If it should be objected that the abuse here stated, and undeniably proved by judicial and patient trials as well as minute statistical inquiries, proves no more against trades' unions in general, than murders would prove the unlawfulness of keeping arms in general, we must observe that the cases are not the same, for trades' unions, if they are for the purpose of extorting higher wages are unlawful as well as unjust on moral grounds, in their principle; that according to the natural course of things, according to the universal character of man, they must lead to oppression and great abuse, as they have done every where, though they need indeed not lead to assassination; but that with regard to this latter point, we ought also to remember, that these awful effects of trades' unions took place not with nations, where murder is common, but with the Scottish among other nations-a people not prone by any means to violent crimes.

It is not necessary here to mention that unions among the working classes for charitable purposes, and mutual support in distress, are lawful and highly laudable.

(1) Report of the Trial of Thomas Hunter, Peter Hacket, &c. Operative Cotton Spinners in Glasgow, before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, January, 1838, for the crimes of illegal conspiracy and murder. By Archbald Swinton, Edinb. 1838.

(2) With regard to Ireland, see Mr. O'Connell's speech, Mirror of Parliament, February 4, 1838.

I would refer the reader to an article on Trades' Unions and Strikes, in the Edinburgh Review, for April, 1838, replete with most interesting facts and statistics.

See also Miss Martineau's Tale of the Manchester Strike.

Respecting combinations in general, see Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1825. Also, T. Gibson's opinion, in Hall's Journal of Jurisprudence, 226.

With reference to "Combinations round the Sovereign," see Hallam, Const. Hist. ii, 445.

CHAPTER IV.

Liberty of the Press -Primordial Right of Communion.-Journalism.-High moral Obligations of Editors.-Temptations in the way of Editors - Power of Leaders, good or bad, rests upon their seizing upon that principle which is the moving Agent of the Mass.-In what the Power of leading Papers consists. Conditions which give great power to single Papers.-Populous Capitals in Connexion with the Influence of Papers.Obligation of Veracity peculiarly strong for Editors.-Political Importance of gentlemanlike Tone.-Publishing private Letters.-Dangers of Newspaper Flippancy. The Political Position of the Clergyman.-Opinion of ancient Theologians. How far the Clergyman ought to share in the Politics of his Country.

XXXIX. IT has been seen that the liberty of the press, or communion by print, belongs properly to the general and primordial right of communion, and ought to be abridged, in a general manner, only by way of exception, with those nations, who under the developing influence of civilisation, have arrived at a distinct perception of rights, for instance, in a besieged fortress. Communion is absolutely necessary for men, and the free intercommunion of minds by means of print is as necessary for the existence of civilised society, as the word of mouth for the daily intercourse of men. The story, reported by Elian is too pointed a caricature of the restriction of communion, not to be mentioned here. A certain tyrant Tryzus prohibited talking, in order to prevent dangerous combinations among the citizens. They resorted to communion by gestures; these too were prohibited. The citizens obeyed; but it so hap

pened that some general misfortune touched all of them so deeply that they were on the point of breaking forth in tears. These symptoms of their feelings would likewise have been a sort of communion, and Tryzus ordered his police to prevent and prohibit weeping in the market. Upon this, at length, some idea of individual and primordial right, indefeasible by government-and that of sighing or crying, it should appear, must be acknowledged to be one-occurred to the patient burghers, they revolted, and the tyrant was slain. (1)

Yet the press is a power, a gigantic power; and can it not in turn become tyrannical, as well as other powers can? The press, and especially the newspaper press, which with its whole organization, and all its qualities and power, is now termed journalism, has been mentioned already as one of the mightiest agents in all that interests society, and expecially in politics, peculiar to our own times, of which neither the ancients nor the middle ages knew any thing. It not only gives increased rapidity, and, in many cases, greater vigor, at least for a time, to political action, for better or worse, but it gives a new intensity as well as rapidity of action to public opinion, and, even where it is best regulated, it draws before the public a thousand transactions or events, which without it would have remained strictly private, and by the force of public opinion, submits individuals to some sort of public trial. I do not speak here of common cases of slander, but of such cases which, however private in their origin, oblige the individual to pay regard to public opinion, simply because the case has once been touched upon by the papers, and the reputation of an individual is at stake, or it becomes otherwise necessary to disabuse the com

munity. For instance, a London physician of eminence was lately suspected not to have rendered that speedy and humane assistance to a friend traveling in his company on the railroad and suddenly falling sick, which it was believed he ought to have rendered. A long controversy and several statements by the physician and his friends, exculpating him by proof of facts, were the consequence. It would have little availed the physician to go to law, for something was at stake which never could have fully been established by a legal trial, bound as it necessarily is to fixed forms, and to a fixed sphere. Here the press subjected a private individual to a trial of its own. Similar instances are daily occurring. It is not maintained that this is to be deplored. I merely speak for the present of the fact, namely, the new and great power of the press. Very frequently indeed it reëstablishes reputation, however bitter the trial may be through which the individual must submit, in being unceremoniously handled by just and unjust, honorable and malignant editors. Without the press, rankling slander would go on, and, never being openly inquired into and satisfactorily contradicted, would be taken for truth in that circle in which it became known, or would leave sinister suspicion. (2)

Whenever a vast new agent of society is brought into play, it lasts some time before it adapts itself to the laws and the laws to it; it was so when Christianity became a vast social agent, or when the commons or third estate rose in importance, power and political consciousness, or when the reformation became a great agent or diffused knowledge; and it appears to me that upon examination it will be found, that one of the main problems of our times is, and for a long time to come

will remain, how this agent of the public press, unequaled perhaps in power, at any rate in movability, by any previous one, is properly to co-exist with the rights of the individual and of society and the state collectively. The struggle, through which all great problems must necessarily pass, has only begun, and we find on the one hand as much tryannical abuse of this mighty power, as, on the other hand, we find fruitless or ruinous endeavors to disown its naturalness and necessity in the course of civilisation as has always been the case, when new agents come into existence and play. Crowns have been lost because those who wore them would shut their eyes against it, or attempted to strangle it; and societies have been convulsed because the press would act as though it were an agent which justly possessed absolute power. The ministers of Charles X, in their report of July 26, 1830, which preceded the fatal decree, that "The liberty of the periodical press is suspended," had this passage: "At all periods, indeed, has the periodical press been only, and it is in its nature to be only, an instrument of disorder and sedition.” (3) The same has been said at times, for similar reasons, against printing in general, against the claim of the people freely to read the bible, against natural philosphy, the study of which was actually abolished in the Spanish universities by a decree of Ferdinand VII.; and against all inquiry indeed. The press forms a subject similar to a thousand others; the question is not, shall we rule with or without it? It may be interesting by way of speculation to inquire whether it would be better for mankind were there no press; but it is a wholly fruitless inquiry in politics; for the press is a fact, a given condition of our period just as much as the soil