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tfov. 22, 1851.] «tJ* 3L*afr*t< 1111
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THE "TIMES." t( jjo popular influence ca...
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OUB COSTLY COMMERCIAL SYSTEM. " What an ...
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THE REPUBLICAN MINORITY IN THE FRENCH AS...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Tfov. 22, 1851.] «Tj* 3l*Afr*T< 1111
tfov . 22 , 1851 . ] « tJ * 3 L * afr * t < 1111
The "Times." T( Jjo Popular Influence Ca...
THE " TIMES . " t ( jjo popular influence can permanently establish a fallacy , nor can any popular influence be long ^ reserved by any organ of opinion m which fallacies are often mistaken for truths . " We are glad to see the Times printing that sentiment . It occurs in an article with which the journal endeavours to meet the charge that it derives its opinions " from the corrupting influence of foreign powers , rather than from the impartial exercise of a disinterested Judgment . " The writer claims a high , but not too W > , 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 conjepture 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 1860 than in L 851 , an < £ . 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 .
«« 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 . " Tliis 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
enu the writer remembers nghtly , was subsequently attached to the Austrian legation . "—KottutH and the Times , by the Author of Revelations of Russia , The public couples these statements that the correspondents of the Times are 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 fco 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 ^ hich 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 ike 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 largel y 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 eyea of the whole public r
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 Demogorgon , 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 email motives , influenced by none of the
ordinary and more paltry temptations . I hey 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 . Ffom 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 polities , they have conceived au 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 possesses 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
as if England had originally thought according to the wishes of the Times , the journal was guilty of sacrificing truth to motives which approximate voi ' y closely to personal arrogance . Ihe result has proved how impotent even the resources of Printingnouse-square are to stem the tide of facts , or of genuine public opinion . In courting a failuro bo discreditable to its own more than European reputation , the Times dealt a greater blow at journalism than tho calumnies which it invited by throwing itself open to them . We agree that the discrediting of the Leading Journal of England ia a discredit to Journalism at large ; and we invite our vast contemporary to reconsider his position , in order that he may make it one © more accord with tho 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 the sequel will prove them to be so .
of lott " o ? , i ! P ° rflon 8 began In the fStnea a nuri < 5 08 soon , "I " « ary . of which the publication ceased «» the authorship was ditoovwred ; another ,
Oub Costly Commercial System. " What An ...
OUB COSTLY COMMERCIAL SYSTEM . " What an absurd set of old-fashioned people those Germans must be ! ' * 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 ttiat city , so long as the population remains without increase . " Unquestionably the Dresden resolution is an outrageous offence against all out ; English notions of carrying on business . But is it really any worse than eur helterskelter , tb * Vil-take-the-hindmost , buccaneering system ? The Population Returns show that in almost every branch of retail' trade there are five o * six times too many persons trying to obtain a living , and , as a necessary result , 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 ie 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 by the
merchants and traders of the city of London , a few years ago , at no less than £ 50 , 000 , 000 a year ! "This sum , " 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 .
The Republican Minority In The French As...
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 remaining 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 heart and will ; representingthe honour of France outraged 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 , unseduced by pretended concessions and impossible alliances , it is at this moment as this winter of T > 1 darkens in ( even as the night that precedes a glorious dawn ) , tho 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 , so long as M . L . N . Bonaparte and the Majority were one in the touching unanimity of ' reaction , no innult that thv tyranny of the strongest could invonfc was spared to tho Minority ; even their voice from the Nutional Tribune was drowned by clamours , and tho President of the Assembly himself has often flippantly like hired
encouraged the violence of the Right a jester in a Triumph , when he should have been the dignified preserver of impartial order in Debate and the protector of the weaker party . Eloquence and mastery , it is true , have not been wanting to unmask and denounce the Counter-revolution , but the career of the Reaction ban never paused . Tho Republic hoe been permitted to drag on a nominal existence , whilst each faction was preparing
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1851, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22111851/page/11/
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