The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-06 00:00:00

sent abroad in transport ships that were not seaworthy, het Lord DENMAN thought that so important a change in the
might state that without any seditious motive, or from any law ought not to have been proposed without much more con-
wish to stir up disaffection among the soldiers. Ile might be ac- sideration. The Bill of last year was referred to a Committee,
tuated by a patriotic wish to promote the welfare of their defenders and repeatedly discussed by persons of the greatest expe-
in arms. Or, suppose it had been stated that the army of the rience in such matters. The present Bill was brought
Noble Duke in Spain was not properly supplied with provi- forward as a corollary to it, but it had not received the same
sions, in consequence of some fault of the Commis riat, would consideration. There was a specific offence ; the offence of
they not allow the defendant to show that whath stated was sedition. His Noble and Learned Friends appeared to have
perfectly true, as in doing so he must be assisting the leaders confined their attention to one single branch of sedition, and
of the army in this country ? Or, suppose th . charge was that one of the least public importance. Forty or fifty years
made ageinst the Queen's Ministers of receiving bribes from ago every public newspaper, remarking on the conduct of the
foreign Powers, he ought to be allowed to prove the truth of Government, was at the mercy of the Government for the
that statement, since the attempt to do so would only cover time being; but that danger was now passed, and no Attorney-
him with confusion. He would suppose another case—that of General would be stupid enough to institute a prosecution,
a person of whom it was published that he opened letters in merely because the Government would be inconvenienced by
the Post-office ; would it not be monstrous that the defendant newspaper remarks, and if he did the juts would give
should not be allowed to prove the truth ? The present prac- heir verdict for the defendant. In the year 1609
tice was most injurious to the individual, if acted upon ; and the Morning Chronicle was prosecuted for reflecting en
their Lordships must consider it as if it were acted upon, be- King George the Third, with reference to the Government of
cause it possibly might be at the pleasure of the Attorney- Ireland ; Mr. Perry defended himself on the ground of the
General. It was injurious to the individual, because an inner- right to discus the measures of the Government, and the
cent, praiseworthy person might be convicted of a crime, jury acquitted the defendant. Now was not the crime of
whereas he ought to be rewarded ; and it was also most inju. sedition a crime in itself? Had they not seen people rising
rious to the public, because people would be apprehensive of up in arms and rushing to the destruction of their neighbours'
stating facts which might be necessary. Where the lives and property ?—(Hear, hear.) He put that case because
truth could not be proved at the trial, or after it arose out of recent proceedings.—(Hear, hear.) The at-
conviction, it operated in favour of the defendant ; tacking of a man's character tended to a breach of the peace,
where the libel was false, as had been shown by Mr. Starkie, by leading him, as Dr. Franklin expressed it, to resort to the
one of the law Commissioners, they could not believe the liberty of the cudgel.—(Laughter.) He admitted that some
things was false where evidence of the falsity was not ad- advantage had arisen from the Bill of last year, by improving
mitted, and punishment must be awarded as if the facts were the respectability of the press ; but he did not think a sufficient
true. It might be said, that though the facts were true, the time had elapsed to enable them to say that it conferred very
publication was wrong, and That the press ought not to meddle great benefit. What he chiefly complained of was that this
with such subjects. They might say, as a Learned Chief change was proposed without sufficient consideration and de-
Justice in the sister island said, that the Houses of Parliament liberation.
were the places where these mat'ers were to be canvassed: Lord CAMPBELL replied. Ho said it seemed they
Even if that were so, the law of England was defective in were now called on to reverse the unanimous decision of last
this respect—that they would provide no remedy for wilful ea. year; every argument used against the present Bill would apply
lumny. They placed in the same situation the person wit exactly as mach to the Act of last year. His Noble and
stated what Ras true from laudable motives, and the person Learned Friend acknowledged that this Act, as far as it had
who stated what was false with the worst intentions. Then been tested, had been found to work well. He concluded that
they departed from all analogy with regard to the law of libel, nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the ascertaining, by
for in other cases they allowed the cireumstances to be given affidavit, the truth or falsehood of statements in a
in evidence, but not with regard to libel. For instance, in a criminal information. The Noble and Learned Lord
case of assault, all that led to the assault might be given in had alluded to the case of the Duke of Brunswick.
evidence. The defendant might even give in evidence that he Would not the convictions in that case have been much more
was libelled by the prosecutor, and that being so provoked, he satisfactory, if there had been an opportunity of showing4heir
laid a horsewhip on his back. After the Bill of last year, how utter falsehood? When the King of Hanover wy assailed by
incongruous was the law if they rejected this Bill ? Under charges of a similar character, he boldly appeared in the wit-
the law of last year, in a prosecution for private defamation, ness-box and denied the truth of those statements. Under
the truth might be given in evidence, but if the Attorney- the circumstances, and after the declaration of his Noble Friend
General filed an ex officio information, and called the private on the Woolsack, supported as he had been by the Chief
defamation a seditious libel, the truth could not Justice, he much apprehended the fate of this Bill. They
be given in evidence.—(Cries of " Hear, hear). It might overwhelm by a great majority the decision of last ses-
seemed to him that, in this way, they brought great scandal sion—they had the opportunity of doing so; bat it
on the administration of justice. He believed there was one must not be supposed that all those who were absent
authority against him, for whom he had the sincerest respect. —(There were not more than two or three Peers on the
He was afraid the Bill was not approved of by the Lord Chief Opposition benches)—were indifferent to this
Justice of the Queen's Bench, one of the most zealous, steady, (Laughter.) His Noble Friend (Lord Cottenham) was ab-
and enlightened friends of liberty that ever blessed this coon- sent in consequence of believing that the Bill was perfectly
try.—(Hear, hear.) But he must remind his Noble and secure.—( Laughter.) He could not believe that the Noble
Learned Friend, that he stood alone in thinking the truth Lord on the Woolsack could be so grossly inconsistent as to
should be excluded. All those who were examined before the oppose the Bill. There was his Noble Friend (Lord
Ccanmittee on this subject, with the exception of his Noble and Brougham), who had spoken so strongly in favour of the Bill
Learned Friend were of opinion that the truth should be ad- —he could not be supposed to be indifferent to the Bill.
witted as an ingredient. His Noble and Learned Friend be- The LORD CHANCELLOR—He prefers something else
hind him, and the late Chief Baron of the Exchequer, whose to the Bill.—(Laughter.)
memory he should always regard with respect and affection, Lord CAMPBELL said he did not think his Noble and
were of opinion that the truth should be admitted. He was Learned Friend was one of those " whose god is their belly"—
afraid that his Noble and Learned Friend on the Woolsack was (Laughter)—for on any public question, he knew he was ready
opposed to the Bill ; and he admitted that the majority of the to sacrifice every sensual gratification. But even now he would
puisne judges were against it. He entertained the very divide the House, though he should stand alone, in order to
highest respect for the opinions of those venerable magistrates, see how many would remain consistent.
but he must confess, that he would much rather ask them how Their Lordships then divided ; the numbers were—
the law is, than how it ought to be.—( Hear, hear.) The con- For the third reading
stant practice of any system blinded the most Against it
acute to its defects; and there was a difficulty in throwing Majority against the Bill
aside an old system, with which persons had became thoroughly SEES OF ST. ASAPH AND BANGOR.
acquainted and adopting a new one. It was but right to The Earl of HADDINTON reported to the House the deci-
say that those same Judges had, with one exception, given it sion of the Committee appointed to inquire into precedents as
as their opinion that the Bill for allowing counsel to pri- to the doubt raised upon this Bill, whether it did not require
goners was unjust and unnecessary ; although now, he believed, the consent of her Majesty in order to be brought in and dis-
they all admitted that it was a splendid improvement of the cussed in Parliament.
.The Committee stated, as the result of
law. His Noble and Learned Friend would also recollect that the inquiries, that the Bill was one that does so require the con-
the Judges almost unanimously opposed the mitigation of the sent of the Crown.
penal code. When the Bill was brought in making forgery no The Bills on the table were forwarded a stage, and the House
longer a capital crime, the majority of the Judges foretold that adjourned.
it would be followed by a vast increase in the crime of
forgery, and by the destruction of commercial credit.
They had been equally hostile, equally unanimous,
and equally zealous against the Bill ot last year, which
had been adopted unanimously by their Lordships, and
all but unanimously by the other House of Parliament.
Now, with regard to the exclusion of the truth in cases
of libel, it should be remembered that it was only judge-made
laws. There was no Act of Parliament, there was no imme-
morial usage to be pleaded in support of the practice. All the
decisions on the subject were fluctuating and contradictory. It
was only in 1792, that it had been declared to be law. In the
reign of Charles 11., Judge Pemberton bad allowed the truth to
be given in evidence in a case of libel, cn a charge
that Sir Edmnndbury Godfrey had killed himself.
In 1702, in the case of the King v. Fuller, which was a prose-
cution for a seditious libel, Lord Holt had urged the defendant
to give evidence of the truth of the libels. "If your state-
ments are true," said Lord Ilolt, addressing the defendant,
"bring forward your witnesses, and I will hear them." The
first case in which evidence of the truth was excluded,was the
case of the King v. Franklin, tried before Chief Justice Wrenne
in 17.31. In 1777, on the trial of Horne Tookt, before Lord
31ansfield, the defendant was permitted to give evidence of the
truth of his statements. His case broke down, and so the pro-
secutors had reason to rejo.ce that the evidence had been ad-
mitted. It was not until Mr. Fox's L bed Bill was passing
through that House, that the judges gave it as their opinion
that the truth could not be admitted. Yet, en that very occa-
sion, they declared one thing to be law, which the Parliament,
in that very Bill, declared to be not law. He trusted, there-
fore, their Lordships would not hesitate to adopt this improve-
ment and complete the law of last year. There was one ex -
eeptem made by the Bill, and only one ; and that was in con-
feraii y with the maxim of the law, which declared that the
Seeereign could ein no erong. Ile therefore excluded from the
operation of the 811 all personal attacks on the Sove-
relen. With regard to the procedure to be adopted,
he pi opened that as it was in siany cases of public libel
impossible to separate matters of fact from matters of com-
ment, so as to enable a jus ification to be pleaded, as in cares of
prira:e libel; that, in these cases of public libel, the defendant
sheeld give notice to the prosecutor of his intention to prove
the truth of his assertions, and that the facts should go to the
jury, Rho, if they should be of opinion that the facts were un-
true, or that the defenclent had been influenced by had motives,
wool t tind him guilty. The judges, although they disapproved of
the principle, admitted that this was the best method of carry-
in; it out. The law hail been almost. fo gotten, in conreqtience
of the mildness of the executive administration, but the law still
remained, and might be resived at any time. He trusted their
Lordships would pass this measure, for he considered that
Englishmen ought to hold their rights by law, and not by the
forbearance ot the public prosecutor.
The LORD CHANCELLOtt opposed the measure as one
calculated to do great evil. It was sufficient to refer to the
opinion of the judges to know that the law of England excluded
evidence of the truth in these cases, and he imagined that those
learned persona had declared what the law always had been,
and not merely what it was at the time they had declared it. In
an action for damages, the defendant might plead the
truth as justification, and the judge state to the
jury the nature of the libel, the nature of the justification,
and told them if they were of opinion the justification had
been made out, they must acquit the defendant. If the prose-
cution was by indictment, by the late measure justification
could also be pleaded. In these cases the functions of the
judge and of the jury were clearly defined. The object of
wine 1ib..13 was to incite to a breach of the public peace, or
to bring the Government into contempt. It was no defence
of such conduct that the libels were true—that would possibly
only increase their evil effects. Now if the course proposed
by this Bill were to be adopted, if only one fact alleged could
be proved true, it would be competent to the jury to find the
defendant not guilty, at their caprice and discretion. Their
imaginations might be influenced by an artful address, awl if
only tone part were proved it would he competent to them to
return a verdict of acquittal. It was putting in the hands of
juries an uncontrolled power, which might lead to great abuses
in the administration of justice. Notice would be given in
every case in order to secure the opportunity of making an in-
flammatory address to the jury. Parties prosecuted for these
seditious libels generally were persons who fancied themselves
orators, and defsnded themselves, and how did they defend
themselves ? Why generally by a repetition of the calumnies.
Now the judge could interrupt him, and prevent his going
on, but would that be the case if this Bill were to become law ?
Why, a party might come into a court of justice and repeat
the charge, and the judges could not interfere in any way. fhe
parry said he should offer evidence of the truth of the charge,
and the judge was bound to sit silently and hear it. Well,.
then he offers in evidence some vague rumours; he is told
the court cannot receive it, and the jury find a verdict of ac-
quittal. Such would be the effect of his Noble Friend's Bill.
When a man was vilified, was he not to appear in a court of
justice, was not that the height of injustice, and what was the
answer to this ? Why, that the Attorney-General will con-
duct his defence. This was one of the principles of his Noble
Friend's Bill. He was sure, if their Lordships considered the
subject, notwithstanding all the praises of his Noble Friend of
his own Bill, they would feel assured that it was impossible to
pass the Bill consistently e ith a due regard to justice. Under
the provisions of the Bill the whole of the Roe al Family
might be libelled with impunity, and under it the character
and conduct of a foreign sovereign might be put in issue in the
courts of this country. such were the consequences of his
Noble Friend's Bill, that he felt called upon to propose that the
Bill should be read a third time that day three months.
Lord BROUGHAM supported the third reading of the
Bill. Ile must confess that he was not a little alarmed when
his Noble Friend rose from the Woolsack to address the House
immediately after his Noble Friend who had moved the third
reading of the Bill. But his Noble and Learned Friend on the
Woolsack had relieved him of much of his anxiety by the ar-
guments he had used, for they rather made for his Noble and
Learned Friend (Lord Campbell) than against him.—( Hear,
hear.) The appeal to the law by his Noble Friend might
have done a few years ago, but it would be of no avail now. As
the law now stood, his Noble Friend behind him ( Lord Camp-
bell, and his Noble Friend at the table (Lord Monteagle),
might join together to libel him (Lord Brougham)—they
might give as much evidence against him as they pleased, he
being out of Court. Such was the law as it now stood, but
by the law as it was now proposed, no such thing could happen,
because the Attorney-General would prosecute the patties,
and would rebut the libel by preying its falsehood. The
Noble and Learned Lord having most humorously described
the manner in which a defence was got up to a charge of libel,-
observed that it was always assumed that the truth could be
proved, while under the present law it was impossible to do it.'
He had known juries, over and ever again, prevailed upon to
give verdicts against the truth of the case. The law, as it at
present existed, exposed juries to the arts and stratagems and
declamations of counsel. The Government,. as the law now
stood, always went into Court with a stain upon it. Let their
Lordships look to the case of Sir Arthur Piggot. He charged
the Lords of the Admiralty with sending over troops in unsea-
worthy ships, and if that prosecution had been proceeded with,
if it had gone to trial, it would have been iinpossible, as the
law now stood, for them to have defeated the slanderer, and
have proved the truth of the libel, as the evidence that would
have been offered for that purpese would have been re-
jected. Ile was some time ago counsel in a case against the
clergy of Durham, he did all he could to procure a verdict. He
got the jury to take three or four hours to consider their ver-
dict ; they at last found a special verdict, rather for than
against him, and the detendant was never brought up for judg-
ment. If the law had been in the state in which it was now
proposed to place it, the case need not have occupied ten
minutes. If there was any one principle in English law which
was clear and understandable, it was that whatever tended to
keep the public opinion with the law, awl against the criminal,
was wholesome, and that whatever tended to set it against the
prosecutor, and against the law, was to be deplored. Never
had he seen any man brought up for judgment in such a case
without ptiblie sympathy .being in his favour. The object of
this Bill was not to make public libel defensilde, but only to
provide that the case should be left with the jury,
His Noble and Lear_ ed Friend said there ought to be an ex-
ception in the Bill with respect to foreign Princes. With re-
spect to the Sovereign of this country, the reason for the excep-
tion was obvious. As, according to the laws of this country,
the Sovereign was unimpeachable, it would be perfectly incon-
sistent to allow evidence to be adduced. There was not one of
the objections of his Noble and Learned Friend to the present
Bill, which would not have equally applied to the Bill of last
year.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, July 5.

The SPEAKER took the Chair at Four o'clock.
11r. FERRAND presented a petition from an individual in
Lancashire, against the New Poor-law Bill. The petitioner
attributed to this law the existence of Chartism, Rebeccaism,
and the Anti-Corn-lavr League.
Mr. EWA RT presented a petition from the wood sawyers
of Paisley, praying for protection against the use of machinery
in their trade.
Lord ASHLEY presented kpctition (we did not hear from
what plane), signed by 2,400 pefrons, against the Truck System.
After an interval of a quarter of an hour, during which no
business was done,
Lord SANDON moved that the Secret Committee of Post-
office Inquiry might have leave to sit, notwithstanding the ad-
journment of the House.—Ordered.
ACCIDENT AT BOLTON.

Mr. FERR AND, seeing the Right Hon. Baronet, the Se-
cretary of State for the Home Department in his place,
begged leave to draw his attention to a dreadful accident that
took place in the town of Bolton, on Monday last ; by the
bursting of a steam boiler in a factory one man was killed, and
three or four seriously injured. We understood the Hon.
Member to say, that some mismanagement of the machinery
was the cause of the accident, and that the man who had lost
his life had only that morning come into the employment, with
the nature of which he was unacquainted. As there were in-
spectors of railways, he wished to ask the Right Hon. Baronet
whether the Government had no power to prevent such fearful
accidents in factories ?
Sir J. GRAHAM said that the Government had no control
over factories such as that which was exercised over railways
through the inepectors.
MEDICAL REFORM.

31r. D. BARCLAY begged to ask the Right Hon. Bari).
net whether he hail abandoned his intentions respecting medical
reform, or intended to carry through his Bill this session ?
Sir J. G RAH Alll said he would lay the Bill on the table in
the course of this session. _ _

In answer to a question from Mr. BELLEW,
Sir J. GRAHAM ssid that it was his intention, during
the present session, to lay on the table of the House a Bill to
amend the law of settlement in Scotland and Ireland. He
should not, however, proceed with it this session.
Captain PECHELL gave notice that, on Tuesday week, he
should call tke attention of the House to the claims of the
luna,ic officers in Haslar Hospital.
The Committee on the Joint-stock Companies Bill was
postponed till twelve o'clock on Wednesday next.
The Committee on the Canal Companies Bill was postponed
till Monday.