The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

C

When Sir James Scarlett was in the full career
of his ea.-officio informations against the Press, e
expressed our opinions pretty plainly upon political
prosecutions for libel. We thought then, and we
think still, that opinion ought to be left to combat
opinion, and that a Ministry who dreads the freest
expre'ssion of public sentiment on their principles or
policy are not fit to exercise power in a free State.
Besides, that the Press should be really useful, as
an organ of opinion, it ought to be exempt from the
influence of servile terror, for any evil that -may be
incident to the occasional abuse of its freedom is not
to be compared to the great and permanent disad-
vantage which the public interests would have to
sustain from that coercion of sentiment which must
be destructive of its independence. One of the
most beneficial duties which the Press performs for.
society is the free criticism which it exercises on the
character of public measures, and the conduct and
actions of public men. But how can the political
criticism of a Journalist be free if the sword of penal
law be perpetually suspended over his neck by the
single hair of an Attorney-General's caprice or arbi-
trary discretion ? Literary criticism is privileged, so
that no writer who undertakes to review a work is
answerable in a Court of Law for having dispraised
or ridiculed it unjustly. Nay, if the work were one
of the finest that ever emanated from the pen of
genius, and the critique upon it one of the most
malevolent and defamatory that could be engen-
dered by literary envy, hatred, and malice, there
would be no right of action for damages, although
it might for the present destroy the sale of the work,
nor would the reviewer be liable to a criminal pro-
ceeding unless he travelled out of his way to attack
the private character of the writer; and yet the lite-
rary reputation of an author is of as much cen3e-
quence to him as his political fame is to a Minister
of State—and a sensitive author is as likely to be
provoked to a breach of the peace by an attack on
the one as the statesman is by an assault on the
other; yet the law says it is better that unjust criti-
cisms on literary works should go unpunished than
that the spirit of criticism Should not be free; and
so we say of political criticism. As long as the
writer confines himself to a free commentary
upon public measures, or the public conduct of
men in power, and does not go out of his way
to attack and defame their private characters,
so long should his comments have that full
privilege which, at the Bar, in the Senate,
and in literary criticism, is found to be essential to
the independence of opinion. Entertaining these
sentiments, we need scarcely add that we cannot
approve of the prosecution of Mr. Cobbett for a po-
litical libel, by whatever Ministry it might have been
instituted; but least of all can we commend it
when proceeding from a Whig Administration, many
of whose Members, when in opposition, were in
the habit of drinking with fervour the standing toast
of patriotism, " The liberty of the Mess : it is like
the air we breathe—if we have it not we die." We
deeply lament the excesses into which the labour-
ing classes were hurried last winter, but can the
Government pretend that they were not foretold as
the natural and inevitable consequence of the di..
tress and misery which prevailed among the
agricultural labourers, and the contemptuous re-
jection of all petitions for inquiry into the
existence and causes of that distress by the
Duke of Wellington's Administration and the
Parliament, which sympathised not with the
people, but with the Ministry, whose want of
wisdom drove the people to despair ? We said
that if the doors of Parliament were shut in the
faces of the distressed and supplicating multitudes,
it would probably lead to a " servile war ;" and, if
our advice had been taken, Special Commissions,
and the desecration of the festival of Christmas by
the tragic progress of justice with a naked sword
and the apparatus of extermination would have
been unnecessary. Besides, whenever any writer
indulges in strong remarks upon the policy of any
Government, or the supposed tendency of such 1
policy, are there not others who write as stronglyil
on the other side l Why then cannot a Govern-
ment allow its friends in the Press to fight the battle
of opinion with its adversaries? There were writers
who consigned Mr. Cobbett to a dungeon for life
before he was tried—we are not sorry their predic-
tions have not yet been fulfilled. Chains and dun-
geons may make martyrs to opinion, but they can-
not make converts.—Morning Herald.
The discussions, or rather conversations, in the
House of Commons last night are worth reading,
though there are not many topics calling for parti-
cular notice. In the case of the writ for Liverpool,
we really think it would be better to lose one Mem-
ber, though a sure vote for Reform, than to oppose
a sound principle of justice. We see no good reason
why the House should not avail itself of a regularly
presented opportunity of marking the disgraceful cor-
ruption of that important town with some strong
expressions of indignation. We are pleased to ob-
eerve that Mr. Stanley withdrew the clause in his
Irish Bill for punishing with transportation the pos-
session of unregistered arms; but we may suggest
that measures of this important nature ought always
to be gravely considered before they are proposed to
Parliament. There was something hasty and rash
in this clause, which we did not like from the first.
Mr. Hume made some useful remarks on the mono-
poly of the hackney-coarb trade, and of its certain
consequence—the filthy condition of those public
conveyances. There certainly is in no town in
Great Britain, or on the continent, so dirty and
ricketty a vehicle as a London hackney-coaeh. Lord
Althorp professed his readiness to remedy the evil
as soon as possible. In the Committee of Supply
the Hon. Member for Preston—who, because he
gives utterance to the most vulgar prejudice,
and the most ignorant balderdash, fancies (poor
creature) that he is representing the people
of England ( ! )—opposed the grant of a few
hundred pounds to some Professors of Oxford and
Cambridge. We think it would be more dignified
tor the Universities to pay their own functionaries;
yet, when it is considered that the 7,000,00 G indivi-
duals of whom Mr. Hunt speaks, would not (if
they, to the exclusion of the rest of the people of ,
Great Britain and Ireland, paid the whole grant)
be taxed to a greater extent than the amount of one-
eighth of a farthing per head, the outcry raised by
this poor man's advocate seems somewhat
pottioned to the occasion. Some reference was-
made by the necessity of a aational gallery for
works of art, the want of which is e disgrace to
the country. We can only say that a very great
impression (we know not whence it originated)
has for some time prevailed that one of the London
Palaces would be munificently dedicated to this
public object. Before the House concluded its sit-
ting, Lord Althorp intimated that it was the inten-
tion of Ministers to go through with the English,
Reform Bill before they commenced the discussion
on the Irish and Scotch Bills. This is an excellent
resolution : it will prevent confusion in argument,
and, by simplifying the proceedings, will conduce to
a clearer understanding of the subject, and to a saving
of time. Our orators for the most pert, as indeed
is mostnatural and easy, " dicunt multo, non
auniarnni
iuuni;„ but it is something to remove part of the
tion from the stores of their common-places.
We hail any plan which will abridge declamation in
the dog-days. The set speeches of la" promising
young Members" of nominationboroughs are quite
as terrible as that old Roman.
Augusto reeitantes men roe'stivan'eri-net
The Jury who tried Cobbett had tolerable. job
of it ! From nine o'clock one morning,a tinllrommne the
next, in Court li,tening, and in their iav
suppose) reasoning, upon the guilt or innocenceo(Weet
the defendant ! The Chief Justice discharged them
yesterday, at about the same hour that the trial com-
menced the day before; they being able to come to
no decision. Cobbett says that they were equally
divided, but it appears that the difference was as
0 to 2 : we suppose two sturdy fellows being for
a h i
c acquittal, and 10 against it. But even if only
,one had been for the acquittal, and
.eo.uld not have
ieloi convinced that lw was ;n error, a Is mote con

genial to the spirit of an humane jurisprudence, that
the merciful opinion of the one, rather than the se-
vere judgment of the eleven, should prevail. The
principle of our law is, upon criminal cases, not that
all should be made to agree, but that if all are not
convinced by the evidence adduced of the guilt
of the accused, he should he .acquitted: We
were sorry to see the Attorney-General slab-
ber him over with a mass of foul flattery, as a
great master of our language; for, after all, the chief
and predominant quality of his mind is impudence,
and his brightest flower of rhetoric, lying. But a
inan is not to be sent to prison simply because he
is impudent and a liar : we are not therefore sur-
prised at his acquittal. We came in for a share of
his abuse proportioned to the severity of the chas-
tisement which we have frequently been obliged to
inflict upon him ; and as he had nothing to say
against us which we could not refute in a minute,
he invented what we have no doubt is a detestable
falsehood, against one who we believe has been
dead near thirty years, and who therefore, even if
it were worth while to refute such 3 slanderer,
could not defend himself, or supply us with the
means of doing it. Bestowing the coarsest and
most absurd abuse on the Whigs, he endeavours
to coupi. u with them. We will tell him
how far and how long we have been attached
to the Whigs :—since they became real, sincere,
and bona fide Reformers, which, up to the extent
of their talents, we believe them to be at the pre-
sent moment. The Duke of Wellington carried the
Catholic Bill, for which we cordially applauded
him; he also originated some useful =mores of re-
trenchment, fur which we gave him credit; and
were, to a certain degree, attached to his Admini-
stration as the best practical one which the country
could then obtain : but the moment he declared
himself the decided and uncompromising enemy of

Reform, he had our decided and uncompromising
opposition. We sought all fair and honourable op-
portunities of overthrowing his Ministry., and it was
not long before it was dissolved. The Whigs, theeee
fore, came to us,—we did not go to them : our po-
sition was unchanged, and we believe it to be un-
changeable. And we can tell Mr. Cobbetr, that
our means and powers for supporting or opposing a
Ministry, or of effecting any politic:el object what-
ever, ale very different, both in quality and quan-
tity, from those which he possesses, or ever did
possess, even when his character was better than it
is at present.—Times.
We pay little attention to the reports with which
silly people amuse themselves at the west end of
the town, that the Lords will not pass the Reform
Bill. We take it for granted, that men are not ut-
terly destitute of common sense, merely because they
happen to be Lords, and that a rich Peer, having an
equal interest with other rich men in the tranquillity
of the country, will riot be such a fool as to place
his property and the property of ell others in jeo-
pardy, merely to enable a certain number belonging
to his order, who have not much property of their
own, to live luxuriously at the expence of the nation.
A contemporary (the Globe) says, that " the Duke
of Wellington, without whom the Tories seem to
have no competent leader—indeed no one on whose
judgment and decision they can themselves rely
:—is much leas disposed than he was to oppose
the Ministers." What has been said of the
Duke of Wellington is eztremely probable. His
Grace was opposed to Catholic gmancipation
but when he foiled that to withhold it longer
would endanger the peace of the country he yielded,
Who has not heard of his famous declaration re-
specting the evils of civil war ? But what is the
danger in the case alluded to, compered with,the dan-
ger to which a rejection of the Reform Rili might
expose us ? As to the issue, indeed, we are under
no apprehension ; but what we dread is the effect of
any apprehension in paralysing industry. One of the
great causes of the extravagant expenditure of Eng-
land is the peculiar constitution of the House of
Peers. So early as the time of Sir William Temple
there were, he tells us, great complaints against
" the number of Peers being very great in propor-
tion to what it formerly was ;" and " that so many
in that House have very small, and some perhaps no
estate of land in England, contrary to the original
institution." He recommended by way of remedy,
a fixed resolution in the Crown to create no Baron
who shell not at the same time entail four thousand,
pounds a year (more than sixteen thousand pounds
now) upon that honour whilst it continues in hi.
family; a Viscount five ; an Earl siss, a Marquis se
ven, and a Duke eight. By this the respect and hopou-
or the Peerage of England would be in some measur
restored, not only in points that concern their judira
ture,but in that interest and influence among the people
by which they have often been so great a support
to the Crown in the reigns of wise and good Kings,
arid to the liberties of the people in the unfortunate
times of weak Princes, or evil and ambitious Mini-
sters." Since that time the Government of this
country has been completely changed—it has be-
come Parliamentary. The boroughmongering sys-
tem, hardly known at the Revolution, has attained
a fearful maturity. The effect of that system is to
make in reality only one House of Parliaments—the
Peers themselves, who sit in one place, and their
nominees, who sit in another. To perpetuate this
system, it is well known that every man who ac-
quired an extensive property in boroughs was ele-
vated to the peerage. The Peers thus, by pos-
sessing a majority in the House of Commons, in
reality possessed the House of Commons. But here
came into operation the mighty evil which has
grown to such magnitude as to leave us no option
between Reform and revolution. All the new r:ch
Peers were thrown into the House of Lords, inn order
that the Lords might be literally Parliament.
But the poor Peers were not got rid of as
the order was strengthened by the new rich ones ;
and as each poor ve r' s vote counts for as much
in the House of Lords as the vote of the
richest Duke, the order of Peer.; were under the
neeeaeity of availing themselves of their command
of the public purse to obtain the votes of the pates
perized Peers. Hence all sorts of devices have
been resorted to in oider to find suitable incomes
for these national paupers. The Church, our Co-
lonies, the Army, the Navy, are all eoo little for
these incurrilerapees on the nation. Had a sum of
one or two millions beer taken at once from the na-
tion for the sake of distribution among these pau-
pers, there would have been compaeetively little
harm. But in order to find a place for a Lord, or
a Lord's ;en or brother, in a colony, hundreds of
toad-eaters eeiss! dependents must also be provided
for. That a Colnawid,s. may have an income, the
inferior officers and private z essust also be main-
ee;ese4, Rapacity has been carried a fa: in those
colonies which are without the protection of ad..e-
quate local Parliseseents, that the very estates founded
for colleges and schools, rend for the poor, have been
seized en by these aristocratici.l paupers, who, for
services for which a native of the place eni,ght re-
ceive 504 or ;01. a year, are crammed to the ex-
tent of 5,0001. or •;aOO/. a year. The pro-con-
sular repacity of ancient Rome has been out-done
by the rapaCity of the aristocratical paupers of Eng-
land and their retainees, The details of the Mau-
ritiue, Malta, &c., are beyond meesere disgra,ceful.
There are, no doubt, many men in the House of
Pew who, having no stake in the country, would
be ready to t heow things into confusion, rather than
abandon the power of living at the expence of the
people. But these men will nor, of themselves,
dare to make head against this griak.s nation ; and
we tsust the men of good estates will have too much
judgment to countenance them in their desperate'
designs. The people still no longer tolerate the
system of fraud, hypocrisy, en,d corruption, with a
view to pillage and plunder. That system is at an
end. The people have pronounced sentence of
i eh
manyeir our
situationo history.oose t 0
at
be
condemnation on it with a unanimity unexampled
t
Afoad orrifstthtoheci rsaadc
haveadvantages
industrious
t a g
ne
Te
thele grateful
richh e
ingenious nation gives them. They
cannot, forget themselves so far as to rislc'tthest
• Ingratitude tnight perhaiA compete it with •
ease of Sir Francis tturdett impudence, in the
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tuwchahtinecodho