HC Deb 07 May 1860 vol 158 cc757-75
MR. WALTER

—Sir, I rise to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of enabling myself to make a personal explanation. It is with extreme reluctance that I venture to trouble the House upon a personal matter, but I conceive that it has a right to be informed of any circumstance affecting the position and independence of one of its Members; and, as I have reason to complain of an attempt which has been made by the right hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman) to place me in a false position as a Member of this House, and to impair my freedom of speech, I venture to ask its indulgence for a few moments while I state the nature of my complaint; and I feel confident that, when it has heard my statement, it will be of opinion that no other course was open to me than that which I have pursued. Sir, on Monday evening last I ventured to address the House in the debate on the Reform Bill; and on the following Wednesday I received from the right hon. Member for Stroud the following letter, which, as it contains the grounds for an attack which the right hon. Member intended to make upon me in this House, though circumstances prevented him from fulfilling that intention, is public property, and I have the right to read it to the House. The letter struck me as the more extraordinary, because, up to the moment when I received it, I had no reason to suppose that my relations with the right hon. Gentleman were otherwise than of a friendly character. The letter is as follows: —

"1, Richmond Terrace, May 2.

"Sir,—I think it right to request that you will be in your place to-morrow, when the debate on the Reform Bill is resumed, as I intend in speaking to notice the suggestion you made on Monday, that the passing of the Bill should not be followed by an early dissolution. And I feel the more bound to do this, as the same suggestion was coupled with my name in a leading article of The Times of that day, in which I am personally brought in for no other purpose but as illustrative of the general meanness of the House of Commons. As the Member selected by The Times through whom to offer an insult to the House of Commons more gross than any yet offered by Mr. Bright, whom you rebuked, I feel called upon to repudiate, as publicly as it was made, a description of the character and sentiments of the House which every Member of it will repel as indignantly as I do myself.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"EDWD. HORSMAN.

"John Walter, Esq., M.P.

Now, in this letter the House will observe that a distinct charge is made against me of using language in my speech in the debate which, taken in conjunction with language used in a leading article in a public journal, the right hon. Gentleman supposes to convey an imputation on the character of the House of Commons. To this letter I addressed the following reply:—

"40, Upper Grosvenor Street, May 3.

"Sir,—I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your extraordinary letter, which I received last evening at a public dinner, and to which, as I shall of course be in the House this evening, I need make no further reply at this moment.

"I have the honour to remain, Sir,

"Your most obedient servant,

"J. WALTER."

In consequence of the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman, I attended in my place on Thursday evening, and waited from 4 o'clock till half-past 7. The right hon. Gentleman was in his place, but did not rise to address the House. He intimated to me at half-past 7 that, as he found his rising to address the House at that time would lead to an adjournment of the debate and cause great public inconvenience, he had abandoned his intention of speaking. Here, perhaps, some persons may ask why did I not allow the matter to drop? Sir, I felt it impossible to allow it to drop. After having been called on to attend in my place and hear a charge preferred against me in reference to a speech made by me in this House, coupled with reference to comments on the debate made elsewhere, I felt that I could not allow the right hon. Gentleman to hold in his hand a weapon that be might use against me at any time at his convenience. I therefore this morning wrote the following letter to the right hon. Gentleman: —

"40, Upper Grosvenor Street, May 4, 1860.

"Sir,—I cannot help thinking that your letter of Wednesday, which occasioned my attendance in the House last evening to no purpose, must have been written in a moment of irritation, and under circumstances of misapprehension which your better judgment may have led you to regret. If so, I shall be happy to receive an assurance from you to that effect; if not, I shall feel it my duty to bring your letter and the subject to which it relates under the notice of the House this evening at the earliest opportunity.

"I have the honour to be, Sir,

"Your most obedient servant,

"J. WALTER.

"Right Hon. E. Horsman, M.P."

I waited at home till half-past two o'clock on Friday afternoon for a reply; but, not receiving any, I came down to the House to consult you, Sir, as to the course which I ought to pursue. I had just arranged for the proper moment of bringing the subject under the notice of the House, when, at half-past three o'clock, this not very brief epistle was forwarded to me from the right hon. Gentleman. Of course it was impossible at that hour to give to it the attention which such a document deserved, and I was obliged to postpone my statement till the present moment. I have no wish to refer to the contents of this letter, except to one passage only, which relates to a speech of mine at Nottingham. It contains a great deal of very curious matter, and the right hon. Gentleman, if he thinks proper to read it to the House, has my permission to do so, on the distinct understanding that he reads every word of it. ["Read, Read!"] I would rather not read it; but the right hon. Gentleman may read it to the House, provided he reads every word of it. I informed the right hon. Gentleman of my intention to bring the subject before the House this evening, when he would have an opportunity of making a reply. Now, with respect to the passage in my speech to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, I have nothing to explain or to vindicate. It referred in express terms to the speech which the right hon. Baronet the Member for Hertfordshire (Sir Bulwer Lytton) had delivered a few nights before, in which he spoke of a dissolution as a great evil to the country; the only difference being that, while the hon. Baronet deprecated the passing of the Reform Bill, because it would lead to a dissolution, I, agreeing with him as to the mischief of a dissolution, thought that it did not follow as a necessary consequence of a Reform Bill, and therefore should not be considered an obstacle to the passing of a Reform Bill during the present year. This was the whole and sole extent of my remarks on this subject. Had I gone further than that—and had I even used language similar to that which the right hon. Gentleman complains of in the The Times newspaper—had I said that hon. Members might be influenced in their wishes in regard to the passing of the Reform Bill by the prospect of a dissolution, I do not think there are many Members in this House whose sensibilities would have been wounded by the suggestion that the prospect of a general election, with all its—I will not say corruption—but its concomitant expense, confusion, and dissipation, was one which I they would not wish to precipitate. The fact is, however, that I neither expressed nor intended to convey any such meaning. But what I do complain of is, that the right hon. Member has thought fit to connect ray speech with an article in The Times, with which I had no more to do than he had himself, and of which I can only say that I do not at this moment know who wrote it. But as this statement may surprise the right hon. Member, and as he founds his inference as to my connection with this article upon a speech which I made at Nottingham in 1859, in which he says that I avowed my connection with The Times, and pleaded it as an excuse for not having taken a more active part in the debates in this House, I will explain to the House the reasons which led me to make that statement. There is, in my opinion, a necessary antagonism (I know not by what other name to call it) between Parliament and the public press, which ought to keep the functions of each entirely apart, and which requires a good deal of delicacy to be observed in the relations between them. Now, I have observed a growing disposition of late years on the part of a certain section of this House to import into the debates in this House very frequent references to the opinions of the public press, to an extent which appears to me to be hardly consistent with the dignity of Parliament. And in the year in which my speech to which the right hon. Gentleman refers was made I was particularly struck by the circumstance that a right hon. Gentleman, now a Member of the Cabinet, had in the debate on the Conspiracy Bill quoted very largely from leading articles in The Times, with a view to strengthen the case against the noble Lord now at the head of the Government, whom he succeeded in ousting. That circumstance, coupled with the growing fashion to which I have referred, has always made me feel that the position of any hon. Gentleman in this House who was supposed to be in any way connected with the press has become somewhat embarrassing. Accordingly, in the speech delivered on the occasion referred to at a public dinner at Nottingham, in reply to a toast in which my name was connected both with the House of Commons and with the press, I made some remarks on that circumstance, and mentioned that any hon. Gentleman supposed to be connected with the press, however remotely, laboured under some disadvantages in this House. But if I have felt unduly sensi- tive on that point it was because I never I before had the opportunity which the right hon. Gentlemen has now afforded me, which I could not have made for myself, and without which I could not volunteer the statement I now make,—that my connection with The Times newspaper, although of a nature which makes me feel the deepest interest in its concerns, is not of an editorial character, and does not involve any responsibility on my part for any opinion or statement which it contains. If the right hon. Gentleman wants any more information, all I can say is that I have not got it to give him; nor can I be responsible for any conjectures which public gossip or the imagination of any private individual may lead him to form on the subject. I have thought it due alike to the House and to myself to offer this explanation, and, having done so, I will only say in conclusion that in the event of any similar attack being directed against me I shall take no notice of it whatever.

MR. HORSMAN

Sir, if the hon. Member for Berkshire felt great reluctance in bringing this matter before the House, I can assure him and the House of my unfeigned regret that he has felt it his duty to take the course he has now adopted. I do so not on my own account. I freely confess that I would willingly and anxiously have avoided this discussion, for I feel that the statement which the hon. Member now compels me to make must give some pain to a Gentleman for whom personally I entertain feelings of respect and esteem; and no word shall fall from me to add to the unpleasant feeling which a controversy of this description must under any circumstances produce. As all that has passed between the hon. Member and myself has taken place by correspondence, I will leave that correspondence to tell its own tale. The hon. Gentleman has read only a portion of that correspondence, and he has left it to me to read the rest. The hon. Member read the first of those letters; but if he had read on, the House would see that in a subsequent letter I qualified some of the expressions 1 used in the first; and, so far as I could, I think I rendered it unnecessary to bring the matter before the House. I warned the hon. Gentleman, however, that if the question were brought before the House it must give pain which I would not willingly be the instrument of inflicting; and that, as far as I was concerned, 1 would rather the matter should be settled by personal explanation without these walls than by a public discussion here. These efforts of mine failed. I regret extremely that they failed, but I do not regret that I made them, because the responsibility of the course I am compelled to take in my own vindication rests upon the friends and advisers of the hon. Gentleman, and not upon me. While I am as ready as the hon. Member to assert the independence of the press, and as anxious to maintain it, I utterly repudiate as false and mischievous that doctrine of responsibility which the hon. Gentleman has set up; and before I sit down I shall have, I am afraid, to show that the hon. Gentleman is personally and directly responsible for every letter and every word of that article to which I have taken exception. The facts are these: — On taking my place on Monday I was told by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Roscommon (Colonel French) that there was a rumour of a compromise on the Reform Bill; that there was to be a £16 franchise for counties, an £8 for boroughs, and an engagement that there was to be no dissolution of the House for two years. I ought to repeat that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Roscommon merely mentioned this as a rumour; but the postponement of the dissolution for two years was openly discussed as a sop to the House of Commons. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Berkshire afterwards rose and addressed the House, and in the course of his speech appeared to me to countenance and advocate that mode of settlement of the question. I do not say he intended to do so; but when he came to the dissolution and the postponement of the Bill, what the hon. Gentleman said was received with ironical cheers and laughter from different parts of the House, and the House evidently fixed that interpretation upon it which the rumour mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend assigned. That same morning there appeared in The Times an article from which I will read an extract. The writer is speaking of the Reform Bill:— There are certain Gentlemen in the House whose seats are secure, and whoso elections cost them nothing, and whose nature it is to make hustings speeches, who would just as soon it passed as not. There are also a few Conservative leaders who have never ceased to regret their own folly in committing themselves to any reform, and who would perhaps buy a release from this most disagreeable pledge even at the expense of an interview with their constituents. But, with these exceptions, the passing of this Reform Bill means money out of pocket, a month of hard, disagreeable work, and possibly a fall from the Parliamen- tary firmament. Perhaps it might have facilitated the progress of the Bill if a public announcement had been made that a Reform Act should not be followed by a dissolution. The idea, we believe, has occurred to many, but perhaps it has been thought so candid as to verge upon indecorum. A maiden may be very anxious for a husband, a barrister for a brief, or a politician for a seat, and each may tremble at the thought of losing the object of his solicitude, but it is part of the respectable hypocrisy of social life that a perfect and stoical indifference shall always be assumed in such matters. We believe that if such an assurance had been volunteered even Mr. Horsman would have indignantly repudiated any suggestion of an unwillingness to test the confidence of the electors of Stroud. But still it might have helped the Bill. What was the construction to be put on this article? The construction I put upon it was that, however dangerous the House of Commons might think that Bill, however destructive it might be considered by The Times to the national interests, still that was not the danger that we cared about—what we cared about was the danger of a dissolution, and that therefore, if matters could be made pleasant by an understanding with the Government, Members were to give their votes in return for a two years' lease of their seats; if this could be secured, then the Members of the present Parliament—legally condemned and morally defunct, in which there are many Members who would have no right legally to sit here, and from which many persons would be excluded whom constituencies had a legal right to send here — would be willing to give their votes, openly and unblushingly, with a selfish regard to their own personal interests. That was the construction I put upon that article; and, putting that construction upon it, I say that a grosser calumny and a more insulting aspersion could not have been cast by any public speaker or writer upon the House of Commons. I then wrote the letter which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Berkshire has rend to the House. No one had seen that letter but myself, and I gave no public notice of my intention to bring the matter before the House. Therefore I believed, when 1 told the hon. Member I was not going to notice the matter in debate, that no injury had been done to him, and that no public vindication of his character was required. I will go further, and say that if, when I received the hon. Member's letter next morning in which he complained of my abandoning my intention of speaking upon the matter, that letter had not been accom- panied by the threat that if I did not make an apology he would bring the question before the House, I should have been ready to make any apology for any inconvenience or disappointment that the abandonment of my first intention might have caused him. But when that letter was accompanied by a threat of an appeal to the House of Commons, I ask any hon. Gentleman whether I could have given an apology? I regret that the hon. Gentleman did not ask for an apology without the accompaniment of that threat. After that letter I wrote a reply, which, after the challenge of the hon. Gentleman, I must read. Before, however, I read it, I may be permitted, to show my feeling on the subject, to read the two subsequent letters referring to this matter. I received from the hon. Member for Berkshire the following letter:—

Upper Grosvenor Street, May 5, 1860.

"Sir—Although I felt that I had good reason to complain of the course which you pursued on Thursday evening, in abandoning the impeachment which you had expressly summoned me to undergo, I did not consider myself justified, at the risk of another adjournment of the debate on the Reform Bill and the further delay of public business, in making any objection to that proceeding. I felt, however, that I could not remain silent under the imputations conveyed in your letter; and, accordingly, on my return home, after the debate, I wrote the few lines which you received at an early hour yesterday morning. After waiting at home for your reply till half-past 2 o'clock, I went down to the House and had just arranged with the Speaker for my proposed explanation when, at half past; 3 o'clock I received your copious and elaborate communication. It was too late for me at that hour to study its contents before addressing the House, and I was therefore reluctantly compelled to postpone my explanation till Monday evening, when you will have an opportunity, if you think fit, of replying to it."

I replied to that letter immediately by the following: —

Richmond Terrace, May 5.

"Sir—I must leave you to take whatever course you may think proper on Monday, on the distinct understanding that there will be a Motion before the House on which I shall be at liberty to speak, and that you read to the House my letter on which you found your complaint. I have not as yet shown that letter or any portion of our correspondence to any one out of my family, except confidentially to one friend, nor did I intend, unless compelled, to show it. I shall only regret its production in the House of Commons, because the names of two of your friends are mentioned in the course of remarks which I told you were 'privately offered.' I presume you will have apprised them of your intention to bring the correspondence before the House, and to take on yourself the responsibility of giving to their names a publicity that I would willingly have spared them, but from which I have not the slightest disposition to shrink."

The House will see from this that I did not compel the reading of the letter. As far as I was concerned, I deprecated the course which the hon. Gentleman has now obliged me to pursue, and warned him that it would be painful to others. I hope, therefore, the House will bear with me while I read this letter, and be kind enough to feel that it is not a voluntary act on my part, but one which has been forced upon me by the challenge which the hon. Gentleman has given me to-day. I should mention first that the letter of the lion. Gentleman was delivered at my house early in the morning, before I was up. As soon as I had read it, with a number of other letters, I hurriedly wrote a reply in order that the hon. Gentleman might receive it before the meeting of the House. He had, however, left home before my letter arrived there, and therefore he received it at the House of Commons. My letter was as follows:— Sir,—I did not write to you under feelings of misapprehension, and still less of irritation, and have not the smallest regret to express on that account. If my requesting your attendance in the House put you to inconvenience, I erred through a rule of courtesy, which requires notice to be given to Members whose speeches are to be pointedly alluded to. As soon as I found I could not speak without risk of causing an adjournment, I thought it courteous to inform you that I meant to abandon that intention. It was quite open to you to have objected then or later in the evening, for I presume, from the early hour at which your note was delivered, that it was written before the debate closed last night, and I should have been ready to adopt the course which it now appears would have been more satisfactory to you, if you had returned to the House and apprised me of what your note now conveys, I will now state to you what I intended to do, and my reasons for it. I was much surprised when you suggested in your speech, as an accompaniment to the passing of the Reform Bill, that the dissolution should be adjourned; and it appeared to me that no one could misunderstand what it conveyed as to the motives by which the House was to be influenced. It was only on Wednesday morning that, alluding again in conversation to your suggestion, I was informed that it had been made previously in The Times, and on referring to the file I for the first time noticed the article of Monday, the day on which you spoke. I intended, in noticing the various arguments and motives urged for the passing of the Bill, to have alluded particularly to your suggestion about a dissolution, as conveying, in my opinion, a very disparaging and injurious estimate of the Members of the House of Commons; and I should have added that, although your sentiment was clothed in the language of a Gentleman addressing Gentlemen, and though you were yourself incapable of language inconsistent with your high personal character and position, it was ex- tremely to be regretted that a member of our own body should seem to imply such motives in a speech that must tend to give weight and authority to the same sentiment expressed elsewhere in coarser terms and a more offensive spirit. I should then have read the passage in The Times—not in any way connecting you with it, or making you responsible for it, any more than I should have made Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell responsible for an article to which I charged them with giving weight and authority by adopting its substance. I will not, however, be so uncandid as to deny that in my own mind there would have been a connection between your speech and that article, and that it might and would probably have been suggested to the minds of others, and not unnaturally, for I remember that in a speech to your constituents at Nottingham you avowed your connection with The Times, and stated, with great taste and delicacy, that you felt that connection embarrassed you in your desire to take a proper share in the debates in Parliament. I should have made no further allusion to you—beyond that one regret that the speech of one of our own body should appear, to however small an extent, to give weight to aspersions and imputations on the House made elsewhere, and I should have gone on to say that if this insult were to be offered to the House, I did not regret that I should be brought in as an example to prove the rule as to the depth of baseness to which Members of Parliament would descend to retain their scats, as it gave me the opportunity of submitting some general observations to the House on the relations of the public press to the institutions of the country, and especially to the House of Commons, that we are now reforming; and as J. believe you to be the proprietor of The Times, the leader in its councils, and more than any other man responsible for its acts, I think I may do the public good service if I can now induce you to weigh well the remarks now privately offered, but which, had I spoken last night, I should have given to the world. You combine in your own person the two most powerful attributes that an Englishman can possess, as a talented member of the legislative body and the supreme head of the press that governs the world. In both characters you have an immense responsibilities, and you are doubly bound to sustain the reputation of each of the bodies to which you belong. You do not require me to tell you that the character and honour of the House of Commons are the nation's best possessions, and it is therefore difficult to exaggerate the mischief that is done by the tone of low morality attributed to public men, and exhibited in itself by the most powerful organ in the country. There is nothing in which the press of England is so valuable, as for the fearless advocacy by each journal of its own line of opinions, when it is done with an honesty and consistency that command respect, and, at the same time, show a capability of feeling respect for all that is great and estimable in public life, with a full appreciation of the cares and anxieties and sacrifices of those acting under onerous responsibility; and who, while closely watched, should be justly and generously judged. The journalism of England, so honourably conducted, elevating the tone of public morality, and sustaining the character of public men, is of inestimable value in strengthening the national institutions; but it is nothing short of a national calamity when public opinion is influenced by great journals, which, less mindful of the responsibilities than the privileges of the press, show themselves true to no principle, constant to no policy, and disdainful of all rules of public justice and morality. Now, you must excuse my taking the liberty of reminding you that there is not a leading man on either front bench that The Times, guided with such wonderful ability, and wielding such a terrific power, has not by turns lauded and calumniated, nattered and vilified. By turns it has vehemently espoused and bitterly vituperated every party, and advocated and abandoned every principle. And there is this painful and distinctive peculiarity about The Times—other journals are content with opposing the policy, or censuring the acts of the Minister; but The Times always tries to crush the man. For some years it seemed its special vocation to hunt down, ruin, and destroy Lord Palmerston, whose official life is now deemed vital to the nation. Lord John Russell was once the idol to be worshipped; but more recently he would have been driven altogether from public life, if the acrimony of The Times could have accomplished it. So, again, Lord Derby's first Administration was supported by The Times; but, in his second one, in the personal persecution of every leading member, it furnished only another instance of consistency and consideration, and thus with every public man that is capriciously— and personally, as distinct from politically—assailed, it is not criticism but extermination that is aimed at. The practical consequences of all this on our political condition are very serious. Governments and parties have been lately in a state of weakness and disorganization alike deplorable and dangerous; but all this is enormously aggravated, when all the vast machinery of The Times and its gigantic writing power are directed to one end—that of pursuing to the death, day after day, every leading man on whom, in turn, the nation (as The Times comes round to show) must rely; and doing this to an extent that their public acts do not justify. The result is that all our best public men become not only politically weakened, but personally discredited. Public principles are unsettled, and discredited also, respect for Parliamentary Government and political institutions is much shaken, and strong Government becomes impossible. I avow to you my deliberate and solemn conviction, founded on much observation and reflection, that the present confusion in our political world, is to a great extent owing to the manner in which every leading man and principle and cause have been damaged by the wavering invective of The Times. As I wish you to receive this before you go to the House, I have not time to remark on the personal influences by which The Times is supposed to be affected—on the peculiar influences that draw Mr. Delane to Lord Palmerston; and the anomalous position and proceedings of Mr. Lowe on the Treasury bench. They are the subject of comments which I will not now repeat, but which affect both the House of Commons and the press. If you receive my observations in the same frank spirit in which I make them, I shall be happy to follow them up by a further expression of views that may be useful to you. Few public men are in a condition to speak boldly to The Times. There are few men in Parliament, who, like myself, are so indifferent to party, to office, or to their seat, that they are as independent of The Times as the The Times is of them; and fear it as little as it fears them. As I am in that position, I have felt it a duty to tell you what may be useful truths, and in a plain, though not unfriendly spirit; and if they should have the effect of leading you to consider what I have said, and if you will permit your judgment to be influenced by it, I shall not regret the difference—I trust in that case only of a temporary nature—that has arisen between us, and which will have been productive of good results through a circle beyond ourselves. In saying I should have expressed these views last night, I mean, of course, the general views on the press, without personal allusions to yourself or others.

Having read that letter, by the permission, or rather in pursuance of the obligation imposed on me by the hon. Gentleman, I leave it without further comment, except that it shows two things—that I did not wish to make this a merely personal question between the hon. Member for Berkshire and myself; and that, as far as I am concerned, I have not necessitated the bringing the question before the House. Upon the general and important principle of the independence of the public press and its irresponsibility, I have a few words to add in reply to what has fallen from the hon. Gentleman who is its principal representative in this House.

MR. WALTER

I beg to explain.

MR. HORSMAN

I withdraw that expression. I sincerely regret the inadvertence in so describing the hon. Gentleman. Whence arises this doctrine of the irresponsibility of the public press? Every man in this House is in favour of the independence of the press, as all are in favour of the independence of Parliament; but does independence carry with it irresponsibility? Every Member of this House is, individually or collectively, responsible. The House of Lords is responsible. The Crown is responsible. Why is the public press alone to be irresponsible? It has been sometimes described as a Fourth Estate." It is a mighty institution. The first law of the Constitution is that there is no power, and there can be no power which is not accompanied by responsibility. In a Constitutional Government power and irresponsibility are perfectly incompatible. Why, then, is the public press, or why is The Times newspaper, to be the sole exception to the rule? Conventionally you may say the press is responsible, but practically you find that the press is irresponsible. Why? Because it is anonymous. But its being anonymous does not remove the responsibility. It only makes it difficult to enforce it. You cannot enforce it against a man working in the dark —having a mask before his face. When a muffled figure, who plants a dagger, is not punished it is because you cannot identify him. Nor can you punish the midnight depredator whom you cannot catch. But the principle of responsibility applies equally to both. Plow does that affect the lion. Gentleman the Member for Berkshire? I am afraid that I now come to the somewhat painful part of the question, but at the same time a very important public part. By what law of public responsibility are Gentlemen connected with the public press and having seats in this House to be judged? I think the hon. Gentleman himself laid down that law on Monday night. I attempted in the correspondence with him—in courtesy to him—to detach from him any responsibility with The Times, but I now moan to fix it upon him. What was the leading element of the able speech of the hon. Member for Berkshire on Monday night? What was its most telling and effective part? Was it not the indignant and spirited rebuke administered to the hon. Member for Birmingham for speeches not made here but elsewhere? Did he not tell us that if we wished to see the hon. Member for Birmingham painted by himself we must read the National Review? What does that mean? Is not every Member of Parliament, in the independent exercise of his right, free to express his opinions and disseminate his principles wherever he pleases, in this House or elsewhere, provided he does not transgress any rule of public decorum and propriety? And was that not the reason why the Member for Birmingham was brought before the House and the hon. Gentleman executed on him his law of responsibility? Why, all of us feel that responsibility may be enforced on every Member wherever he acts, wherever be speaks, in his place or out of it, as it was enforced the other night by the hon. Member for Berkshire. Is the same rule not to be applied to himself? To Cæsar be appeals, to Caesar he must go. He says he has no editorial functions with The Times—he does not know who was the writer of the article. Who, I ask, employed the man who wrote it? Who paid the man who wrote it? And if, Sir, he as the proprietor of The Times—

MR. WALTER

"A" proprietor or "the" proprietor?

MR. HORSMAN

As the leading proprietor of The Times. If the hon. Gentleman gets up and tells mo he is not the leading proprietor I have done.

MR. WALTER

My proprietary interest in The Times, if the hon. Gentleman wishes to know, is of a very limited description. I have large property connected with The Times, wholly independent of a limited proprietary interest in it.

MR. HORSMAN

I am sure the House will feel that it is unworthy of the House and unfit in me to descend to a controversy with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Berkshire on the exact amount of his interest in The Times. The hon. Gentleman cannot deny that he has a leading interest and that he is the greatest authority in The Times office. I ask again, then, who employs the man who writes, who pays the man who writes these articles? And I say, if the writer received instructions from the Council of which the hon. Gentleman is a leading Member—if the writer receives instructions and remuneration from him, I want to know what is the difference between the hon. Member for Birmingham and the hon. Member for Berkshire as regards responsibility. Why, Sir, the difference is this and this only:—The Member for Birmingham goes on a platform in the face of day, avows his opinions before all the world, and braves the responsibility which is brought upon him in this House; while the Member for Berkshire employs another to do what the Member for Birmingham does himself. Because the Gentleman he employs works in secret his employer thinks he is to evade responsibility. I lay down boldly and confidently this principle, that between a public writer and a public speaker, on the principle of responsibility, there is no distinction whatever. The only distinction is as to the difficulty of identification and detection. If the independence of the press he assailed, every man in this House, and, I believe 99 out of every 100 men in the country, will raise their voices in its favour. I say, as to the responsibility of the press, that as in the responsibility of public men, it is the interest of the whole community to enforce full responsibility. If a Member of our own body out of this House makes a public speech which we feel lowers and discredits the body to which we belong, all are anxious that he should be called to account, all are anxious to enforce responsibility, the enforcement of which is a protection to our own character and honour. So it is with the press. It has the same interest in keeping up the character of public writers as we have in keeping up the character of public men; and if there be one organ which lowers the character of the press, I say it is the interest of every man connected with the press to do all they can, not only to discountenance it, but to enforce responsibility against that organ which would otherwise throw discredit on that whole body of men who are not more distinguished for talent than for honour, taste, refinement, high principle, and a combination of all those qualities which make so many of the leading contributors to the public Press the favourites and ornaments of every society they enter. It is with extreme regret that I have had to say this to the hon. Member for Berkshire. I have sat with him many years in this House, and I have learnt to regard him with feelings of sincere respect. Although it is impossible that occasionally there should not have been an incidental recollection of his connection with the press, my wish has always been to regard him in a different character—as the representative of an important English county—as one who, while he does inherit a noble possession, which we are now discussing, inherits still more the position of a territorial proprietor, which puts him on a social equality with the greatest and noblest in the land. I believe he owes his seat not so much to his merely territorial position as to his personal character and virtues. I know that in his own neighbourhood few landlords are more popular. There is no man whose private life sets a better example in the estimation of all those who reside in his vicinity than that of the hon. Gentleman, and my sincere wish is that he may sit many years in this House, sharing more largely than he has hitherto done in those debates which, we all know, he has abilities to adorn, and receiving from us that respect and esteem which by his past demeanour among us he has fairly won, and to which personally he is eminently entitled.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

I hope this discussion may end at the point which it has now reached. It has not, so far as I can see, led to any result of greater importance than the causes in which it appears to have originated. For my own part, I should not have presented myself to the notice of the House on the present occasion were it not for the mention which my right hon. Friend has made of my name. My right hon. Friend has stated that for a certain period of time—now, I am glad to say, gone by—I was made the subject of very bitter attacks in the columns of The Times. Now, it is perfectly true that during a portion of my public life I was, so far as the newspaper press is concerned, one of, I believe I may say, the best-abused men in England. I, however, submitted with patience to the attacks which were thus made, and lived on in the belief that an answer to them would, sooner or later, be best furnished by my public conduct. It never occurred to me to rise in my place in this House and formally to complain of what had been, with no little bitterness, said against me; but whether my example in that respect is one which is deserving of being followed, or whether those who have taken a different course acted with more propriety, I do not pretend to say. My right hon. Friend has stated, I think, in the letter which he has just read, that he did not know what the influence was which drew Mr. Delane, one of the editors or managers of The Times, to me; and if by that statement he means to imply an endeavour on my part to exercise any influence over the line of conduct which is pursued by that journal, I can only say in answer to this, in the words of Mrs. Malaprop, that I should be too glad to be able to "plead guilty to the soft impeachment," and to know that the insinuation which it involves was really founded on fact. But, if there are influences which, as the right hon. Gentleman says, have fortunately led Mr. Delane to me, they are none other than the influences of society. My right hon. Friend has observed, in that glowing address which he has just delivered to us, that the contributors to the press are the favourites and the ornaments of the social circles into which they enter. In that opinion he is, it seems to me, perfectly correct. The gentlemen to whom he refers are, generally speaking, persons of great attainments and information. It is, then, but natural that their society should be agreeable. My acquaintance with Mr. Delane is exactly of that character. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Delane frequently in society, and he has occasionally done mo the honour to mix in society under my roof. That society is, I may add, composed of persons of all shades of politics, of various pursuits; and I need hardly say I feel proud when persons so honour me without undertaking any other engagement than that which Mr. Delane always makes good—of making themselves very agreeable during the time of their stay. I have had the honour—and I need, I am sure, scarcely add that I esteemed it one —of receiving occasionally under my roof the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge. The influences which led them to do me that honour were of the same nature as those which induced Mr. Delane to confer upon me a similar honour—the expectation of meeting agreeable society, and I trust they wore not disappointed. I have had also myself the honour of being a member of the society which assembled under Lord Derby's roof, and in availing myself of that privilege, I did nothing more than that which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge, or Mr. De-lane did when they visited me; that is to say, mix on fair and equal terms in the society in which they met, and endeavour to make themselves agreeable while there.

MR. DISRAELI

Before this discussion closes I should wish to extract from it some useful result. I would therefore request the House to bear in mind one observation which has been made in this discussion by the hon. Member for Berkshire—I allude to the disapprobation which he has expressed of the practice of quoting, in order to influence our decision, the opinions of articles in morning journals previous to the occurrence of the debate. I cannot help feeling that to quote the anonymous opinions of contemporary publications with that object tends to lower very much the tone and authority of our debates in this House where we ought to depend upon our own knowledge, our own powers of argument, illustrated, of course, by the opinions of those who may be called classical authorities in dealing with the subjects under our consideration. The practice, then, of enforcing our views by quotations made from anonymous contemporary writings is one which, I think, ought not to be encouraged. I should not consider it necessary to say more upon what has taken place this evening between the two Gentlemen who are more particularly interested in this discussion—and of whom, I may say—in passing, that they are both much respected in this House—were it not to express my dissent from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud with respect to the somewhat exaggerated view which he has taken of the press in this country. He stated with much seriousness, while referring to the Sovereign and the Houses of Parliament, that the press was "the Fourth Estate of the realm;" but that is not an accurate expression, and the use of it is, at the best, but the introduction of a species of slang phraseology into our debates. It is not true that the press is a Fourth Estate, and that therefore it holds a position of political responsibility. There is, no doubt, a responsibility attaching to newspapers, inasmuch as those directing them are subject, so far as their general conduct is concerned, to the laws of the country. They are also responsible to public opinion; and I for one cannot believe that a newspaper which is conducted with a total absence of principle, or which is employed in the particular manner in which, according to the view of the right hon. Gentleman, the journal in question is employed, could for so many years continue to possess that degree of patronage and confidence on the part of the public which it enjoys. As a general principle a newspaper must depend for its support upon public opinion, and although The Times no doubt sometimes sins greatly in the criticisms which it passes on public men—as probably most papers do—yet we must not lose sight of the fact that a free press is, after all, a great blessing, and we must not be too ready to find fault with what we may be disposed to regard as the errors which it may commit. The noble Lord who has just spoken very playfully reminded the House that he has been subjected in the course of his life to considerable criticism; but it does not, I am glad to find, appear to have done the noble Lord, physically at least, any harm, and, as for the moral effect of public criticism, I believe there are few public men who may not have derived from it some profit. I myself—if I may be allowed to speak of one who occupies a position so much inferior to that of the noble Lord,—have had my share of hostile criticism; nor can I pretend to say that when it was now to me it was quite so agreeable, or that I was quite so indifferent to it, as long habit has now made me. This, however, I may say, that, so long as the criticism is able and intelligent—I care not for its general malignity— one may derive from it some profit. I agree with the noble Lord that, on the whole, it is inexpedient to ask the House to be the confidant of our plaints whenever we may be subjected to severe remarks. If the public press in this country is to be a free press it is not for us to criticise with too much promptitude intellectual efforts which it must be remembered are written under conditions of immense difficulty. And as for responsibility, we must always recollect that these enterprises are responsible to the general opinion of the country, and that public opinion cannot be enlisted in their favour unless it is found that, either by their information, their criticism, or the general intelligence which pervades their performance, they are, on the whole, of advantage to the community at large.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.