The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-08 00:00:00

r.,PIRIT 01' l'IlL PUBLIC JOURNALS

The trial of Mr. Cobbett came on yesterday, at
Cluildhall. We have already observed that, in our
Ministers would have done better not to
have set on foot this prosecution, and we still remain
of this opinion. Before entering further on the cots-
sideration of this trial, we may remark, that the
law of this country with regard to the Press may be
compared to a net, of which the draught is equal to
the volume of the stream, while the meshes are sash
that few fishes are retained in it. The libel law pro-
mises to do everything, but its performance fall,
miserably short. It is hardly possible to write in e
way which may not be pronounced libellous; and,
therefore, in all eases but private libels, there is a
snitch greater chance of acquittal than conviction—
not from approbation of the matter prosecuted, but
from dislike of the employment of a means, by
which it is as easy to destroy the innocent as to
punish the ill-disposed, A prosecution far a
-is a mere lottery. It is not so much the cha-
racter of the article rrosecuted that deter-
mines the verdict. as the disposition of hi.
dividual Jurors. One obstinate Juror will in one
case compel the other eleven to convict, and in
another case compel them to acquit, against their
better judgment. A libel being merely that for
which a verdict of guilty can be obtained, it merely
means that the libel displeases those who prosecute;
•and as they who prosecute are not necessarily either
angels or infallible, in all times there have been cons
victed libellers who have deserved we:l of their
country, while their successful prosecutors have
been its worst enemies, Many men, therefore,
hate the employment of an instrument may
be used for bed equally with rood ends, and against
which innocence is as touch itt danger as guilt.
The Italian who uses the 4nife may sometimes take
off guilty persons, but in the hatred of the means all
other considerations are merged. In the ease of libel
prosecutions, the only security of the defendant is the
dread which the prosecutors may have of another bar
than that of the Court—the bar of public opinion.
The evil is the mystical clime of libel. The law
ought to know only crimes, no matter what the in-
strument—the knife, the brand, the pen, the tongue.
But the English Criminal Law is altogether so irre-
concileable with common sense, that, as was well
observed by Mr. Niacauley, it seems purposely con-
trived to puzzle and ensnare. Let its suppose, for
instance, the libel law abolished, and the mater
now prosecuted as libel to be prosecuted as crime—
we are met with the technical absurdities of our cri-
-sninal code. I say to a man, for instance, run your
knife into that man—the man is stabbed, and I am
au accessary before the fact. The advice is disre-
garded from the good sense of the individual to
whom it is given, and I am not an accessary to the
crime, because no crime is committed. My guilt is
the same whether the man acts on my advice or not;
but the law deals with it in the one case, and in the
other it does not. In the same manner I address
a written discourse, recommending the mur-
dering certain persons, and setting fire to their
premises. If the advice be not acted on, I can
only be reached through the libel law. What ought
to be done, to reconcile the law with common sense,
is to make the advising a criminal act, whether by Inn
or tongue, a crime per se, whether the advice be
acted on or not ; and to put an end to all offences of
the press, which consist merely in enforcing or com-
bating any set of opinions in political, moral, or re-
ligious matters. In a good criminal code, the re-
commending the crime ought to be a crime—inde-
pendent of the consequences of the recommenda-
tion. Thus much by way of preface to our obser-
vations on this trial :—To set fire to machinery, to
farm-buildings and stack-yards, to assemble in mul-
titudes to compel employers to raise wages, tithe--
owners and landowners to lower tithes and rents, is
to do that which no right-thinking man would jus-
tify ; for it destroys the security of property, pre-
vents the exercise of industry—to which security i,
indispensible—and tends to throw society into
anarchy and confusion. No degree of suffering
justifies a recourse to means by which all society
would be deeply injured. To recommend recourse
to such means, participates of the character of the
means themselves. But there is a material
difference between recommending measures of vio-
lence and speculating with regard to them, in
order that a proper lesson may be drawn
from them by society. We remember well
that the outrages led at the time to all sorts of
discussions among our contemporaries. Some, for
instance, said that the various classes contrived to
shift the burthens, &c. of society from their own
shoulders to those of others, and that the whole at
length fell with an overwhelming weight on the
poor labourers, who were pressed down to the
earth ; and at length, when no longer able to sup-
port themselves under the burthen, they endeavoured
to relieve themselves, and, in the attempt, society
was shaken to its foundation. It was recommended
that landlords should abate their rents, the tithe-
owners their tithes, and that the farmers should not
endeavour to indemnify themselves for the undue
exactions of the landlord at the expence of the poor
labourer—that they should not grind the faces of
the poor as they had done. It was generally sup-
posed by writers, that the labourers had succeeded
in their object of obtaining higher wages by the
means to which they bad had recourse, and that
the landlords and tithe-owners would be obliged
to make ahatements corresponding to the increased
burthens thrown on the farmers. We exposed our-
selves to some odium at the time, by question-
ing the theory that the outrages had originated in
a greater than usual degree of suffering of the
labourers, and thought their dissatisfaction rather a
proof of their having higher notions of what they
ought to receive, without knowing how to effect
their object. All writers, however, thought that
the outrages, however reprehensible, would ulti-
mately be productive of good, as it would impress
en the rich the impossibility of their separating
themselves with impunity from the poor, and would
thus lead to measures for instructing the poor as to
the circumstances which really determined their
well-being or misety, and rendering their obe-
dience to the laws a matter of conviction rather
than of fear. The chief instigators to the outrages
were the Magistrates of Kent, who, yielding to a
handful of workmen, recommended to the farmers
to raise the wages of the workmen, and thus taught
the labourers of other places to follow the example
of their brethren in Kent, in order to share in their
good fortune. The Magistrates of Norfolk and
some other counties, who recommended the break-
ing of machinery, were, though in an inferior de-
gree, also instigators to outrage, as they gave a
sanction to the outrages. With respect to the alleged
libel of Mr. Cobbett, we hardly think that he has been
fairly dealt with. The passage is worded very incau-
tiously, but it is not a direct recommendation to out-
rage, but an attempt to show the absurdity of the
grounds on which a certain Parson had endeavoured
to prevail on the labourers to desist from outrage.—
The Kent Magistrates also told the labourers, no
doubt, to desist from outrage, and that to burn ma-
chinery and stacks would do them RO good ; while
they afforded a refutation of their own assertions,
by recommending a rise of their wages. It seems
to us, that the allusion to the thrashing machine—
to the additional employment, and additional wages
thereby obtained—refers rather to the practical re-
futation which these circumstances gave to the
Parson, who did not endeavour to remove the
cause of their erroneous notions with respect to
the ultimate effects of machinery, and the circum-
stances which determine the wages of labour, but
ergued with them in a way which laid him open to
ouch a rejoinder. The terror unquestionably had
the effect of raising (temporarily, of course) the
wages; and, in what Mr. Cobbett says as to the
forced reduction of tithes, he was stating
lays
we believe is a fact, that the yeomanry, genera yde
hailed this ; and much evidence was given (and
much more would have been given, as most ac-
tive Magistrates know) to show that the labourers
were the tools of the farmers in what they did against
the Parsons. They might not say to the labourers in