The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

HERALD.—The Times yesterday announced that Parlia-
ment is to be assembled in the first week in January, and
that the Royal Speech is to contain a recommendation to
consider the corn-laws with a view to their repeal. We are
not going to contradict this statement, because, while it is
the easiest thing in the world to make such statements, it is
impossible to contradict them by authority. If any Cabinet
Minister, directly or indirectly, informed the Times of the
alleged purpose of the Cabinet, he was guilty of a
scandalous violation of his oath as a Privy Councillor;
and if the statement of the Times be utterly
false, as we believe it to be, any Cabinet Minister authorising
us to contradict it must equally violate his oath. Under
these circumstances, we can only afford to our readers this
amount of information, viz., that persons in the most intimate
confidence of the Government know nothing whatever of any
such design as that imputed to the Cabinet : of its extreme
improbability, on other grounds, readers themselves can
judge. We, however, will assert nothing positively, for rash
conjectural assertions may deceive as mischievously as wilful
falsehoods; and if we can help it, we Rill never deceive.
Meanwhile we may not conceal it, that the statement of the
Times has obtained a degree of credit which, if permitted to
extend, must lead to' very serious consequences.
STANDARD.—Our readers will forgive us reminding
them that in every December of the last four years they have
been assured of an immediate repeal of the corn-laws,
without, as we can recollect, a single apology having followed
the discovery that the assurance was an impudent falsehood.
The practice is not an inconvenient one to the League and
its friends. The promised submission of the Ministers works
for a time as a condemnation of all their former policy, and
a commendation of the wisdom and patriotism of their oppo-
nents, and when the bubble bursts, resentment is diverted
from those who fabricated the falsehood to those whose firm-
ness disappoints expectation by proving it a falsehood. It is
true that the habit of publishing periodical untruths ought
to prove injurious to the commercial interests of a public
journal ; but • does it ? Is character of the least value
to a newspaper ? Whatever we may expect of the future—
and we own our expectations are high, in this re-
spect—we must acknowledge that a bad reputation
does not impair the circulation of a public journal to the ex-
tent that it ought. The Dispatch is said to have the largest
circulation among the weekly journals, the Times the largest
among the daily journals, and so it will continue, until a
strong effort of the whole of the honestly disposed part of the
press shall raise it so far above contempt that men will be no
longer as indifferent to the moral character of the newspaper
which they patronise as to the moral character of the useful
operator who empties a dust-bin. Our present business is,
however, with the most recent announcement of the repeal of
the corn-laws, thus given by the Times :
"The decision of the Cabinet is no longer a secret. Par-
liament, it is confidently reported, is to be summoned for the
first week in January ; and the Royal Speech will, it is added,
recommend an immediate consideration of the corn -laws, pre-
paratory to their total repeal. Sir Robert Peel in the one
House, and the Duke of Wellington in the other, will, we are
told, be prepared to give immediate effect to the recommen-
dation thus conveyed.
"An announcement of such immeasurable importance,
and to the larger portion of the community so unspeakably
gratifying, almost precludes the possibility of comment.
No pen can keep pace with the reflections which must spon-
taneously crowd upon every thoughtful and sensitive mind.
They who have long desired this change, and have long
traced its manifold bearings on the welfare and happiness of
the world, will in one moment see the realisation of that
fair prospect, and will hardly endure to be informed of what
they already behold. The approaching event, therefore,
which we this day communicate to our readers, must be left
to speak for itself."
The purpose of the Oalliciet,-as every one is Aware, ears be
'known only through, thosiolatiott other:oath br some 'of its
members, .a perjury, ?certainly not, leas sordid or mischievous
because relating to Fpatter, of tcominer.ce upon ;which bat
"inense gains.may bephtaijaegt.lirough early in foytwgion,arn-
niense losses sustained from the want of it. Now, having to
choose between the belief that some Cabinet Minister has
violated his oath for the accommodation of the Times, or the
belief that the Times has been at its old tri-Jrs
with an aspect to Mark-lane, we cannot help adopt-
ing the .latter hypothesis, and disbelieving the whole
story from beginning to end. But it may be asked, if the
statement of the Times is untrue, why not seek authority
to contradict it? So we should if we knew how, but it
present we cannot prepare a phrase in which respectfully to
request a Privy Councillor to violate his oath. The an-
nouncement of the Times is, in fact, either a deliberate false-
hood, corruptly fabricated for some purpose of trade, or a
guess, a mere " shot," as it is called in the universities and
in schools, founded upon the loosest helps to conjecture. We
do not dispute that the Times has many such helps ; its in-
fluence over inferior clerks and door porters in the public
offices is, we are aware, very considerable ; nay, we have a
notion that 'it possesses the ear of one private secretary,
though we believe but one. In this way the Times may
worm out probabilities. For example, a clerk reports
at Printing-house square (of course for a consideration)
that certain papers not usually required until February
are ordered to be ready in January. The inference
is reasonably enough drawn that Parliament is to meet in
January, and then it is added that these papers concern, inter
alia, the Corn Returns—a less audacious builder than our
Contemporary might raise upon such information, if such
informal ion has been obtained, an edifice as imposing as that
which we have been contemplating. If the shot hits, the
Times has the credit of early information ; if it misses, as it
generally does, the falsehood is forgotten, and in either case
the public is quite indifferent to the scandalous system of
corruption and breach of trust by which the materials for
guess-work are brought together. The Morning Chronicle
(we ask its pardon for placing it in juxta-position with the
Times) has also its announcement upon the subject of the
corn-laws, as follows :
" THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON THE CORN-