The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-25 00:00:00

THE " TIMES."

(From the Anglo American Times.)
Mr. HENRY SEWELL forwarded a letter to the
Standard, addressed to the Times, with this remark,
" I am doubtful whether that paper will insert it.
I have been unable to obtain admission to former
letters correcting the misstatements of that journal."
The facts are, that Mr. SEWELL, a well-known
lawyer, learned in Constitutional questions, and a
leading colonist, has taken ground in favour of New
Zealand, and in opposition to the Times. A letter
lately appeared in the leading organ from an anony-
mous correspondent directly intending to show that
Mr. SEWELL had misquoted, and in a way very disin-
geutions, a despatch of the late Duke of NEWCASTLE.
Mr. SEWELL'S letter in reply, among other objects,
aimed at clearing himself from such an imputation;
but he had learned by experience that while the
anonymous writer, perhaps someperson in Printing..
house-square, had the entree to attach an imputation
against a gentleman of high character, the Times
would find it difficult to make space for a reply,
covering the signature of the individual maligned.
He knew this, and wrote his letter in duplicate,
sending one copy to the Standard, but the circum-
stanc suggests this moral :—Let no country ever
permit one newspaper to acquire a preponderating
circulation and influence. If it does, it sets up a
power enthroned on a despotism, whose tyranny it
will sooner or Teter be made to feel. Instead of
blaming the Times for its use of the extraordinary
power it has weilded, we consider, on the whole, that
it deserves credit, even allowing it has been kept in
check by the large and growing circulation of one
or two " penny" papers, and lately through the in-
fluence exercised by the Pall Mall Gazette. In many
ways it is convenient to the community to have one
great organ. If recognized abroad as a true inter-
preter of the general nationalseutiment, foreign Ad-
ministrations will be guarded from dangerous mis-
takes and often saved much trouble. An English Mi-
nister can, through a communication, reach all the
people at once, and so can each of her MAJESTY'S sub-
jects. There is a class of advertisemeuts useless to pub-
lish except in a paper everybody sees and glances at;
such, for instance, as appear in the 7 imes' second co-
lumn. The first column even more forcibly furnishes
au iii..trecuu of our meaning, for through it each
family announces to its acquaintances scattered
over the cvnrici those domestic occurrences it is
desirable to make known. AL Mlles, 1.1, is usetuL
have an organ which can by an article stir the
British heart, to sound a note of warning, to arouse
in the people that spirit of resistance which cows the
combination till then all powerful; and its influence
has often been most beneficially felt in times of dis-
tress, in directing into the best chanue's an over-
flowing charity. But there is, as usual, another side
to the picture. The power is enormous ; yet the per-
sons exercising it are irresponsible. We do not mean
to assert that they are wholly irresponsible, for the
law bids them to keep clear of libel, and the common
sense of the nation bids them beware how they abuse
the national confidence, for the limes, living at their
breath, is one of the finest properties in the world, to
wreck which would be indeed to make a mighty
wreck. Still, experience shews these to be but in-
effectual checks. Wliat instance could be more in
point as regards the latter, than the case of OVER-
END, GURNEY, and Co., and so regularly does this
happen, that it appears to be almost a natural law
regarding private enterprise that at some period or
another an hallucination must set in to break down
the finest business ever established. The Times is
notoriously open to the charge brought against it
by Mr. SEWELL, and therein lies no small measure
of injustice. It is a fixed rule of that paper never
to correct a blunder, never to acknowledge an error.
When wrong on subjects, wherein, if adhered to, the
masses can detect the error, it swings round with an
audacity so grand as to make JOHN BULL scratch his
head ; but where the people have not theinformation
necessary to see the error, the Times persists in it
with a brazen impudence which has already done much
to injure its influence, and will yet do more. On
no other point has this been so openly displayed as
against America. It is admitted that the English
blundered terribly in their action as well as in their
talk during the American civilwar, and it is generally
recognized that they were most misled by the
Times. That paper up to this day has continued in
the same course, writing opinions to be disproved
by the current of events, yet holding on to old
errors till they exploded, and then replacing them
with new fallacies. It has cost England too much
not to feel acutely that the Times in this deeply
injured the nation, hence that the nation owes little
on this point to its favourite journal. With the
growth of knowledge of America also grows that
knowledge, and as American influence becomes more
and more felt, this fact is the more forcibly brought
home,toEnglishmen thatthe part taken by the Times
was fraught with evil to both countries. It might
suit the leading organ quietly to let this drop into
oblivion, but it is not likely to be gratified ; on the
contrary, like the ghost in " Hamlet," this shadow
will at the most unwelcome seasons appear on its
path, refusing to be laid. If we required an in-
stance to show how much injury may be done by
lodging in a single newspaper a preponderating
power, we would take this. Indeed that power cannot
fail to work more evil than good, for the Times is
no more infallible than—we had almost said--the
POPE ; and as it is a platform from which no dis-
senting opinions are allowed utterance, it ought not
to be permitted to stand indefinitely higher than
any other. If the writers were infallible, or if their
opponents were freely admitted to its columns, the
higher it stood the better ; but as it is not infallible,
as it never corrects its errors, as it does not admit
adverse criticism, as it even refuses a place in justi-
fication for a gentleman whom one of its anonymous
correspondents has misrepresented, welnaintain that
the sooner that platform comes down to the level of
the other dailies the better for the country.

The following is by P. R. L. Pierce, one of the
State Senators from the State of Michigan, on Senator
Chandler's Alabama speech in the 'United States Senate :
—" Decidedly, it was an oration whose combination of
inflammation, illumination and thunderation, will put
consternation and trepidation in the imagination of the
entire population of that conglomeration of geologic con-
formation, whose proper appellation is tho home of tho
British nation. It was an operation which must command
admiration for its bold enunciation of the final emanation
of the long deliberation of this generation on the question
under consideration, and deserves commendation as a de-
claration of our determination." "Decidedly " this Mr.
Pierce is a good deal of a wag.