Originally published in Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine (Punch) vol.3 #14 (Feb 1846).
To arrive at the true source of the hostility between the bar and the press, we must follow, through some of its ramifications, the mission of the latter. Every man is now aware that there is both a natural and a political system of society, The former grows from the laws of man's being, the latter is the offspring of conquest; and such as we now know it to be to our cost, it is the consequence of a great original wrong. Of the political system the bar is an essential part; of the natural system the press is a portion.
It is possible to trace the bar with all its privileges; its exclusive right to plead before the judges; its establishment as a separate profession; its monopoly, and even its wigs and gowns, up to some statute or some regulation, which the judges and the benchers, by the authority of law, were empowered to make. So it is possible to trace the rise of the royal navy and the profession of a naval officer—from the first general requisition of Ethelred on all the lands of the kingdom to form a fleet, through successive statutes and regulations levying taxes for its support, or empowering its officers to seize men for its service—to the last and yet unfulfilled regulation for weeding its muster-roll of those pensioners the aristocracy has encumbered it with. But the newspaper press was not established by law. Like cultivating the ground, it springs from tho wants of man, and is essential to the development of society. The authors of the political system have continually endeavoured, by sharp libel laws and by various restrictions, to impede the extension of the press, and limit its usefulness; but no enactment of theirs, neither the common nor the statute law, called it into being.
Accordingly, under one form or another, large, liberal, and world-ranging, like the metropolitan journals, or narrow, cramped, and strictly local or technical, like the little bits of coarse dingy paper that are tolerated by the despots of Germany, newspapers now exist in all the countries, however different their political institutions, of the civilised world. The Sepoys have newspapers; the Russians cannot do without them; they are published in Turkey and China; and they have already taken their station as part of society at New Zealand and the Sandwich Islands. They are most useful, most comprehensive, most numerous, and most sought after, as in the United States, England and France, where natural society is most, and political society least, developed. They are valued most where man is most free. A newspaper is a power at New York; it is next to a nullity at Berlin. Thus, the bar and the press in their origin are parts of hostile and contending systems; the latter is essential to civilisation, and increases in strength, as society throws off the trammels of that system to which the bar belongs.
The mission or duty of the farmer in the natural order of society is to produce as much food as he can at the least cost. So the mission of the manufacturer is to make clothing or cutlery abundant and cheap. What in the same order of society is the mission of the newspaper writer? While the bar has for its object to perplex, confound, and mystify, in order to keep other men in political thraldom, the press seeks to make all things straight and clear, and free man from all shackles, but those of reason. Even the journals which support an erroneous system, do it solely by an appeal to that power. The press collects facts; it winnows the mental productions of each day and every people, and hoards up the useful results. It watches for events, it gathers information from every quarter, and spreads it to the same extent. It warns the world against threatening dangers as they arise. It catches the first light of every dawning improvement, and brings it before every inquisitive and admiring eye. The true mission of the press, its very soul, is to gather and diffuse truth. That is its solemn duty; and remembering how small a portion of a daily journal is composed of questionable matter, we have no hesitation in saying that to a great extent it actually performs that duty.
We are well aware that a contradictory opinion is afloat in society. People habitually toast the freedom of the press, and declare that it is like the air they breathe—if they have it not they die: nevertheless, there exists amongst them a slight dread and a practical contempt for the object of their theoretic love; and seizing hold of little discrepancies—the ten thousandth part of its daily contents—they also habitually speak of the lying press. Gathering information from all quarters, being open to the complaints of the lowest man in the community, and the highest employing it to communicate his views to mankind, representing all classes, their passions and prejudices, as well as their reason, it is, in common with everything human—liable to error, and occasionally circulates falsehoods and calumnies. That, however, is the exception, not the rule. Every newspaper writer acknowledges his responsibility to scrutinise every paragraph, to separate the truth from the falsehood, the good from the evil, to promote good only, and circulate only truth. He is morally and solemnly pledged to society to perform that duty, and the confidence which is now universally placed in the bulk of all the statements of newspapers proves that it is in general duly and honourably performed.
When unreflecting persons speak inconsiderately of "the lying press," they must have some standard of comparison which is infinitely more truth-telling. The bar, which notoriously hires out its tongue, like church-bells, to sound any tune, supplies no such standard. Nor does any class of men in their private intercourse. Traders in their dealings, men and women of fashion in their polite communications, surgeons and physicians, and notorious teeth-drawers, to soothe or beguile their patients, with almost every other class, indulge in a license of assertion which finds no counterpart in the newspaper press. Throughout society, anecdotes are put into circulation and readily pass from mouth to mouth which no newspaper would publish. We will say nothing of pulpit discourses but this, that the authors of them, nearly one and all, are pledged, a priori, to Thirty-nine Articles, to Confessions of Faith, to bodies of doctrines, which they have never, scrupulously and unbiased, subjected to examination; and the probability therefore is, that they far less abound in truth than the daily statements of newspapers, which are within every man's comprehension, and open to daily refutation. We must, however, say of literature in general, including scientific treatises, as well as works of acknowledged fiction, with elaborate theories of heaven and earth, and man and animals, that the writing in newspapers contrasts favourably with that as to its truth or falsehood. The newspaper writer continually looks out for facts, and he is continually checked and kept obedient to them by a great multitude of critics. He cannot and dare not indulge, for long periods, in the dreams of imagination. A writer in his closet, who does not bring his lucubrations to the test of day till his volume is completed, and who has gone on, uninfluenced perhaps by facts, in the ruts he and others have worn, is more likely to be in error, and persist in error, than the author of leading articles in a daily newspaper. His party bias, his prejudices and passions, are generally avowed and guarded against, partly by himself and partly by others. Even when he is pledged to an erroneous system, or bound up with a faction, he deals in a great measure with facts, and pretends to diffuse truth. Thus we have seen the monopolist Standard, and Herald, by qualifying a hasty and unguarded statement of the apostle of free trade, become the expounder of a partial truth, in defence of an erroneous system against the champion of one of the holiest causes that ever engaged the attention of mankind. Looking through society it must be affirmed that nowhere, in the practices of mankind, can a standard be found, in comparison to which the press deserves the epithet of lying.
On the contrary, because the press is on the whole truth-telling wherever it predominates in society, sober truth-telling will be the habit of the people. All barbarous tribes at all times have indulged imagination without restraint, or been addicted to lying. The very act of putting pen to paper induces thought and consideration. The slow progress of written composition gives more time for deliberation than spoken language, and a nation of writers will necessarily be more guarded and more correct in its assertions than a nation of speakers. An orator spouts his first crude reflections; a writer can purge and mend his words to be a correct expression of his thoughts. He may have something to conceal, but it is in general to the satisfaction of his enemy that a cunning man writes a book, and preserves a record of himself which may be a witness against him. That he puts his words into a permanent form is, therefore, a check to deceit when a writer wishes to deceive. All necessary communications between man and man are cleansed from grossness and inaccuracy by the filtration of the press. To speak like a book is to speak well, correctly, with good manners, and with truth. To write in that manner is the daily habit of writers for the press; and where they are numerous, where the readers of daily papers are the bulk of society, to speak like a book will be the habit of the people. Falsehood is more common in Ireland, where the influence of the press is of modern origin, and as yet comparatively feebler than in England, where it is far more extensive, and has been longer established. Newspapers in fact practically create that high criterion of truthfulness by which their contents are tested and sometimes condemned.
The press is freer than any other profession to express opinion; it is unfettered by any theory; it is not bound by bribes nor emolument to uphold any system; it is pledged to no creed; it can follow truth wherever it leads. Being dependent on society, it respects the opinions, feelings, and creeds of every class, and would be ashamed of the anathemas which sometimes resound from pulpits; it inculeates toleration by its precepts and by its example, and is not unfrequently condemned by rabid theologians and heated enthusiasts, because it will not depart from its respect for existing opinions. It will not sustain the exaggerated pretensions of any party, and by the ultras of every party its very virtues are thus made a reproach to it. The press has more time to scrutinise, and is more cool to judge of affairs than those who are plunged into the vortex of politics. At the same time it has no means of enforcing its views; it is not backed by bayonets; it can neither dragoon men into submission, nor subdue them by spiritual terrors. Thus, there is enforced on it a respect for reason and a love of justice, as well as a regard for truth; that forbearance, that toleration, that respect for others, which are proper in all, are imperatively and especially required from the press. Its members unite most of the functions of the Levites, except bearing the sword; they teach and they heal, but they are guiltless of using any kind of physical violence. To the ministers of the law—to the members of the bar—they leave the odious task of inflicting penalties, even to death, and of planting evil in the vain hope that good will grow from its root.
The mission of the press, and its origin in the natural system of society, while the bar originates in the political system, supplies a clear explanation of the cause of their mutual hostility. The present temporary quarrel is a mere symptom of the permanent opposition. No class is more imbued with feelings of animosity towards the press than the legal profession. The judges, generally speaking, as well as the barristers, seldom lose an opportunity to have a fling at the newspapers: seldom, too, do they neglect to trounce them, and inflict on them fines and imprisonment, when they have the power. They fear the press, and are always anxious to curb its tongue. Swollen into mock dignity by a corporate monopoly and a share of the privileges of the aristocracy, they submit only to professional rules, and practically set at nought responsibility to society. At the same time they persist in treating all the business of life and all the rights of men according to their own antique and uncouth fashion. They know that addresses to the crown to remove a judge and impeachments are out of date; they know that the bulk of mankind, submissive to their spells, humbly acquiesce in their usurpations. Only now and then some spirited individual impugns a judgment or attacks a legal argument in a newspaper. Only the newspapers, acknowledging in reason a higher power than law, criticise and condemn the proceedings of both barriaters and judges. The legal profession is placed on the confines of responsibility, and the press grapples with it and holds it within the limits. It is daily made to feel its dependency, and vainly tries to escape from subjection to society and the press. The whole legal profession has an instinctive abhorrence of the press, and tries to degrade the power it cannot resist. The two bodies are the antipodes of each other. The one is the champion of reason, the other lives on political superstition. Between them there is permanent discord, and the present quarrel is of that only a symptom.
In the end, the bar will be defeated, and we warn it against the inequality of the contest. The power of the press is as boundless as that of society. It reaches the throne—it is welcomed in the cottage. It can pull down injustice, however lofty, and raise up lowliness, however deep. It castigates crimes which the law cannot reach, and prevents those which the law can only punish, without repressing them. Wherever an eye can see and a hand can write there is the press. Persons in tribulation rely on it for redress, and they feel sure that wrong will not go unpunished if it be known to tho journals. Like light, it penetrates into every nook and cranny of society, and carries help and healing on its beams. It nips rising abuses in the bud. It stops the tide of tyranny when setting in full food. It derives its vast power from the principle of its being. Seeking out truth, and representing reason, it concentrates on one point the whole moral power of society, and persuades and governs, without violence, by the mere knowledge that the physical power of society is always ready to vindicate the right. As it comes into full operation, the course of society becomes uniform and equal, and its ends are obtained without these convulsions and rebellions, by which a rude unlettered people make their will known.
This is the real mission, and these are the high functions of the press. We do not affirm that they are always fulfilled. It is of comparatively modern origin; and those who are devoted to it are scarcely sensible of its vast power, and do not assume all its dignity. The actual press does not reach ideal excellence. Those who conduct it belong to the industrious classes, and must live by their labour. They share in all the evils which still cling to us from conquest having made a slave of the labourer. The degradation heaped on useful industry in the olden times leaves its brand on it still. The do-nothings, deriving their titles and their wealth from a plundering ancestry, on whom, worthless as they are, they are a great improvement, are, in the political system, the ennobled and the honoured classes. Whoever lives by his labour must, to some extent, be subservient to those who possess the property of society, and have inherited usurped political power. The members of the press, being in that predicament, too frequently give up to party what is meant for mankind. They forget that catholic unity which is the characteristic of society, and make themselves the servants of class interests instead of the general welfare.
Like everything human, the press has its imperfections and abuses. Religion has its popes, and the press has its proprietors; men who use it for personal aggrandizement, and to attain political dignities by purchasing and betraying the guardianship of society. Both religion and the press have been perverted into instruments of ambition; and as that was made the means of debasing instead of ennobling mankind, so this is sometimes used by its party, masters, and proprietors, to concoct fraud and disseminate falsehood. It is them as bad as a hired soldier, who fights, not for right, bet fer pay. Like barristers, it takes foes to maintain the wrong: but while that is their essential characteristic,—the rule of their conduct: in the press it is a departure from the principle of its existence. It is a pollution to be deplored and by ail means got rid of. When the press takes fees like the barristers, when domineered over by party leaders, or perverted by proprietors, it is then indeed degraded to the level of a cunning priesthood or the insincere bar.
But with all its present imperfections and faults, the press is acceptable to society at large. No man except an oppressor likes to have anything to do with a lawyer, and he uses him only as a tool which it is unpleasant to handle. No man is willingly without a newspaper. Paley thought the rough disorder of English freedom, the want of courtesy which is the national characteristic, and all the evils of warm political discussion, cheaply purchased by the amusement and instruction of a newspaper. Cowper describes it as:—
"The folio of four pages, happy work
Which not e'en critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention while I read
Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break;
What is it but a map of busy life,—
Its fluctuation and its vast concerns?"
But the folio of four pages has now swelled to a folio of eight pages, sixteen pages, and even twenty pages. Locomotion has scarcely improved more than newspapers since Cowper wrote, and is mot more subservient than they are toe the general welfare. Every man looks daily for his newspaper. Were the judges to abdicate, and the courts to suspend their functions, no man would at once miss and regret them, except for the loss of a column of amusement in the newspaper; but the day and the hour when the postman "with his twanging horn," "the herald of a noisy world," or the mail train leaving its great bags of almost a ton weight of letters, should go to its destination without newspapers, would be full of consternation. We cannot picture the general alarm, the fidgetty uneasiness of the merchant looking for accounts of the arrival of his ships, or of the state of the markets, on which his whole daily business is dependent; and the fright of the timid owner of public securities, or of the well-paid functionaries of the government,—which would spread itself into innumerable conjectures as to what commotion could have laid an embargo on the newspaper. For the mail to arrive without the journals, would be like the approach of day followed by no rising sun. Whenever the fact is alluded to, every man becomes instantly sensible that society could not exist in its present wonderful ramifications without newspapers. They are not merely the offspring of the natural system of society, they are essential parts of it, which will outlive the throne and the peerage.