The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-15 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

The growing importance of the press has excited
the alarm of Lord Fitzwilliam, but, though grie-
vously frightened, he has not suggested, and pos-
sibly may find it very difficult to suggest, any
remedy for this inroad into the domain of here-
ditary government and exclusive party influence.
Much were it no doubt, to be desired that the
press should be what it once was,—that, con-
tent with registering births, deaths, marriages,
celebrated trials, and such scraps of aristo-
cratic eloquence as might from time to time
be deemed worthy of immortality, it should
leave matters of State to Parliament, and nei-
ther presume to' have incite information nor to
draw more inferences from,itlhan the press in
~
foreign countries. But, as' 'the present state of
things seems inevitable, we beg, by way of conso-
lation to Lord Fitzwilliam for the degeneracy of
these modern times, to offer him some suggestions
as to the true functions of the press, and to quiet
his mind when he regrets that we are either too
mixed up with Ministries, or enjoy too large and
exclusive sources of information. We have no ad-
ministrative duties to discharge, no party consi-
derations to attend to—our object is to present a
true reflection of passing events, and a true estimate
of prominent characters, and when we have done
this we have satisfied the duty of public writers.
It is attempted to identify us with the Ministry,
and to represent us as the peculiar recipient of its
favours, and the organ of its opinions. We receive
favours from no one, and represent no opinions ex-
cept our own. Such terms as these embody the perma-
nent delusion which still clings around the minds of
the titled vulgar. Time was, no doubt, when every-
thing in this country was regarded, and with con-
siderable justice, as the property of one of the two
great parties into which, for their own purposes,
the aristocracy divided themselves. Almost every
borough was Lord Somebody's borough, every
member Lord Somebody's member, every newspa-
per the organ of a party, or the humble minister to
the selfishness and prejudices of a clique of privi-
leged persons. In those glorious days the public
went for little or nothing, and all the apparatus of
free government and free discussion was only so
much artillery to be played off by two aristocratic
factions against each other. But times have greatly
altered since those halcyon days, though the leader
of the Tory party has apparently been the last to
perceive it. The aristocratic factions remain, but they
no longer divide the country between them. There
has grown up a third element—the public—which
is neither with them nor of them, but which has
become infinitely more powerful than either. It
is for that public that the author writes ; it is to
that public that the statesman speaks ; it is from
that public alone that the press hopes for its
reward or fears censure. If society and political
life in general have outgrown the trammels of aris-
tocratic party, how much more the press, which, of
all the elements of our social system, has received
the most rapid and complete development? A news-
paper such as the Times is in the position rather to
confer than to receive favours, and rather to act as
umpire than the tool or instrument of party. It is
not in the power of any Government to make or mar
the prosperity ofsuch an undertaking, which rests on
foundations infinitely more solid than aristocratic
favour or party support. It has been our lot to
survive innumerable Governments, and we see no
reason to suppose that our long career draws to-
wards its close. How, then, should that which is
in its nature permanent submit itself to the control
of that which is in its nature transitory, and pros-
titute the high duties of truth and justice to sup-
port the objects of a party doomed to pass away
sooner or later, and make room for that which best
represents the next phase of public opinion.
We believe that the position occupied by the
more respectable and independent portion of the
press is a phenomenon of modern civilisation very
imperfectly understood by many arrogating to
themselves the title of statesmen. The vocation of
Government is so purely practical that it does
not satisfy all that the public mind requires in the
conduct of affairs. Mankind needs not only to
know what is done, but to be reminded and
,informed as to the principles and objects with
which it is done. Not only do we need executors
of the public will, but informers of the popular
understanding, and enlighteners of the people's
conscience. his was the one great duty performed
by the Church in the middle ages, and which, with
all its faults and superstitions, fairly entitles it to
be numbered among the benefactors of mankind.
Whatever lawless force might overbear or subtle
fraud overreach, in the Church there was always
a witness for justice and morality, as mankind then
understood them, a check against the abuse of
power, and a monitor against the vices of a barbarous
and perfidious age. By becoming itself a political
power the Church abdicated this lofty mission, and
the reaction against its ecclesiastical abuses effectu-
ally overthrew its pretensions to act as the incorpo-
rated conscience of Europe. Ages of intellectual and
social anarchy have attested the want to modern
civilisation of some such agent, which, entirely re-
moved from the interests and intrigues of politics,
might testify for truth and justice, without refe-
rence to the expediency of parties or the caprice of
monarchs, neither imperiously leading nar blindly
following
immaterial
co
and intangiblepinion,but
foundations supportingundtn
iatsiopos wer
on the of
reason and truth. We are far from saying that
we or any portion of the press of this country
adequately discharge the mission with which
we believe we are intrusted ; but we are at
least so far true to it, that we ought 'not to be
treated as the servants of any political party, or
as prostituting our influence in their interest,
because the views which we put forth on public
affairs happen to coincide with theirs, or because
we lend them that support to which the justice of
their principles and the ability of their administra-
tion fairly entitle them. Let statesmen and pub-
licists learn to know each other better. The powers
of the press and of the Minister are co-ordinate
and co-extensive—to one is allotted the field of
speculation, to the other that of action; to the one
the search after truth, to the other after expediency.
Both are necessary to the well-being of society, and
the agreement between the practical politician and
public writer ought no more to be a matter of
reproach than their dissension should be one of
surprise.—Times.