The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-03-21 00:00:00

THE PR.

PEERS.

Fon many years past the growing usefulness and
general integrity manifested by the conductors of the
Newspaper Press in this country have won for the order
to which they belong a high place in public estimation-

In proof of this, it is hardly necessary to do more than
point to the sensitiveness with which men of every station
regard the dicta of the press. Their right to such con-
sideration has been achieved by the dignity, the for-

bearance, and the rectitude by which their judgments and
general conduct have been characterised; and it cannot
be necessary to do more than allude to the vigilance

industry, sagacity, and intelligence by which they have
formed those judgments and regulated that conduct—and
which they have also brought to bear on all topics involv-
ing public or private morals, regulating the different
social relations, or tending to a due administration of the-
affairs of this great empire. Individual exceptions to this.
general rule may, no doubt, be pointed out, and differences-
of opinion, as to the mode of carrying out particular
objects, exist to a considerable extent ; but in relation to
all the objects above alluded to, the Public Press of Great

Britain has established for itself a character in which

power is tempered by mercy a persuasive influences
guided by calm judgment—a repressive energy or
stimulative strength, swayed only by inflexible justice, and
an integrity proof against corruption. These attributes
are freely accorded to it by men of large decernment ; and
in numerous public instances it has been the pride of men

not less remarkable for the extent and variety•of their
accomplishments, than distinguished by their talents,
eminent from their social position, and elevated by their

virtues, to acknowledge the deserved moral sway exercised
by the British Press. Front time to time, however, there

have been manifested towards it the impatient antipathies
~
of a petulant and narrow-minded jealousy. Men moving
in an elevated sphere, upon whose sum of natural abilities
no small additional lustre has been conferred by the lens
through which the press has directed the public eye to
look upon their deeds, do not scruple, sooften as an oppor-
tunity is offered, to treat with saucy hauteur and simu-
lated contempt that organ, without whose aid their public
existence would be a blank—their best exertions compara-
tively worthless. Foremost of these assailants stands the
valorous Earl of DERBY, who never allows an opportunity
to slip in which he can display his personal dislike at the
indisputable importance of this new power in the state ; .
and in openly manifesting his ingratitude to that power
from which he and they have derived deep and lasting
obligations, his lordship is cordially joined by many who
oppose him on every other ground, and whose antipathy
:o him personally is probably only exceeded by that which
hey bear in common towards an engine morally and intel-
lectually greater than them both. It was but the other day
that, in his place in Parliament, his lordship acknowledged
the obligations he owed to the Conservative press of
Britain, by contumeliously repudiating dependence on,
connexion with, or influence over; any portion whatever
of its organization ; and his lordship's disclaimer was
characteristically, and with equal truth and- good taste,
adopted by one Whig lord, repeated by a second, and re-
echoed by another, and yet another, as to the self-sustain-
ing vigour of Liberal and coalition cabinets. - Again, last
week, we find the ex-Premier endeavouring to fix upon
the press the odious imputation of surreptitiously obtain-
ing the possession of state secrets, through the subornation
of official underlings. It is true, indeed, he made a show
of fixing connivance on the present Ministry, and rode his
tilt against the Times. That the Times has fully and
ably vindicated itself from the discreditable imputation, is
no more than was to be expected from the talent it always
displays, and from the jealous care with which it inva-
riably guards its own reputation and maintains the
dignity of its order ; small thanks only are due to the
Earl of DERBY for that achievement ; but, in the-blind- ._
ness of his hostility to the press, his lordship has, for-
tunately, furnished the antidote to his own ungracious
attack. His averment was, that, through the employment
of some improper and reprehensible agency, the _Times
had acquired the information contained in-some important
documents connected with the present 'Russian dispute,
and his insinuation was, that the press could only have
obtained such information by having recourse to discre-
ditable means ; while, singularly enough, he admitted
that he himself was likewise in possession of similar in—
formtition relative to the same documents. He thus de
facto argued that what could only be obtained by a
journalist through agencies the basest and most nefarious,
might be acquired by a Peer of Parliament in a manner
at once not only innocent but praiseworthy ! His lord-
ship knows full well the amount of honour belonging. to
a peer, but hazards somewhat recklessly. his opinions as-.
to the peccability of the press in• the face of a discrediting
world. What, save unreasoning antipathy, could have
led to an assumption so monstrous and so insulting ?
His lordship feels that the press, with its multiform heads
and numberless eyes, is rapidly passing that point at
which he and his order can say to it with effect, "hitherto
shalt thou come, and no further." Hence his dislike to
it, and hence, also, his hasty and frequent invectives to
its discredit.
Whoever casts his eye over the pages of our constitu—
tional history, will speedily perceive that the career of
British glory has led directly, though by leisurely steps
to the development of first one new power and then
another in the state. From the chaos of feudal anarcbyr
the principles of monarchy was first evolved to check the
agression of lawless might upon the feebler domain of
right. The progress of events, and the development of
constitutional liberty, next called into existence the banded
influence of the commons, as a third power in the state; •
and gradually the requirements of those three estates have
given rise to the growth and recognition -of a, fourth,
whose power is as extensive and commanding as its in-
fluence is wholesome and abiding. That fourth estate, it
is needless to aver, is the PRESS. It has risen as the
natural result of our free and self-adjusting institutions.
Its growth has no doubt been slow—its recognition tardy -
-but not on these accounts is it now the less truly an.
estate, or the less powerful. The vocation of the press is
a high, if not, indeed, a sacred one—its mission in matters
secular, is second onlyto those of thelawgiver and the judge.
To oppose and baffle oppression—to protect the weak—to
unmask:
hypocricy—to display truth in its native beauty,
—to uphold virtue—to disseminate knowledge, render-
ing the people wise as well as happy, tolerant and just as
well as free. Such are a few, and only a few, of the objects
in the pursuit of which the press can render itself respect-
able and powerful, and in the steady cultivation of which
it has arrived at its present eminence and growing
consideration. Its influence is derived from the high tone
of its morals and its honour—the catholicity-of its sym-
pathies. Truth and justice are its weapons--fearless
honesty, unobtrusive self-respect, and uncompromising
independence constitute its citadel. By a fair and as-
siduous use of those advantages, it has won the position it
now occupies, and from that position it cannot be driven,
except by treason to itself. Strong in the possession of
such defences, and powerful in the use of such weapons,
the press may laugh at the puny attempts of Lord DEBBY
and his unnatural allies to drive it back to that quiescent
attitude which it quitted in driving off the exploded
fiction, that reporting Parliamentary proceedings was a
breach of privilege, and any deviation from constrained
silence on political measures was a crime against the
state. In their denunciations of its influence, the Earl of
DERBY and his strange associates have borne strong, though •
indirect as well as unintentional testimony to the purity
of motive which actuates the press. His lordship testified
in words, as he bad often before made apparent by deeds,
01 e support afforded to his government by the Con-
-press was disinterested and unbought. Can he
say much and as truly for any other class of his sup-
porters P The press, on his own showing, owes nothing to
his lordship. It has attained its present vigorous youth
without aid from him—that promising adolescence in
ridding it of factitious trammels, confers on it full scope
for the exercise of its intellectual power, and secures its
moral sway. The time may not be so far distant as he
thinks, when Lord DERBY, and those who join with
him in its condemnation, may again stand in need of that
aid which the press alone can render. If such a time
should come, his lordship may find, to his own dismay,
that his perfect freedom of action will not be encumbered
by any embarrassing assistance rendered by a vittlPerateci
and repudiated press.

A DREADFUL TRAGEDY was perpetrated on Saturday
at Birmingham. Samuel Speak shot his mother dead
with a pistol, loaded with slugs, and. shortly afterwards
put an end to his own life by the same means.
ST. JOHN'S CHORAL SOCIETY; BIRKENILEAD.—QH
Friday the members of this society, under the direction
of Mr. Edward Gunton, gavf a selection of sacred and
u ence
secular music to a large and highly respectable di
who testified their approval of the performance by frequen;,
plaudits. At the conclusion contributions were received
in aid of the St. John's National School fund..
A HORRIBLE MURDER was committed on Saturday, .
withterail blood, eaten. fiat, and her.
wereith hsaerturaheatd:
near St. Luko's Church,:oenpdeornso,
police in the
mason,
rwhofostehNevteoisveas found bnyamthede-
n: yr°
af
till:deceased and:
they fiecupiedr
throat cut and haggled.
tiyhienbged°ncloathbedes w
were scattered about the apart ood, and her brains
'
hatchet, with which the frightful ment, while a carpenter's
was lying near the person
of deed was committed,
the unfortunate woman.