The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-30 00:00:00

sideretione—nlreeiv. how it is that the nature
and degree of libel are to be ascertained more
precreely than they now are ? It is indeed
recommended that " different decrees of guilt"
shall be determined by law, and corresponding
degrees of punishment annexed to them ; but
what are to constitute the differences of degree is
left, as the law at this moment makes it, a matter of
complete uncertainty. Of the several amounts of
punishment affixed as maxima to the first, se-
cond, and third degrees of libel, it is needless to
say much,--they would be proper subjects for a
debate in Committee, but there seems consider-
able prudence in assigning limits to the discre-
tionary power of judges as to the apportionment
of penalty. This praise, however, cannot he
extended to the sixth section of the proposed
Bill, which, in cases of judgment by default,
authorizes the judge, without the intervention
of a jury, to decide the degree of guilt which
the defendant had incurred and by consequence
the amount of penalty. Upon the whole, the
scheme goes hut a little way ; so far, however, a..
it does go, it bears the aspect of an improvement
on the existing practice.—Times.
It will be seen, in a paragraph copied from a
provincial paper, that Mr. Fenton, member for
Huddersfield, has died under circumstances of
a melancholy nature. His death of course cre-
ates a vacancy, which, in these times of mad
Tory faction, ought to be filled b. some intelli-
gent man, who understands the Constitution,
and who has courage and integrity to fight the
battle of the reformation of our institutions
against those who wish to see them perish by the
rot rather than lose a jot of personal influence.
A fit man has, we think, been found in Mr.
Blackhurne, a well known barrister of the nor-
thern circuit. His sound legal knowledge will
make him see what ought to be cut away, and
what left ; his courage and integrity will enable
him to execute without flinching the purposes
sanctioned by his judgment. We think the
people of Huddersfield will do themselves credit
by choosing their excellent townsman as their
representative.— Times.
The working of the law of libel forces itself
again on our attention. It has received a fresh
illustration by the result of the trial of Mr.
Barrett, the editor of the Dublin newspaper
called the Pilot, for a letter written under the
signature of the Counsel that defended him, and
published in this country without being followed
by any penal animadversion whatever. If this
case does not place in a strong light the anotna-
lous character of the libel law, and its aptitude
as an instrument of state policy, rather than of
even-handed and impartial justice, we are much
mistaken. .Mr. Barrett is prosecuted as a cri-
minal, and defended by the avowed author of
the crime, if crime it be, for which he is now
to abide the sentence of the Court ! If the
Government feared to grapple with Mr. O'Con-
nell, whose signature the letter bore, and whose
connection with its publication, no doubt, could
be proved, what dignity, what justice, we ask,
is there in pursuing the journalist who published
in one part of the kingdom what the Govern-
ment treated as an innocent production in the
other ? It is well known that we give no coun-
tenance to the system of agitation pursued by
Mr. O'Connell, mid that we deprecated, as the
next step to the dismemberment of the British
empire, the repeal of the Legislative Union with
Ireland. We go farther, and say that, even
if the repeal of the Union were in our opinion a
judicious and salutary measure, it is not fitting
that an endeavour should be made to carry it by
violent clamour and popular intimidation. But
we are far from thinking that the prosecution of
the Irish press is the most likely way to put
down the clamour for the repeal of the Union
or to tranquillise Ireland. That desirable con-
summation, we have always maintained, can
only be i ffected by redressing the real grievances
of the Irish people, promoting Irish industry by
wise regulations, and by opening those source-
of improvement which the natural capabilities
of that country afford; discouraging absenteeism,
the curse of a genial climate and a fertile soil ;
giving employment to the Irish poor who starve
in a land of plenty, who perish for want
of bread while the abundant produce of the
soil is poured into the English markets, to
the detriment of the heavily-taxed English
farmer, who cannot compete with his Irish rival
in a " free trade" in corn. Such are the toils
of Government that a wise Administration would
inideitake, and that would amply repay its bene-
ficent exertions. Then would the sting be
extracted from the political letters and speeches
of Mr. O'Connell more effectually than by the
process of libel prosecution—then would the
union of the two countries be consolidated in a
way that would defy human power to rive them
asunder, for there would be an identity of inte-
rest, a come unity of feeling, a reciprocal inter.
change of benefits—then might the libel law
sleep, as an instrument of state policy, until the
Whigs thought proper to redeem their pledge
of retortning it, so that it might no longer be
at variance with reason, and a discredit to the
institutit ns of a free country. " But stop," the
Whig .Ministers, in their consistent love for free.
thnn, may say, " you are bringing the law 0:
libel into contempt, and the verdict just ob-
tained in Dublin against the editor of the Pilot
establishes the position that to bring an Act of
Parliament into contempt, however bad it may
be, and although the Attorney-General may
describe that Act as severe and unconstitutional,
is libellous, and a crime which the press ought
to expiate in a dungeon and in chains." We
acknowledge the force of this reasoning,
backed as it is by the legal terrors which
the Whig declaimers for freedom can wield
in support of their new doctrine. Per.
haps it may be libellous for us even to
suggest that long ago those lovers of liberty,
who reason in this manner, did all that lay in
their power to make the law of libel, and many
other laws and Acts of Parliament, odious in the
eyes of he people—aed that if they did not, yet
the law of libel was admirably framed to " bring
itself into contempt." That it should be a libel
to speak ill of an Act of Parliament, which the
very Attorney-General who prosecutes ada its to
be unconstitutional, is to our humble apprehen-
sion a new doctrine ; but, as it is a Whig doc-
trine, we presume that the Whig Journals well
highly approve of this extension of the law of
libel beyond what the Tories have ventured to
carry it. In our time many have been the foolish,
absurd, and mischievous Acts of Parliament
which have been passed, nor have we hesi.ated
to descae them as such. Nay, more, by free
animadversion, we have, in some measure, con-
tributed to remove many bad laws from the Sta-
tute-book ; and to effect a purpose so beneficial
to the public interests it was necessary to bring
those bad laws into odium and contempt. The
Altigs have taught us that it is a libel to
stigmatise a bad or unconstitutional Act of
Parliament with the censure of free opinion.
The
liberal Press of England, like that of France,