The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-14 00:00:00

8 5

LORD CLAR'ii,NDON AND THE MORNING
JOURNALS.

( Front the Morning Advertiser. )
The conduct of Lord Clarendon towards the ge-
nerality of the London Press, in connection with
the present state of affairs in India, is reprehensible
in the highest degree, and were Parliament now
sitting, the noble lord might depend ou it that his
conduct would be made the subject of severe and
merited censure. Anxious to curry favour with the
Times, and merging the high character of a Mieise
ter of the Crown in that of the ignoble character of
a parasite of our contemporary, Lord Clarendon
engaged some weeks ago to let the Times have a pri-
ority, over all the other journals, of information
from India. The arrangement was, that the intel-
ligence received by Government by telegraph from
the East should be transmitted by the Foreign Office
to that journal on the instant of its arrival.
Of course, Lord Clarendon would not dare to let
the Times have the intelligence exclusively. That
would have been an experiment on the forbearancJ
of the other journals, and on that of the public as
well, which the Foreign Secretary had not the
coerage to make. Still, in the way we have men-
tioned, the Foreign-office favouritism was shown
to the Times, by giving it the eerliestinte!ligence,
leaving it to our contemporary to let the other
papers have copies of what was sent by Lard Cla-
rendon a couple of hours afterwards.
Now, to those who are acquainted with the
practical working of the press, it must be obvious
that our contemporary of Printing-house-square
has, in th's way, a great advantage over all the
other journals. Before they have the slightest
idea of what the nature of the intelliee nee is,
the Times can have written its leading ar-
ticle on it. Last night, at eight o'clock, we re-
ceived iuformat ion that the telegraph despatch from
India had been transmitted to the Times, and we
were informed by the Foreign Office that at ten we
would get a slip from Printing-house-square. This,
it will be observed, was an interval of two hours.
Now, why such an interval, assuming it to be at all
defensible that the Times should get the despatch
first ? The whole thing might, with the greatest
ease, have bean got ready for the other journals in
a quarter of an hour. But the Times had its object
to serve. Had the despatch been received at one
or two o'clock this morning, the delay would not
only have been injurious to the other journals, tut
would havecausod them very serious inconvenience.
It would have precluded the possibility of their
publishing any comments of their own on the intel-
ligence in the same impression of their respective
papers.
But this is not all. We charge Lord Clarendon,
or those acting under him, and for whose conduct
he is consequently responsible, with a breach of
faith in this matter. Anticipating the indignation
of our contemporaries and ourselves at this marked
and invidious preference of the Times, Lord Cla-
rendon caused, a few days ago, a circular to be ad-
dressed to the offices of each of our morning con-
temporaries, as well as to that of this journal, say-
ing, that whenever the telegraphic contents of the
Indian mail reached the Foreign-office at a suffici-
ently early hour to admit of copies being taken for
each of the other morning papers, copies would be
sent to them contemporaneously with the copy sent
to the Times. The Foreign-office has not fu.'filled
its promise ;it has broken faith with us all. Tee
despatch arrived at seven o'clock, and surely
that was a sufficiently early hour to admit of
copies being taken. Half-a-dozen clerks would
have transcribed the requisite number of copies in
fifteen or twenty minutes, or three clerks would
have done it in half an hour or forty minutes.
The conduct, therefore, of Lord Clarendon in
this matter is, we repeat, reprehensible in the
highest degree ; and we shall be surprised it one
and all of our contemporaries do not denounce it
in those terms of indignation which such flagrant
unfairness to them and to us, and such pitiable
truckling to the Times, so richly deserve. If our
contemporaries are only true to themselves,—if
they but vindicate, with becoming spirit, their own
rights, and tell Lord Clarendon, in plain terms,
that they will not submit to the indignity which he
puts upon them, and the injustice he does alike.to
themselves and their readers, wo venture to say
that his Lordship will not have the temerity to act
in the same way on the arrival of the next Indian
mail.