The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-09 00:00:00

CONSERVATIVE JOURNALISM.

The Pall Mall Gazette vouches for the following
!act "At the time of the general election an adverts-
ling agent was instructed by a Government depart-
ment to send advertisements to a certain provincial
journal. This journal was so excellent a medium for
the purpose that the agent, whose business it is to
know these things, was quite unaware of its existence.
Ile had to make inquiries as to whether there was
such a newspaper or not. His investigations were
-Successful. It turned out that the influential
and
circulated print had been started a few
weeks previously to serve the interest of the Tory
candidate for the borough in which it was published.
Accordingly the Government advertisements were
sent for the support of the paper; and there we have
seen them, column after column, week after week.
To crown all, the newspaper thus placed under
Government patronage, and fed out of the Treasury
for the benefit of a Government candidate, was an
illegal publication ; the ephemeral thing had never
even been registered." Our contemporaryt challenged
to give particulars, has no hesitation in doing so.
Windsor is the town referred to, the Windsor and
.Eton Herald the journal, and Colonel Gardner the
candidate.

PARLIAMENTARY RETURNS.

A correspondent of the Times calls attention to
the abuse which members make of their power to
move the House of Commons for returns. Any
private member will, on the slightest provocation,
rise in his place;
.and move that a mass of some
unimportant statistics be produced. If the Govern-
ment refuse the production
it
n of the information re-
quired, it is inferred that is not to their advantage
that the subject should be investigated. But this
ought not to be so.. We are told by "An Official
Reformer" in the Times that " the compilation of a
magnitude is most dis-
turbingdepartment charged with the duty;
and, in fact, in order to provide. against any such dis-
organisation, it is the practice of many departments
to keep most elaborate records, not because they are
of administrative use, but simply in order to be pre-
pared to readily furnish information in any shape in
which it may be called for by a parliamentary
return. Thus these returns, directly and indirectly,
are very costly to the public." The correspondent
proposes two remedies—that the mover for a return
should state his reasons for requiring what he asks,
and that a standing committee should be appointed
to report to the House such returns as may be really
wanted.

_
OFFICIAL nESPONSIBILITY.
The Lord Chancellor of the Derby Government
made some curious admissions in the House of Lords
the other night in the4s
disregardedAberdeenAcatndderbe
rejected
his lie
seemed to be most eager that it should be known that
aSdirviliceobearbtoPuet theelin 18
Aberdeen Act, preferring the
Sir William Follett. Lord
that, being Solicitor-
General°Chelmsford
,heh putiws
_lice of
enhti predecessor,sondotuobts
confessor obi e
objections in his pocket,
and spoke from Sir Robert Peel's brief in eef
the bill. Then, seeming to understand that his
conduct might not be considered to be altogether
sans reproche, he defended himself by holding forth
on the doctrine of official responsibility. As Solicitor-
General he said he was responsible, and therefore he
spoke against his own opinion on a legal question ;
but his official responsibility having ceased, he now
comes out with his deliberate convictions. Corn-
menting on this rather strange doctrine, the
Pall Mall Gazette says —" One would have thought
that official responsibility required of a law
officer in such a matter a conscientious opinion. It
SO happens, however, in disparagement to some
extent of these candid expressions, that Lord
Chelmsford stood up for the bill, not only in 1845,
when he was Solicitor-General, but also in 1849,
when he was a private member of the House of
Commons, and had no official responsibility. Any
reader may see the speech of the unofficial Sir
Frederick Thesiger in" Hansard," April 24,1849. The
bill was defended on the . same occasion by Sir
Roundell Palmer."