits the un-
happy gulf that divides the different sections of the
Liberal party. The only particle of apology 'we
can find for Mr. Cobden in the matter is the warmth
of his feeling for Mr. Bright's reputation. SYce"
patby for a friend's reputation may, hoveever,
carried too far. In this case, we fear, it has led Mr'
Cobden into an indiscretion which will seriousli
damage his own.
ECONOMIST.—To abolish the anonymous is to
destroy its influence, to destroy its influence is to
hand the whole press over to the ideologues; and we
may warn Mr. Cobden it is not his ideas which they
will strive to advance. At the same time, p vela©
secrecy would be most prejudicial to the true value
of English journals, for it would shut up the very
best channels of information. Editors cannot wrtte
beneficially without data, and data can only be ob-
tained from the men who really guide events.
Suppose no editor in England really knew the viel
of the British Cabinet upon this Schleswig all
Holstein affair, how could they either stir up Wide
people to support or resist its action ? They 001
either have to strike in the dark, so making itle4l.:
tricable confusion between the country and
governing men, or to dictate the course the Wine
must follow—that is, in fact, to assume the rein
°
themselves, and, as editors did in France, under
Louis Philippe, and do in American now, initiate ft/
policy of their own. They must, to be effiej3rlif
ascertain the truth, and responsible statesmen Vgi
not communicate information to invisible persons.
They must know more or less the individuals the::
are trusting, and thus the very practice Mr. Cc' A
den assails so bitterly—secrecy to the public an;
non-secrecy to the Administration—has arises f°
Ithe general benefit of all.