JOURNALISM AND ADMINISTRATION.
AN English journal and a Sardinian statesman have marked out new guarantees for the independence and power of the press. The 2ymes has made an opportune protest against an intimation given by the Commissioners of inquiry into the Weedon affair, that the 00 ents of the press must be suspended until the close of the investigation. Our contemporaries generally submitted to this rule, which was indeed considered to be the true morality in that ease made and provided. But the Times declined to acquiesce, struck in with its comments, and explained the reasons for its refu- sal of the law laid down by the Commissioners. The press does not attend inquiries of this kind for pleasure or amusement, it attends nn behalf of the public ; it is the great instrument for completing our boasted publicity. If the commission holds its sittings pub- licly, if the public be admitted, very few of the said public can attend in person; but by the press the whole country "assists" at the investigation. For a long time this species of "assistance" was regarded by the authorities with jealousy, if not with appre- hension; and it has been by slow degrees that the alarm has been quieted, the fear of the press converted into a wish for its aid. Everybody knows that the law which rendered the report- ing of Parliamentary proceedings a "breach of privilege" and a misdemeanour, continued long after provision was made for re- porters in both Houses, long after Cabinet Ministers of all parties 6,d expressly and avowedly invited the aid, support, and active participation of the journals. The laws have been improved; the reporting of proceedings in courts of justice has been expressly sanctioned ; and sanction has been ex- tended to the reports of proceedings in other public bodies. Thus by slow degrees the statute law of the land is brought up to conformity with usage, with the wishes of the pub- lic, and with the recognized interests of the country ; but the press itself has been before the law-reformers in establishing its own position and in vindicating the public rights by its own ac- tion. The journalist, however, although permitted to attend, was told that he must not comment, and the Weedou Commission- ers only repeated the customary warning which is regarded as so decorous. We have no reason to assume that they had any original, spontaneous, or peculiar anxiety for preventing the com- ments of the press. The fact is, however, that they could not en- force any such prevention, and would get no good by it if they did. They cannot restrain the editors if those editors choose to comment. The commissioners could only prevent observations by excluding the journal, which would be excludinethe public; and if the at- tempt were made, we all know how the contest would end. The Times has anticipated the result of that warfare ; and in doing so it has only taken a straightforward step in completing the utility of journalism. The people of this country have de- termined that public affairs shall be conducted under the light of publicity. The reserved cases are exceptions, and the number of exceptions is daily diminishing. Publicity, however, presumes the absence of restraint upon observation, for the veritable public cannot be withhel4 from noting, comparing, and talking, even in the progress of a case ; nor is it desirable that they should. Having to conduct our business upon the strength of the facts, it is most desirable that there should be perfect free-trade in facts ; and, that is all that: the new liberty taken to itself by the Times amounts to. The public demands that the journals shall give them reports, and along with the reports something like an in- telligible explanation ; for the public cannot attend to everything at once, and along with the raw material for consideration it wishes some elucidatory help to that process. The journalist supplies it; his raw materials are the facts, and facts he must have. If they are not supplied to him he must make them, by in- ference or analogy. The most wholesome food for public opinion must always consist in simply the facts as they are ; hence it is better to put no restraint upon anything which can tend to draw forth the facts as well as explain them. Now comment is one mode of extracting evidence. Witnesses do not always know, or remember, all the facts ; the lawyers en- gaged on the two sides have not always a perfect inventory of the facts in their briefs or instructions; the Judge and Jury are at the mercy of what is brought to them ; but the press commenta- tor, whose comments are made in an unobtrusive mode without the disturbance even of the voice, stimulates comparison and in- quiry. In the Boyne Hill case there is no doubt that comment pendente lite contributed to a much fuller exposition of all the facts, with no small advantage to both sides. It is the same with the Poole case. It has been the same, we are convinced, with many of the recent banking cases. Nay, the extended discussion v,illich is now developing itself tends to correct even the faults of the journal. The demand for authenticated facts is the most healtlay sign of public opinion' that journal will command the greatest influence that most thoroughly or most intelligibly sup- plies the demand ; and thus a simple statement of the sub- stantial truth belonging to the question of the day will supersede all those many modes of effective paltering with political questions Winch may be summed up in the single word—humbug. The Sardinian statesman has clinched this assertion of press Lights by a more emphatic recognition of the press than we re- ember it to have received from any acting statesman. In re- ference to the cession of certain buildings at Villafranca to the Russian Steam Company, Count Cavour has issued a circular to th,:. representatives of King Victor Emmanuel at foreign courts. in struts those i representatives to counteract the effect of oer- '414 rePresentations n various English papers which he names.
In the particular instance, we believe, the journals have been wrong ; and the explanation of the Minister exactly tallies with our own interpretation of the facts. But we are not now disous- sing the peculiar position of that country. Count Cavour has seen that certain statements are made, he sees that those state- ments may have a certain effect upon public) opinion. According to the precedent of diplomatic rule, he should have ignored the statements and the effect on public opinion, because such represen- tations appeared only in certain journals. But Cavour is a man endowed with the quality of greatness ; he deals with public opin- ion, and with truth, whatever may be the medium ; and con- fronting the facts, he has replied to the journals. A common- place or a weaker man would have shrunk from the precedent ; would have submitted to the common sophism that the im- portance of the assertion would be augmented by the answer; but he believes in the power of truth in a direct appeal to the facts before the public of the world, and he has made that appeal. Statesmanship has deigned to answer journalism, and we believe that the innovation will be of some advantage to journalism, of much to statesmanship.
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