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Leader (1850-1860), 22nd November 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 1111, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      THE " TIMES . " « No popular influence can permanently establish fallacy nor can any popular influence be long Mtpj-ved by any organ of opinion in which falla-P often mistaken for truths . " We are glad + see the Times printing that sentiment . It occurs ° an article with which the journal endeavours to meet the charge that it derives its opinion * " from 5 , * rorrupting influence of foreign powers , rather than from the impartial exercise of a disinterested judgment . " The writer claims a high , but not too high , position for the Press .

      « There is nothing in which the social welfare of this country is more intimately concerned than in the character and position of the press . Not only are political parties dissolved , and political traditions obliterated , but even the " liberal professions" of former days are breaking up around us , and it is impossible to conjecture who in ten years' time may be barristers or soldiers , consuls or diplomats , electors or representatives , statesmen or ministers . There

      is but one power on the increase in the country , and that is the power of public opinion . There is but one profession which will certainly be stronger in I 860 than in 1851 , and that is the profession of a journalist . Every year a larger and larger portion of the population becomes agape for that peculiar knowledge which is practically power , and every year the distributors of that knowledge must grow both in influence and esteem .

      11 Already the journals of this country discuss public measures with a talent which is borrowed ( and often but imperfectly ) for more solemn deliberations , and the duties of a Minister are considerably relieved by the luminous exposition which every question receives before it is formally submitted to legislative decision . The Government of the British empire is influenced in a most material degree by the metropolitan press . This may or may not be an advantage ; but it is certainly not meant

      for a boast , and it is most incontestably a fact . In proportion , therefore , as our powers and responsibilities increase it is of the greatest importance that our professional reputation should be maintained The administration of such authority should be above suspicion no less than reproach , and it would be an act of inconceivable folly to utter in the heats of professional rivalry such scandals as must do more harm in the general recoil than they could ever produce in the particular assault . "

      In a high strain the Times appeals to the esprit de corps among journalists , warning them not to indulge in reciprocal calumnies which can but lower their own profession . And , returning good for evil , it denies for the whole craft the accusation made against itself . ' " Transactions like those insinuated , " it says , " have no place whatever in the dealings of the metropolitan press . " It adds , " We make no distinction in this respect between high and low , great or small , Conservative or Liberal . " This is a style of bearing worthy of a leading journal .

      We would however remark , that elevated and , we believe , true as this defence may be , it does not specifically meet the charge which public opinion raises against the Times . The idea generally entertained is not expressed by the insinuation that these opinions " are actually shaped by the bribes of foreign purchasers , " and we agree that that insinuation " is as preposterous as to attribute to a like agency the decisions of a Minister of the Crown . " But there are influences different from direct purchase , yet not less efficacious—influences which Mr . Coppock and the managers of the Treasury or other public departments—influences which Mr . Edwards and Mr . Blagg might explain . We do not mean to insinuate tbat these are the

      influences under which the Times is actuated , wo onl y mention them to show that you may obtain service without that distinct pacing of the quid pro quo which is generally understood by the word " purchase . " And the public observes with especial jealousy , not the insinuations , but the open assertions , the unrefuted assertions , that persons connecte d with the Times , acting ae its accredited reporter * , have been the appointed servants of Foreign governments , rejecting whose proceedings the Times profenHed to give impartial reports .

      " Amongst tho Austrian correspondents , from whom itH chief information was and is derived , must 1 >« > mint >« red a certain PazziaerJ , clerk in the oflioe of the Htscro ' t Austrian police ; a certain JFelsenthal connecte d with the Detective Criminal Police of Vienna ; and a Hungarian Jew , named Lauterbach , who graduated in the oflioe ot Dr . Buck , tho actual Minister , the violen t demagogue of 1848 , who aold hia party to 'x . 'como tho thorough-going tool of the Imperial Cubinet .

      " One of theuo pcruoriB began in tho Times a series ol letters on Hungary , of which the publication ceased «« noon ns the authoruhip vrw discovered ; another ,

      if the writer remembers rightly , was subsequently attached to the Austrian legation . "— Koaruth and the Times , by the Author of Revelations of Russia . The public couples these statements that the correspondents of the Times aTe the servants of Metternich and the protege ' s of Haynau , with the fact , that a gentleman recently attached to the Neapolitan Legation at Florence , and subsequently at Paris , is the son of that correspondent whose reports from Italy have been so manifestly warped in favour of " the best of Kings . " The work of Mr .

      Pridham , disclosing the alterations made in his communications , is another direct charge which the Leading Journal has not met . Supposing the journal itself were elevated above the slightest suspicion of being prejudiced or corrupt , the open and unrefuted statements respecting the channels through which its information is derived , information , we presume , upon which its own opinions are shaped , cannot fail to throw the greatest discredit on the nature both of its judgment and of its narration of facts .

      But this by no means exhausts the accusation brought against the Leading Journal . The body of the charge is this , and we say in all sincerity that we state it , not as an incrimination which we believe , for we have not met the slightest proof of its truth , but as a very general rumour which invites denial . A member , it is said , of that cosmopolitan house which deals most largely in financial operations , has recently acquired either a proprietary influence , or one not less powerful , over

      the Leading Journal ; the same financier having a very large stake in Austrian Stock . Much doubt is thrown upon this story by the existence of another more generally credited rumour , that the same gentleman has a proprietary interest in a rival newspaper . But by many the story is accepted as a probable solution of the perplexing question , why the Times should give a description of Kossuth ' s welcome in this country so totally at variance from the event as it is passing before the eyes of the whole public ?

      Let us say again , that we believe this rumour as little as any of the others . And since we have penned these words of disbelief , has appeared that remarkable denunciation of Austrian finance , which will do much to retrieve the Times in the opinion of the public . The Times , however , is a mystery as impenetrable as Dernogorgon , and for the solution of the enigma we are driven to conjecture . Our conjecture , then , is this . The persons most eminent in the property and management of the Leading Journal are high-minded men , animated by no small motives , influenced by none of the

      ordinary and more paltry temptations . They are conscious , unduly conscious we believe , of the gigantic success which has hitherto attended the career of their journal , and are themselves animated by a political view shared by no great number of people in the world of politics . From the past experience of the degree in which their journal has been able to shape what was , by an hyperbole , called " public opinion " during the stagnant , neutral , and passive condition of politics , they have conceived an undue estimate as to the power which it might exercise in times of more active and positive politics . They even went

      so far as to suppose that they could bend facts to accord with their description , could force Kossuth into waiving or losing the influence which he posses 8 e 8 by his character and position , could oblige the English people to submit to a moral curfew , and remain at home , withholding a welcome from the Hungarian in order to make good the asseverations of Printing-house-square . That the journal was perfectly independent in that course we are inclined to believe . That it was proportionately just we totally deny . That it preferred the triumph of its own preconceived ideas to the simple truth of fact and event was manifest to the whole world . In

      the effort to twist events themselves into a course a * if England had originally thought according to tho wishes of tho Times , the journal was guilty of sacrificing truth to motives which approximate very closely to personal arrogance . The result has proved how impotent even the resources of Printinghouse-square are to Htem tho tide of facts , or of genuine public opinion . In courting a failure ho discreditable to its own more than European reputation , the Times dealt a greater blow at journalism than the calumnies which it invited b y throwing itself open to them . We agree that the discrediting of the Leading Journal of England is a discredit to journalism at largo ; and we invite our vast contemporary to reconsider his position , in order that ho may make it once more accord with the actual

      state of England , with the course of events , with obvious facts , and with popular truth . -Certain articles , notably those of Tuesday and Wednesday look like signs of reformation : we hope that turn sequel will prove them to be so .

      Untitled Article

      OUR MOSTLY COMMERCIAL SYSTEM . " What an absurd set of old-fashioned people those Germans must he ! " exclaims a political economist of the High and Dry School . " Here } has the Town Council of Dresden actually passed a resolution that no new licence shall be granted to any bookseller in that city , so long as the population remains without increase . " Unquestionably the Dresden resolution is an outrageous offence against all our English notions of carrying on busU ness . But is it TeaJly any worse than our helterskelter , devil-tak « the-hindmost , buccaneering system ? The Population Returns show that in almost every branch of retail trade there are five or six times too many persons trying to obtain a living , and , as a necessary resnlt , we all know that four fifths of them are continually on the road to ruin , trying every desperate stratagem to postpone the inevitable crisis . Lose or win , however , the community is forced to maintain them all in some shape or other . One form of the tax is in the shape of an increased per centage on the greater part of goods sold by retail , another in the losses sustained by fraudulent trading . The latter item alone has been estimated by the Bankruptcy Committee , appointed hy the

      merchants and traders of the city of London , a few years ago , at no less than £ 50 , 000 , 000 a year " This sura , " they add , " is mainly lost , spent , or squandered , by the careless , improvident , and reckless tradesman , and is all repaid to the merchants and manufacturers , who first bear the loss , by the consumer /* in other words the community at large , whose annual tax on account of fraudulent trading is nearly equal to the whole taxation of the United Kingdom .

      Untitled Article

      THE REPUBLICAN MINORITY IN THE FRENCH ASSEMBLY . In the exasperations of the Majority and the Executive , the Republican Minority in the Assembly have all to gain and nothing to lose . Their position is simply one of strict neutrality and patient vigilance . It is neither their fault nor their misfortune if the liberticide Reaction and the hitherto complaisant President fall out , even to the verge of reciprocal extinction . The Minority—representing the masses disfranchised by a law of retaliation ; the Constitution violated in spirit and perverted in the letter ; the fruits of the Revolution , nay , of three Revolutions , arrested in their growth ; and the inalienable inheritance of a thrice-won

      struggle effaced by the man of the People ' s trustful choice , representing the sole rerraining principle of government , by right and fact , supreme in France ; the sole principle of union ; the sole name ( never breathed by official lips , nor pronounced in official documents , nor recognized in princely antechambers , but ) finding an echo in the great popular heartand will ; representing the honourof Franceoutraged by fratricidal expeditions and by undisguised subserviencies ; representing , in a word , not ' 48

      only , but ' 52 : the Republican Minority , we say , waxes stronger as the factions wane into insignificance and contempt . Calm and confident ; resolved in discipline as in hope and purpose ; closing its ranks , rejecting treacherous offers , unfieduced by pretended concessions and impossible alliances , it is at this moment as this winter of' 51 darkens in ( even as the night that precedes a glorious dawn ) , the arbiter of the " situation , " with whose dispositions all parties must finally reckon , and to whose decisions all must in the last

      resort appeal . For three years , ho long as M . L . N . Bonaparte and the Majority were one in the touching unanimity of reaction , no insult tbat the tyranny of the strongest could invent was spared to the Minority ; even their voice from the National Tribune was drowned by clamours , and the President of the Assembly himself has often flippantly

      encouraged the violence of the Right like a lured jester in a Triumph , when he whould have been the dignified preserver of impartial order in Debate and the protector of tbe weaker | iarty . Eloquence and mautery , it is true , have not been wanting to unmank and denounce the Counter-revolution , but tho career of the Reaction liaa never paused . The Republic has been permitted to drag on a nouiinafexistence , whilst each faction wua preparintr

      Untitled Article

      Kov . 22 , 1851 . ] &f ) $ ZLtaHtT . 1111

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1851, page 1111, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1910/page/11/