The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-09

adequate protection for all such journalists /
as deserve to be protected REASONABLE
writing is in practice very easily separablo
from the strongest writing that is not trea-
sonable. It may not be 50 in countries which
are not under constitutional government
because in these to attack the system of rule
is to attack the person of the ruler
But among ourselves there is perfectly
appreciable difference between attacking this
or that law, or agitating for this or that
change, and advocating treason. The sedi-
tious press of Ireland has never attempted to
keep within any well-drawn line. It has
scorned the idea of caution and accustomed
its readers from the beginning to the very
strongest possible meats. Exhortations to
throw off the English yoke and easy lessons
in insurrectionary warfare have been its
staple teaching all along That the clause
which gives its proprietary a right of action
by way of redress for annihilation will remain
a dead letter is likely enough; but it will
remain so, not because there is any difficulty
in getting damages when the Government
has made a mistake, but because the charac-
ter of the condemned journals will be so un-
mistakable that no,effrontery will be equal to
the task of establishing their loyalty.
Another objection alleged against this part
of the bill is that it ruins the innocent
printers and lets the guilty writer's escape
But in political offenses, even more than in
any others, the primary end of punish
ment is che safety of the community.
We have never very much respect for the
thin-end-of- f-the-wedge style of argument, and
in this case it seems to be more than ordi-
narily destitute of force. If the press were
declining power in this country, with enemies
and rivals rising up around it and threatening
to supersede its influence, there might be
some excuse for such fears. But instead of
this the press is daily arrogating to itself
more and more the functions which were
formerly discharged by Parliament, by the
Church, and by the law courts. Newspapers
have become necessary of modern life, and
those who provide them have all the strength
which belongs to the exclusive possessors of
a commodity in universal demand. But if
there are any timid souls Who still look on
a free press as precarious blessing that may
be snatched from them at any mo-
ment, we commend two considera-
tions to their notice. The worst enemy
of journalism is the man who would
substitute instruction for discussion. Amid
the din of civil strife newspapers as we'll as
laws are necessarily silent. If the Govern
ment cherished a secret desire TO put bride
upon English journalism, their true policy
would be to let certain section of Irish
| journalism have its own way, and bring
about the end for which it labors.
Further, it must be remembered that the
seditious press of Ireland differs from most
of its predecessors in that or any other coun-
| try, in being a preacher of murder, not of
rebellion-of murder which cannot even be
| dignifed with the name of political
assassination. By common consent a
newspaper which attacks private charac-
| ter loses the immunities with which
it is invested so long it restricts itself to the
region of public affairs. The lives of indivi-
duals are, to say the least, not less sacred
than their characters; and even the fanatics
who maintain that the tyrannicide should go
unpunished will hardly assert the same
liberty for the preachers of agrarian massacre.
Perhaps the best argument for the press
clauses of the Peace Preservation bill is that
the journalists who will suffer under them
have already forsaken their calling to become
/ L., ,l.,,1 &c L.