GOVERNMENT PROSECUTIONS OF THE PRESS.
SOME facts have lately transpired relative to the prosecution of the Brighton Guardian, which put that proceeding in an especially odious point of view. It will be recollected, that a paragraph reflecting on the conduct of the Sussex Magistrates induced those gentlemen to prosecute the editor of the Guardian; who was found guilty, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. It now turns out that a committee of the Magistrates prevailed upon Lord MELBOURNE, then Home Secretary, to promise payment of the expenses of the prosecution : but we are glad to find it stated by Sir CHARLES BLUNT, the Member for Lewes, that his Lordship acted under the supposition that the Magistracy as a body concurred in the proceedings, and that he was ignorant of the fact, that Mr. Comm was not the author of the libel, and had apo'eeised for its accidental insertion. The self-constituted committee of the Sussex Magistracy carefully suppressed these mows .1sees, when begging the public money to enable them to crust "i'T. independent journalist obnoxious to their displeasure. The object of the prosecutors was not the defence of their own character; what that object really was, is apparent. Sir CH ARLES BLUNT, in a letter published in Thursday's Times, thus alludes to it " I will not trust myself to make an • comment upon this hitherto hidden object. It at once dispels the cloud that has tendered the course pursued by the committee (of Magistrates) so indistinct and so unusual ; it accounts for the rejection of Mr. C'ohen's offered atonement ; and well accords with that part a the sentence which imprisoned the defendant in the gaol of a distant county, aed far removed front the office of his paper."
Sir CHARLES acted with a due regard to his own high character, when he refused any longer to sit on the same bench with men
whose "views of justice differ so essentially from his own." Ho has washed his hands of this unworthy transaction. We wish that the new Premier could say the same. But although his ignorance of certain facts, which he ought to have been made ac
quainted with, extenuates Lord MELBOURNE'S misconduet in this affair, still his willingness to gratify Magisterial spleen is a blot
upon his administration of the Home department. The circum stance creates and leaves a sore feeling in the public mind, that may work him annoyance, should the time arrive, as it probably will, when he will be compelled to resort to popular support to prop up his Administration against the efforts of the Peers and the Court.
When the prosecution of a newspaper is resolved upon, it appears to shortsighted politicians a very trivial affair; but it turns
out to be a matter of moment. " Plain JOHN CAMPBELL " has discovered this : his prosecution of the 7'rue Sun will stick to him for years; and it is gratifying to find that the employment of a
law, denounced, however insincerely, by the first authority in the Government as unjust and oppressive, is productive of annoyance and injury to these consistent statesmen themselves.
Another circumstance connected with this proceeding deserves notice. When Lord ALTHOltP was asked by Mr. Hums if the expenses of the prosecution of the BrOton Guardian were defrayed out of the public money, his Lordship replied, that he knew nothing of such payment. Mr. BARING, the new Secretary of the Treasury, said that he was not aware of it. Mr. Secretary RICE said, that he had been Secretary of the Treasury longer than Mr. BARING, and that if such a payment had been made, it was without his knowledge. Here we have a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the present and late Secretaries of the Treasury, denying all knowledge of a payment which had been mentioned in most of the newspapers, and had been the subject of comment in some. But the next day, Lord ALTHORP confessed that the expenses had been paid by Government ; though from what fund, or by whose au
thority, nobody could say. This is the way in which public business is transacted. The fact is, that our great men depend upon underlings for their information. They are not habituated to the details of business ; anti their ignorance and mistakes ought in courtesy to be forgiven thern,by a nation which insists upon having an aristocracy for its rulers.
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