The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-24 00:00:00

offence against public morals of which we c ompli
Yesterday, then, Mr. Disraeli being out o,l,fice,
the Times could thus describe him :
" Mr. Disraeli's mission we believe to be las Tithe r the
reconstruction of the Tory party, the regen erat ion of
the Hebrew Caucasian element, finance, nor fore icn or
domestic policy. The one thing for which he bias : shown
himself always competent, and in which he never
failed whenever he has chosen to attempt it, is t he art
and mystery of tormenting and annoying his ?pp° ins mts.
There have been keener satirists, closer logician. s; , and
xeadierspeakers ; but, taking him all in all we doubt t f any
'one has carried the art of making himself unpleas it to
the same perfection as Mr. Disraeli. He sat v a the
Mouse of Commons for a good number of yeas ss and
made no figure at all, merely because he contester I him.
self with striving to rise, after the fashion of or dinary
men, by persuading or convincing, by informh ag and
enlightening the house. For none of these thin/ s did he
evince any vocation, and he might have pass away
like so many hundreds of other able men who have mis-
calculated or mistaken their sphere of action, if the re-
peal of the corn laws, and the consequent h -citation of
the Tories against Sir Robert Peel, had not a' !forded him
the opportunity of exercising his one undoul ited talent.
Weak in argument, he at once expanded in tsi the giant
of invective."
Now, on the 4th of December, 1852, Mr.
Disraeli was in office, and the Times,. true to its
instinct, could thus follow him with ad ulation :
"Had it been possible for the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to surprise the House of Commons, he would
certainly here done so last night by a financial statement
which Peel himself would only have ventured on under
the most encouraging circumstances, and in one of his
most exuberant moods. But for some recolliections,
which it is impossible wholly to suppress, we might say,
that so far as concerns the annual ceremony of 'the Bud-
get, Mr. Disraeli has entirely filled up the lamen table gap
left by the most illustrious of his recent predecessors.
Without committing ourselves at once to every item
in the long and weighty catalogue of financial reforms
now before us, we must say that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer not only takes advantage of his position with
the dexterity of a master, but has really succeeded in
showing that a new position, new resources, and new
capabilities are before us.
Nor was this a solitary instance. Now Mr.
Gladstone is in office, and therefore the Times can
thus describe him
Mr. Gladstone, by a wonderful effort of compression,
condensed into three quarters of an hour a very complete
answer to all the prominent topics of a long and discur-
sive debate, and only left the house to regret when he
resumed his seat that he did not feel justified in appro-
priating to the elucidation of these important topics
another half-hour of the time which his predecessor had
so wantonly and unprofitably wasted."
`.` Mr. Gladstone has added, if possible, to his ora-
torical reputation by showing that his mastery over lan-
guage and matter enables him to condense as well as to
overwhelm."
But on the Bth of December, 1852, Mr. Glad-
stone was out of office, and he was, of course, con-
temptible in the eyes of the Times. In the columns
of that paper, on that day, he was thus depicted :
" The plain truth is, that Mr. Gladstone's grand argu-
ment is nothing less than a blunder, discreditable not
only to his logic, but even to his common sense."
Have we not a right, then, to demand that the
rest of the London press be not estimated by the
flagrant servility displayed by this unblushing
journal ?

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS—A FICTION!
(From the Morning Advertiser.)
Much and often as we have occasion to differ
from the Times, we cannot withhold from that
journal the tribute of our admiration for the man-
ner in which Mr. Mowbray Morris, its manager,
has vindieated the independence and dignity of the
Press, in his examination before a Committee of
the House of Commons. Our readers are ac-
quainted with the circumstances under which that
gentleman has been examined before that Com-
mittee. The Times had made a charge of corrup-
tion against all the Irish members. The charge
was preferred in two leading articles—one appear-
ing in September last, and the other in February.
The accusation professed to be grounded partly on
a letter published in the Times' own columns, and
partly on an article in the Freeman's Journal.
The Committee summoned Mr. Morris, the
manager of the Times, before it, for the purpose
of eliciting from that gentleman, the name of the
writer of the letter and of the article. But he
resolutely, though respectfully, refused to dis-
close the secrets of the prison-house. He took
the high ground, that a Committee of the
House of Commons had no right to call him to
account for what appeared, in the journal of which
he wag manager, in the discussion of public ques-
tions. He denied the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee altogether, and laid down the broad consti-
tutional principle, that journals are only amenable
for what appears in their columns to the ordinary
tribunals of the country. And that amenability,
as every bold and independent journalist knows
to his cost, is sufficiently great, without being
liable to be called to account by any committee of
the House of Commons.
As it is, there is more of fiction than of fact in
the much paraded freedom of the English press.
It is true, we may animadvert, with much bold-
ness, on the measures of Ministers, or the public
conduct of public men, provided always, that the
parties whose proceedings are arraigned are con-
tent to remain passive under the animadversions
made upon them. But it is not to be denied, that
in the existing state of the law of libel, it would be
quite possible, were our public men to avail them-
selves of the facilities afforded them for the purpose
—to destroy the freedom of the press altogether.
It is impossible to say what is actionable, and
what is not. Ask counsel's opinion, and you will
find, among barristers, the differences on matters
of this nature, which are proverbial among doctors.
It is well known that the verdict of a jury in cases
of the kind referred to, is quite a toss up. Each
party—the plaintiff and the defendant—is playing
a game of chance. And, even when the journalist
gets off with a nominal verdict, he is saddled with
heavy costs.
The position of the public press is, therefore, far
from enviable, as matters now stand. The public
journalist discusses questions of national impor-
tance on purely public grounds. The names of
parties particularly mixed up with those questions
happen to be introduced under circumstances
which they choose to think injurious to their
character. Straightway an action is brought
against the journalist ; and though it is proved
that he could not, in the nature of things, have been
influenced by other than public considerations, inas-
much as very probably he was not only personally
unacquainted with the party complaining, but had
never even before heard of his name,—a verdict is
given against the journal in which the incri-
minated matter appears. And yet, with all these
risks as the consequences of plain, honest speaking,
without there being a particle f personal feeling
in the mind of the writer,—the English press is
said to be as free as the air we breathe. In theory
it may be so, but in practice, it is found to be very
different.
The Times itself is, at the present moment, in a
position to illustrate our remarks. It censures
what it regards as the improper public conduct of
the directors in a well-known company. A criminal
information is filed against it. The rule is obtained.
When it is proposed to make the rule absolute, a
vigorous resistanoe is offered to the motion, by the
the ablest counsel at the bar. But the resistance
is unsuccessful ; the rule is made absolute, and our
contemporary has now, consequently, to rest the
issue on the verdict of a jury. And yet zone of
those who are the plaintiffs in this action against
the Times, allege, or pretend to believe, that our
contemporary was actuated, in what he wrote, by
any Personal or improper motive. He took the
course he did, solely on public grounds.
It is obvious that, in this state of matters, the
fro., sdora of the press is more in name than in reality.
a -
whi !urPrising that, with the many instances
en have of late years been brought before the
Proving that the press is only nominally
n'ee) and is in reality grievously fettered,—the
legislature has,
not
()ftdone something to introduce a
better state
immunity from Kings. The press asks from no
character ;
hszquences of attacks on private
ut it a right to look for protection
when the motivaalesyb;:h.ich it is actuated are not
personal, or in
preranYtenntEroper, but spring solely
irom a desire to
,_ndee public good:
In the meantime, vre
the expression of our
thanks to the Times, fer-ao
and so resolutely
resisting the attempt which- has uul y
been made within
the last few days to render the press amenable to a
committee of the House of
Commons, Mr. Morris
the manager of that journal, &may persisted till
the last in his refusal to furnish the committee
with a knowledge of the names of the writers of the
letter and the articles referred to. And he did this
on the manly and lofty ground, that that would be
to betray the confidence which had been
reps d
30
in them. The same course ought to be adopted in
similar circumstances by every journalist. That
is the way to raise the character of the press. It
is the only way in which journalism can ever be
elevated to that place which it ought to occupy
among the institutions of the country. Where a
contributor or occasional correspondent, is himself
influenced by upright and patriotic motives, the
editor and proprietors of a public journal are bound
by every consideration of honour and good faith,
to throw the shield of their protection around him,
even though he may have fallen into an error as
to fact, or trangressed the limits which legal punc- '
tiliouaness would lay down. The Times has nobly
asserted this principle in the present instance, and
is will rise much in public estimation by the course
which it has adopted ; while it will inspire un-
bounded confidence in every honest man who con-
tributes in any way to its columns.