MINISTERIAL JOURNALISM.

An article in the Courier solicits, or rather " challenges," our atten- tion. In case we should fail of doing it justice in other respects, we shall at least let it tell its own story, without a syllable of suppression or variation ; a species of justice which no Ministeritil journal in London ever concedes in controversy with the Spectator.

"We cannot let the Spectator's further allusion to the dispute between Sir Henry Parnell and some of his constituents pass without a word of notice. The Downing Street scribes,' it find it extremely inconvenient to state both sides and the main facts in a controversy.' If by Downing Street scribes our contemporary intends any refetence to the Courier, we must tell him that such ........'"..."'d vulgar suers are jut as applicable to the Spectator as to this lip:,„/".eni,er lifla the subjects uf the Irish Executive, Municipal Reform, Church- riteem7k.c. he is himselfa Downing Street tier ibe — reluetantly and grudgingly, no doubt, but still a scribe (to use his own contemptuous term d) who feels oblige to approve to some extent measures emanating from Downing Street. He Was Downing Street scribe at the Reform Bill era, and on many occasion's since • ... and if theie he any reproach in the.term, he has had his share of lit. The ill. /trace between us at present is this: we are of opinion that the men who ost ithgrared Downing Street ought to be kept out of it—and our D colavteu nipl orarv thinks exactly the reverse ; Are are for supporting, in the absence of the best 3Iinistry, the best we can get—and he is inclined, became he can- sot get the hest, to welcome the worst. There is another point of difference : we never think a bit the better of a measure because it in begotten and brought fob to Downing Street—while our conte:nporary scents disposed to think a great deal the worse of it on that account. We have further to temind our ntemporary, that as often as we see occasion to dissent from the Ministerial ;Hey, we expreos that dissent in language quite an direct and unequivocal as say that be can employ. We trust that it is not leas expressive of a sincere and honest impression, because it is free from bluster and violates no rule of courtesy. The Spectator may state it difference with Ministers in a louder key; but mere loudness is not emphasis, and our own reproaches hisve been at least as emphatic when the waywardness of the Ministerial course has provoked id justified them. On this very question of the Ballot, the Courier has, during the present session, spoken with quite as much freedom, and with ao little disposition to sacrifice a principle for the support of a party, as the Spec- tator has ever exhibited. It is time for our shrewd but stubborn contemporary to glee up the vain notion, that nobody can be independent who differs from him in opinion. "As to the charge itself, that we find it inconvenient to state both sides and the main facts, we must express a wish that the Spectator would find it cones:- inert to be a little less ungracious and unjust. We have stated the main facts, and on both amiss; and challenge our contemporary to show what material circumstance we have omitted. Although he reenters upon the controversy with such minuteness, and excess of paragraph-splitting, he can make no more d it than he had previously made. Ile can only show that Sir Henry Parnell 'aimed at convincing the electors that the Ballot would be made an open ques- tion, and that his name would again appear in the division-lists.' Assuredly— be endeavoured to make them think as he thought himself, and to hope as he aged. (We put this word in Italics, because our contemporary does not, in a place where it requires the emphaaie. Quoting Sir Henry, the Spectator prints thus—' Reasons were given him for refusal to make it an open question which he hoped could no longer be urged.' As the Spectator is so very exact, Ind no exclusively fair, he might have Italicized this important word hoped. Sir Henry has been disappointed as well as his constituents.)

"We were among the first to pay a cordial tribute to the inestimable ex- ample set by Mn. It. Steuart and Sir H. Vivian upon this occasion; but our grateful sense of their merits does nut lead us into a misrepresentation of the conduct of Sir Henry Parnell. We have no praise for him as a friend to the Ballot, but neither have we any censure for him as a promise breaker. We like the Ballot much, but we like Justice better.

'It is most likely that the Member for Dundee does prefer the enjoyment of his share of 'place and patronage' to a needless surrender of it to a Tory—or erre to one of his own party. But if this be a failing or a vice, it is one so common as to render the weekly ' 0, fie! ' of the Spectator a superfluous ex- clamation. Granting his conduct to he, in this respect, infamous and alma. doced, it is so in co llllll on with that of every sane man in the country ! So thinks that noble and learned judge of human dealings and statesmanlike cha- racter who extorts from the Spectator the enthusiastic compliment of' Bravo, Brougham !' The article in the Edinburgh contains this passage-

' There surely must be emu:thing peculiarly horrible to statesmen in the bare pos- sibility of political death—else m by this pleasing hope, this fond desire. this longing Aker longevity—or why this dread of dissolution that makes the soul shrink back upon itself? Slot is one material particular the two knish; of life and death widely differ. The official's Ileathbed is not cheered by any hopes of immortality. The world to which he now looks forward is another, but nut a better world. Ile know s frill sure that, from the pleasing state of being to w hich he has been so tong, iists1 and so fondly ding,, he must instantly, on the great change taking place, be phi oat. I into the dreary sight of a placeless existence: be cast away with other mournful glued s on the ten • pestheaten coast of Opposition ; there to wander uncertain of tner again being sum- moned front that iuliospitable shore, or visiting the cheerful glimpses of the courtly any. Hence it is, that while men of ordinary pow ers ure daily seen to meet dealt: in the breach for honour or patriotism, hardly any cao be found, even among the foremost men of any age, shone nerves are Arm enough to look in the face the termination of official existence; and none lad mse bereft of his senses ever makes himself a voluntary sacrifice for ha principtes or Ms country.' " The sentiment here is of the mime dignified family as that which Lord Brougham expressed when vindicating his claim to the salary attached to the Chancellorship: 'I should have been a fool to have made a sacrifice.' As the Spectator and Lord Brougham agree so well just now' our contemporary ought not to be angry with Sir Henry Parnell fur not being bereft of Ins eases."--- Courier, Wednesday, 11th April. The writer of this temperate, modest, and just effusion, might have teen that, by juxtaposition at least, our remark on " Downing Street lei-Nies" applied more directly to the Morning Chronicle—a journal to which we are under old obligations of the same kind, and which in this case had carried its independent impartiality a degree beyond the Courier's. However, we certainly could have no motive for depriving the latter journal of its fair share of the intended compliment ; and, for the purpose of the present explanation, we are willing to restrict it to the latter only. What we mean by "Downing Street scribe" or "Downing Street journalist," is—one who takes his cue from that region ; one who has "the run of the offices ;" who uses his high privilege in periodical visits to the functionaries appointed to "communicate with the press ;" and who, as the result of the good understanding thus cultivated, is ex- pected to address the public in strains rather agreeable to the powers in Downing Street and places circumjacent. If this definition ex- cludes the Courier, then is that journal no "Downing Street scribe," in our sense of the phrase ; and we, in common with a considerable Portion of the reading public, have mistaken one of its characteristics. In that sense, assuredly—and we have never used the phrase, or seen it used, in any other—it would not have been possible to say, truly, that the Spectator was a " Downi»g Street scribe," either before, or firing the Reform rem or since Reform became (us we now most conscientiously deem it to be in official parlance) a mere party word. To be still more explicit—at no time, from its first number to the last, Ills any man in office influenced, or possessed the means of influencing, to much as one line of the Spectator. We apprehend this could not, Without outraging truth, be predicated of the Ministerial papers, which, by a figure of speech that the Courier thinks "vulgar," have been termed "Downing Street scribes." The Courier may proclaim for himself—and truly, perhaps—an "opinion that the men who have most disgraced //owning Street

ought to he kept out of it," &c. ; but he may not answer for us—and

falsely—that we think " exactly the reverse," &c. It would be too to retaliate, (nor without warrant from well remembered indica- tions irt the beginning of Sir Robert Peel's Premiership,) " The Courier will welcome any Ministry that happens to be in Downing Street—with a prospect of remaining there." But let him stick to his own confession of faith : we will answer for ours, on pertinent occa- sions, in our me n way.

Leaving, then, the public to think as it pleases of the two journals, their independence, courtesy, gentility, and so forth—waiving also the minor criticism on " Italicising " and paragraph-splitting "—we accept the Courier's challenge, and come to issue with him on the charge that Ile has suppressed material facts, and presented a one-sided view.

The Spectator had drawn up for its readers an epitome of certain transactions in Dundee, of which the materials were gleaned from the difTerent journals of that town ; and, according to its custom, was con- necting the analysis of passing events with the past and the future, for the purpose of political improvement. The Courier was in nowise implicated : it had taken no trouble, incurred no responsibility. It did choose, however, to present itself in the midst of the discussion, to an effect contradictory of our statements—falsely so, and on a false pretence. One of our topics, " improving the subject" of the doings at Dundee, was addressed to the Liberal constituencies throughout the kingdom, exhorting them to be on the look-out for fit candidates, if they wished to escape the dilemma in which the Dundee Reformers found themselves, as explained in a letter from Sir Henry Parnell's seconder, referred to in the topic, when their choice lay " between a Tory and a trammelled Representative." This was the scope of the article en- titled " Hints to Constituencies : " it contained no attack on Sir Henry Parnell—not so much as a single remark on his conduct. This article, and it only, the Courier copied : and three days afterwards, inserted the falsified or counter-statement alluded to, commencing thus- " Flaring inserted in Monday's Courier an article from the Spectator, in which some renrarks were made on Sir Henry Parnell's conduct in reference to the Ballot, we hasten, in justice to that gentleman, to insert the following paragraph, in reference to the same subject," Sac.

Here, at the very commencement, we have an untruth. The Courier had inserted no such article as it described. It inserted what was meant for a contradiction of a previous article of ours, but did not insert the charge.

"It (the article from the Dundee paper) completely exonerates Sir Henry Parnell."

Now the reader, who only saw the Courier, might believe this, for he would be ignorant of the case against Sir Henry Parnell ; but it is not true that the Dundee paper exonerated Sir Henry from the charge brought against him by the Spectator,—which was, not that he had broken a pledge given at the last election, but that he bad slipped away from former pledges, substituting in their stead an expectation, which Inc did not fulfil, with respect te his support of Liberal measures. From this charge nothing can possibly exonerate Sir Henry Parnell, for it is strictly true.' The Courier challenges us "to show what material circumstance" he has "omitted." He has omitted the fact, that, at a numerously. attended public meeting in Dundee, summoned to consiler Sir Henry Parnell's conduct, "particularly with reference to the Ballot," a reso- lution, calling upon Sir Henry to resign his seat, was carried by a large majority. This is the most material circumstance in the whole state- ment; and this the Courier omitted, though we had quoted the ipsis- sima verba of the resolution. That such a resolution was passed, is to this hour a fact suppressed by the Courier, so far as we have observed. But instead of it, we see these words, quoted from the Parnell Dundee paper- " But the understanding which existed betwixt Sir Henry Parnell and his supporters is shown also from the fact that no requisition to resign his seat has, since the division on Mr. Grunt's motion, been attempted, or, if it has been attempted, it has met with too little support to encourage going on with it. The Spectator is under mistake in stating that the requisition signed by the eighty.eight electors went the length of asking Sir Henry Parnell to resign."

When we volunteer a general criticism on the Courier, we shall en- deavour to be more discriminating than it has proved on this occasion. Opinions formed with proper care, we are not apt to abandon lightly; but we expect no credit for uny opinion beyond the evitienee we may

be able to offer in its behalf. Surely we may reciprocate conditions, and refuse to accept of unsupported assertions for proved truths, even should the discrepancy be smoothed down to a gloss of only "differing in opinion." It is curious to track the arts by which habitual partisans distort truth, and even trivial allusions. When Lord Brougham, in office, preached Conservative politics, we often attacked Lim, on specific grounds; when Lord Brougham, out of office, proclaims Liberal poi!.

tics, we sometimes praise him, on specific grounds. See how invidi- ously the Courier deals with the fact ! The " Bravo, Brougham," for example, had is very special application : it followed that rousing epistle of the 31st of March, in which the orator rallied the Emanci- pationists, after their " defeat of an hour :" and the collocation of the

passage was this-

- BMW, Br011gi13111 I let small Whig statesmen and their scribes censure your mo- th es, or sneer at them : you at least show the nation of what sort of a popular leader should be made—by what energies of Weikel and will a great Lau., is tu be car- The ambidexter quotation from Brougham's Edinburgh Review article, is possibly not a defence of the place-loving Purnell, but an ironical sneer at him : if so, the Courier might have heightened the effect and stretched the favour to include others of its party friends, merely by adding the next sentence of the paragraph, which it omitted—. " The ministers of 1920 numbered nut among them any one so void of political tea son, as to follow Mr. Canning's noble example ; nod ail were rewleed to forego the die- Marge of every duty, and incur, both then and tree after, the loudest reproaches, rather than pat to hazard the existence of the Administration."

• The "complete exoneration," which the Courier set iii motion, completed its round in the Examiner.