The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Times.)

The press has plenty of advisers, but, while we
could never extract from their counsels a good rule
for our guidance. we never had any doubt as to
our own proper line. We represent public opinion.
We believe that we express in these columns what
Englishmen, using that word in a very large sense,
feel in their bosoms, avow in conversation, and,
with more reserve, declare in their public trans-
actions. Our countrymen express themselves freely
enough one to another, whether at their own fire-
sides, or in the circle of their hospitality, orin clubs,
or even in public meetings—not to speak of what
they put upon paper. What they thus say more or
less privately, and what they cannot say in public
for want of opportunity, or are afraid to say for
want of courage, we have the opportunity and the
freedom to proclaim to the four quarters of the
globe. That is our vocation, and when it shall
come to be said at dinner tables that all the world
knows this or that, that all the world feels this or
that, but the Times is afraid to say it, then, most
assuredly, it is all over with us, and with this
nation also. We may then write Ichabod on the
British Empire, for its glory is departed for
ever. No ; every man whose heart boils with-
in him at the news of successful violence or
fraud—every man who would give all he had for
the hand to rescue or the tongue to rebuke, but
has no opportunity—expects, at least, the satisfac-
tion of seeing his feelings expressed in this journal,
and rejoices to know that, if there is tyranny on
one side the Channel, there is liberty on the other.
It is impossible but that this liberty should some-
times be used in a manner to offend some of our
readers, but, if we do not speak out, no one does ;
and reasonable people appreciate our freedom and
our courage too highly to cavil at the fervour of
just indignation. Some such reflections, we have
no doubt, had recently passed through the mind of
Sir Charles Wood the other day at Halifax, when
he described the reaction which has followed the
excesses of the mob throughout the continent.
" Take our nearest neighbours," he exclaimed ;
" such a despotism never prevailed in Europe, even
in the time of Napoleon the First. The press
gagged • liberty suppressed ; no man allowed to
spell his opinion ; the neighbouring country of
Belgium forced to gag her press ; no press in Eu-
rope free but ours, which, thank God, he cannot
gag—(cheers) .—and hence his hatred of our press,
that it alone dares to speak the truth."
Nothing can be plainer and simpler than this
language. It claims for the Englishman the liberty
—we fear we must call it the national privilege—
of speaking his opinion about all public men
and all public affairs. Such is the rule which Sir
Charles Wood, himself a man with great command
over his temper and his tongue, propounds for the
press. But will anybody tell us what is the rule
which Mr. Cobden would give us, and probably
enforce on us, if it lay in his power? Is it the rule
of general forbearance, of reverence for crowned
heads, respect for the powers that be, smooth
speech to dignities, and charitable construction for
all kinds of conduct ? No such thing. If a class
of his fellow-subjects have an incidental advan-
tage in an economical law, he does not hesitate to
denounce them as maintaining it at the expense
of their country for their private advantage. If
the Army and Navy Lists are full of noble and
honourable names, he does not scruple to denounce
our armaments as gigantic jobs for the convenience
and amusement of our nobility and gentry. If
the Austrian Emperor, in a dire extremity of his
affairs, secured the possession of an hereditary
realm at the expense of its constitutional liberties,
—if the Czar, terrified by the contagion of liberty
and revolt, assisted his neighbour to enforce order
and submission—no one so prompt or so free to
denounce the two tyrants with the utmost violence,
contumely, and menace, insomuch that even his own
powerful eloquence failed to express his rage and
contempt ; and, like the prophets of old, he had
recourse to symbolical expressions of hatred and
defiance. Lastly, if a newspaper thwarts him, cri-
ticises his harangues, and crosses his schemes, so
much as to leave the impression that the Press is
not with him—here, too, his wrath knows no
bounds, and he does his utmost to persuade the
British people to assist him in putting down this
intractable power. Mr. Cobden, then, is a man to
speak out upon occasion. He proves and uses the
Englishman's privilege ; and cares not if, while he
is tendering his advice or silencing an opposition,
he should at the same time be doing irreparable
injury to the position and character of a class, a
person, a journal, or a private establishment. So
tar we understand Mr. Cobden, and we are proud
to say that his rule, up to this point, is very much
the same as our own.
But what we do not understand is the glaring
contradiction which Mr. Cobden presents to his
own usual practice of speaking his mind, in his
remarks on our language on one particular sub-
ject, one nation, one man. He may lampoon the
head of the house of Hapsburg, he may crumple
up the empire of the Russias—both of them ancient,
prescriptive, hereditary things—with hardly a
choice but to go on as they have done for centuries ;
but we are to beware of a single word that may
give offence to a man who entered France scarcely
four years ago with promises and oaths to respect a
republic, and has now founded on perjury and
bloodshed the most absolute despotism under the
sun. We are not to say of him in these columns
what all Englishmen say of him at their tables ;
and on this one point, this dark spot on the sun of
our freedom, the British nation is not to see its
heart reflected in the Times. We may abuse
everything distant, ancient, or weak ; Czars far
away inArctic seas, or Emperors shut up in the heart
of a continent ; Roman Emperors dead and gone two
thousand years ago, or Lords and. country gentle-
men beneath our contempt. But we are to be
most respectfully silent about the usurper who, by
the aid of an immense army, and by the means of
universal suffrage and the ballot, has tied the
hands of every Frenchman behind his back, and
gagged the tongue in his head, till he is himself the
only free agent throughout a vast dominion. We
are to assume that the great majority of French-
men are so different from ourselves as to acquiesce
willingly and cheerfully in a subjection which
leaves him so far below serfs, as serfs have antiquity
and limitations of their bondage, and so far below
the African slave, as the African has colour to ex-
cuse him. And what is the reason for this singular
exception from the useutalo
joinfr eedwoimthim in denounc-
ing
of Mr. Cobden
those who do as their fathers 's
speech ?
why are
w
and speak softly of those who have spontaneously
sold
aers
did before them,
sold themselves to an original bondage The
—he says he is not afraid
only conceivable reason cowardice. Mr.
Cobden is not afraid
He is not afraid—he avows as
aristocracy. If the Times
Ctzhaer.Austrian
aristocracy. If
laughs to
admirers. But he
he has other more unreserved
cannot disguise that he is afraid—of
does not render him all the homage he demands,
—o
is afraid—he
smcourcfnht—ohureof own landed
but by en-
deavouring own
the French.
liberties,He is afraid that they may take of-
fence at our
i
reproaches, and pro vetheir manhood,
not by asserting their
He is afraid of a war,
crfust
o f
haxaoutgn..creasd navy and armynatio
, of closed ports, of
epri-
vateers,`of an im
l debt, of a demoralised po-
pulation, and a rumlist, of another
ruined
trade.
Doubtless these are
disagreeable things,but it is a new thing in morality
armaments, t o
mensely m
if they are to be for holding our tongues,
and the only reasons. For ourselves we must
plead another view of
reasons
solitical candour. We hold
that by speaking plainl
y when we may be called
to a terrible ace-
„int,- we earn the right of
advising those whom
we have no reason whatever
to fear. Thean than the Emperor of
no more to the Enoll
s of the French, though he
China, but the Emperor Emperorsc of Russia and Austria are
oan
in every annoyance
cannot conquert
tenfold iniquity of the latter,
and pass over the
te
short of conquest.uss
Y
the contempt of all alike.
then, we defy the former,
we expos© ourselves
We are thankful
But that is Mr. Cobden'sh a
cneral instinct of English-
to say that it is not t
very different doctrine.
Crown who can teach a
gust had a Minister of the
men ; and that we hate-ej

(From the Morning Post.)
We are now upon the eve of another assembling
of Convocation. It is high time that the question
became settled, whether the powers of that assembly
are to be put into operation for the Church's exten-
sion and reform. Is the present condition of the
Church such as ought to continue 7 No one will
contend for the affirmative. Then, what is to be done
and by whom? The answer to these two questions
is worth attention. For the first, what is Pesodne ?
The cathedrals must be reformed, their e ex-
tended, their statutes obeyed, their trusts fulfilled,
their services improved, their revenues controlled
and re-arranged, their schools and alms'-gifts sup-
ported with °becoming faithfulness and liberality.
The large parishes must be subdivided, existing
districts erected into parishes additional churches
built, and stipends provided for additional minis-
ters ; parsonages require to be built in many old
in all
parishes, and, of course, the new ones. The
Episcopate has to be enlarg, and the dioceses re-
end
duced in size, and, perhaps, i emolument ; better
provision must be made for the education of the
clergy and the increase of their numbers. These are
among the most obvious and pressing reforms.
Many others of less relative importance also require
adjustment. When looked at in the gross, what a
work is here ! What wisdom is required !
What
instant energy- ! What united action ! What funds !
and what self-denial and charity !
By whom is this to be done? By Parliament, will