The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-24 00:00:00

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LONDON:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1841.

We drew attention yesterday to the fact that
the law, by being perverted to be an instrument
f injustice, is losing its authority over the minds
of the manufacturers. Mr. BRIGHT, of Roch-
dale, openly defended the violation of the law.
Now, while the suflerers in the North are be-
ginning to find out that we have many bad laws
which ought to be disregarded, writers in the
South are obserVing that Many, and the most
important part of society, spring up and flourish
without any laws at all. On the one hand many
laws are denounced as bad, on the other the ne-
cessity even for _good laws is practically denied.
The Noncovformist on Wednesday said—
To the efficacy of what enactment recorded in the
Statute-book are we to trace that deep concern to vitalise
religion which, just a century ago, startled and terrified
a sleeping establishment ? The myriads of Sunday-
schools which, if they do nothing more, scratch up the
surface of a virgin soil before trampled down and neg-
lected, rendering it capable 'of •receiving some of the
seeds of truth—what legal authority coerced them into
being ? Chapels, which- though too few for the wants
of our British population, are yet, taken in the gross, a
vast number, By „what .tax: was the amount produced,
necessary to defray the'. expenses of their erection ? And
the. ten thousand
.ministers of various denominations,
who uroclaina weelic 11 week their several views of re-
velation and it:s.betirimi•.upon the duties and destiny of
mankind. 1-low.do-the'y And support ? What ! is all
this to be regarded as pure
.unmixed evil and absurdity,
because, forsooth, they who have done these things did
thein:Uf their own mind, 'and:were not compelled thereto
by Act "of Parliament ?. They are egregious triflers who
say this ; fops, who have yet to learn that there is within
man's heart a p:.nver which, when evoked by religion,
beggin's their own parchment-begotten power, as the will
which moves the muscle of the living man does the gal-
vanism which convulses that of the dead one.

The whole of Dissent, with its almost countless
schools and meeting-houses, and its infinite ad-
vantages, has not only come unbidden and un-
regulated into existence, but has grown and flou-
rished greatly to the advantage of society, in
spite of law and legislators. The same observa-
tion is strictly true of the Press, the great utility
of which to society, though it has been thwarted
in every possible way, by meddling lawyers and
ignorant country gentlemen, was yesterday thus
happily described by the Times:—
Liberty of speech on these (national) subjects is the
essential characteristic of a free country, and to have a
press above the reach of corruption which uses that
liberty, is the greatest possible safeguard against the dis-
honesty or the incapacity of those by whom it is governed.
Public opinion, speaking unreservedly through such
organs, is the ife and soul of responsibility ; and the
light which is thus poured in upon the machinery of
every department of civil and military administration is
a surer antidote to abuse than a thousand Reform Bills.
We are apt to congratulate ourselves upon those me-
chanical improvements which have enabled a man to
breakfast at Loudon and dine in Liverpool, and cross the
Atlantic in a fortnight. We perceive the multiplication
of points of contact between man and man which is thus
occasioned, and the vast increase of power and other ad-
vantages which are brought in consequence into the com-
mon stock. But it requires not much reflection to show that
the change effected in the constitution of the political
world through the instrumentality of public journals,
fearless except for their reputation, and provided with
organised resources like those at our own command, is
nut less wonderful, nor the results less salutary to man-
kind. Opinion has acquired, through these means, not
only new powers of expression, but unlimited opportu-
nities of information. The statesman or the private
citizen, without leaving his home,
is enabled to see what
passes all over the world. He is at once in London and
in New York, at Canton, at
ffiWarsaw, and at Constanti-
nople. No agent or officer,' eitht.r
of this or of any
foreign Power, can carry.mir
an,:oPuration or course of
conduct affecting the public interests in secret ; and the
consequence is, that the representatives of this and other
countries act as in the face 'of day, with
the fear of a
searching and universal criticism before
their eyes.
This is the system—this admirable and useful ma-
chinery for the circulation of_ that moral power which
regulates the pulses of the world, but admirable and use-
ful only when left to its own natural and unimpeded
movements—this it is
which an attempt ha,made to
crush in our persons by the trial which took Pia„ on
Tuesday last.
This all-important part of society, which keeps
dishonest governors in order, which is the life
•
and soul of responsibility, which is the surest
antidote to abuse, which gives a man übiquity,
and places him at once in London and in New
York, at Canton, at Warsaw, and at Constan-
tinople, far from owing anything to legislation,
has only to complain of its absurd and cruel
trammels. The article from which we have
quoted the above passage was written to -
demand
an improvement in the Libel-law, which exposes
the-conductors and proprietors of the Press to be
sevetYly ?milked and imprisoned fbr performing
those:important and essential duties which the
Tirikes describes. "It is," said our Contempo- '
rary, " a disgrace to a free country, that, for
stating plain fact,, and offering temperate re-
monstrance, the conductors of the Press should
be liable to that species of legal annoyance and
persecution to which we have been subjected."
All that law and legislation have done fbr the
Press is to de?Tade, by its penal laws, one •of
the inoA useful occupations of society, and to
make the performance of its essential duties irk-
some and dangerous.
When we have convincing evidence on the one
hand that some laws, like the Corn and Provision-
laws, inflict italescriba.ble mischief on society, and
proors, on the other, that some of the most im-
portant parts or limbs of society flourish with-
out any laws, at least we may demand of the
gentlemen who are soon to assemble at West-
minster—and we go no further—that they should
be extremely ca.ctions not to inflict new and un-
necessary enactments on society. To repeal
laws is, in the majority of cases, to remove res-
trictions and restore society to the healthy in-
fluence of the natural laws, which regulate its
birth and its growth. Like removing ligatures
from the body, the abolition of: bad laws allows
every limb of society to assume its proper form.