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general, or upon that of our own particular country; that he may analyse the principles of its constitution, point out its errors and defects, examine and publish its corruptions, warn his fellow citizens against their ruinous consequences, and exert his whole faculties in pointing out the most advantageous changes in establishments which he considers to be radically defective, or sliding from their object by abuse. All this every subject of this country has a right to do if he contemplates only what he thinks would be for its advantage, and but seeks to change the public mind by the conviction which flows from reasonings dictated by conscience. If, indeed, he writes what he does not think; if, contemplating the misery of others, he wickedly condemns what his own understanding approves, or even admitting his real disgust against the government or its corruptions, if he calumniates living magistrates, or holds out to individuals that they have a right to run before the public mind in their conduct; that they may oppose by contumacy or force what private reason only disapproves; that they may disobey the law because their judgement condemns it, or resist the public will because they honestly wish to change it-he is then a criminal upon every principle of English justice, because such person seeks to disunite individuals from their duty to the whole, and excites to overt acts of misconduct in a part of the community, instead of endeavouring to change, by the impulse of reason, that universal assent which in this and every country constitutes the law for all.'

Lord Cockburn discusses the whole matter with much care, yet we cannot think that he succeeds in reducing the uncertainty which inevitably surrounds the practical operation of the law of sedition. Sedition consisting in wickedly producing political mischief, the whole question of what is political mischief is open in every case, and will be honestly answered very differently not only by juries at different periods of our history, but at the same period by different juries. One main element in every charge of sedition must be a mere matter of opinion, about which honest men, whether judges or jurymen, may, and very probably will, differ. Lord Kenyon's famous charge to the jury in Cutbill's case is, of course, a giving up of the attempt to define the crime; yet it does describe most truly what is the practical operation of the law :

After all,' said Lord Kenyon, the truth of the matter is very simple, when stripped of all the ornaments of speech, and a man of plain common sense may easily understand it. It is neither more nor less than this, that a man may publish anything which twelve of his countrymen may think is not blameable, but that he ought to be punished if he publishes that which is blameable. To tell us that to the law of England liberty of the press is dear, but that licentiousness of the press is odious, helps us little.'

In other words, says Sir James Stephen in commenting on

this charge, the jury are ex post facto censors of the press. So they are. And for the liberty of discussion which now prevails we have to thank much more the sentiment of the time shared in by jurymen than any special merit in the law. In Sir James Stephen's Digest of the Criminal Law' is to be found the latest attempt to lay down comprehensively the law of sedition (see articles of Digest 91-94). The law so stated received the approval of the very learned judges who constituted the Criminal Law Commission, and was incorporated by them in their draft code, so that it would not be easy to find any general statement of the existing law resting upon higher authority. These articles, after declaring it to be a misdemeanour to publish any matter, by speaking or writing, with a seditious intention, proceed as follows (art. 93):

'A seditious intention is an intention to bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against, the person of her Majesty, her heirs and successors, or the government and constitution of the United Kingdom as by law established, or either House of Parliament, or the administration of justice, or to excite her Majesty's subjects to attempt. otherwise than by lawful means the alteration of any matter in Church or State as by law established, or to raise discontent or disaffection amongst her Majesty's subjects, or to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of her Majesty's subjects. An intention to show that her Majesty has been misled or mistaken in her measures, or to point out errors or defects in the government or constitution as by law established, or to point out in order to their removal matters which are producing, or have a tendency to produce, feelings of hatred and ill-will between different classes of her Majesty's subjects, is not a seditious intention.'

The liberty of discussion at present enjoyed in England is certainly not due to the establishment by law, either statute or judge made, of any sweeping principle of freedom to English subjects to write or say what they like without fear of punishment. A century ago the natural right to free communication of thoughts and opinions was proclaimed in France as one of the most valuable rights of 'man.' Nothing of the kind is known to our law. Liberty of discussion with us merely means the right to publish sentiments and opinions without previous license, but subject always to the risk of punishment should the matter published appear to a jury to deserve it; and hence this liberty' has varied at different times and seasons from unrestricted license to very severe restraint, according to the state of popular sentiment. However carefully lawyers may

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*Freedom of discussion is, in England, little else than the right to

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endeavour to define sedition, Lord Cockburn is certainly right in declaring that its confines are so easily and unconsciously passed that a good deal of the crime must be 'winked at.' It is rarely wise to indict for a single act of sedition, unless that act is a very atrocious one. But when 'sedition, by the open repetition of the crime, plainly means to throw down the gauntlet to the law, the guilty should never get the encouragement of a triumph by the law being compelled to decline the challenge.'

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The wisdom of prosecuting for sedition evidently depends more upon the effects likely to be produced by a continuance of the sedition than upon the guilt or wickedness of the accused. A strong government can afford to despise words, however criminal and wicked, which do not endanger society or directly tend to a breach of the law. Now, as half a century ago, it is the insane blackguardism of Ireland' (to quote Lord Cockburn's expression) which most of all indulges in the language of insult and defamation of public officials. Yet Mr. Balfour would not dream of indicting anyone for mere abuse. When, however, newspapers are poisoning the minds of an excitable people with exhortations to outrage and incitements to rebellion, even Sir George Trevelyan clamours for additional legal restrictions on the liberty of the press.

Lord Cockburn's reflections on the law of sedition appear opportunely, and though they certainly do not make clear for purposes of practical application the line which divides the lawful from the unlawful, they nevertheless throw light on the subject, and deserve the careful consideration of lawyers and statesmen.

write or say anything which a jury, consisting of twelve shopkeepers, think it expedient should be said or written.' See Professor Dicey's admirable Law of the Constitution,' where the whole of this subject is well treated.

VOL. CLXIX. NO. CCCXLVI.

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ART. V.-1. Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Poor Law Relief. Ordered to be printed July 30, 1888.

2. The English Poor Law System. By Dr. P. F. ASCHROTT. Translated by H. PRESTON-THOMAS. London: 1888.

3. Proceedings of Poor Law Conferences, 1877-87. 10 vols. London.

AMONGST the numerous beneficial measures which have been

carried since 1830 the reform of the Poor Law bears, more than any other, the character of finality. The Commissioners who reported on the subject in 1834 laid bare a state of things which called for immediate and drastic treatment. They found that in the country districts the administration of the poor laws was bringing about disastrous results. Rent was gradually but surely disappearing, the cultivation of land, nay, civilisation itself, was going the way of rent. Profits were being swallowed up by the rise of poor rates, or destroyed by the inefficiency of labour. The allowance system had lowered wages by enabling the idle and improvident to compete on advantageous terms for employment with the industrious and independent labourer. Population was stimulated by a system which gave a bounty on every child born, whether in or out of wedlock. Throughout England, south of the Trent, the traveller found landlord and tenant involved in a common ruin, whilst the labourer, helpless and demoralised, was yet discontented and riotous. Whatever criticisms may be passed on the legislation to which the celebrated Report of 1834 gave rise, it was, at least, far-reaching in its aims and in its effects. It abolished, as by a stroke of the pen, the system by which wages were augmented from the rates; it instituted a severe test of destitution by attaching to relief in many cases the condition of residence in a workhouse; it introduced more or less of uniformity into the administration of the law by establishing a central Poor Law Board and a rigorous check by inspection and audit: in one word, it laid down broad lines which the administration of the reformed law was to follow in the future, and gave guarantees that those lines should be followed. This is not the place to enter upon a detailed account of the immediate results of that legislation. They have passed into history, and may be studied in the Blue Books of the day, in the literature of successive 'movements,' in contemporary fiction. For a time the poor law

absorbed public attention and monopolised conversation in the country. Pray, do not be too long at the Board of 'Guardians to-day,' are the parting words of one of Disraeli's heroines to her neighbour as she leaves the diningroom at Beaumanoir.* 'Peel, in or out, will support the 'Poor Law,' is Lord Marney's summing up of the political situation.t

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To quote a once popular phrase, a great deal has hap'pened since then.' We have had Liberal and Conservative Governments, we have seen Chartism come and go and Socialism take its place, population has increased by leaps ' and bounds' and capital has increased yet faster, crisis in commerce has succeeded crisis with a regularity which has seemed to justify a cyclical theory of their appearance, depression has followed in the wake of speculation and with revival has come speculation anew, gold and silver have been appreciated and depreciated by turns, vast numbers of our own labourers have left our shores and a swarm of foreigners have taken their place: in short, there has been a rare variety of phenomena to perplex the economic student; but throughout the reformed poor law has held its own. There have been changes, but they are changes of detail rather than of principle. In a restless age the question of legal relief has been wellnigh suffered to slumber. But there are not wanting signs at the present time of a renewed interest in the subject. The wave of philanthropy which has passed over us in the last few years could hardly help breaking against the almost unique provision which the State in England makes for the destitute. In the recent election to county councils the poor law question was put prominently forward. It has been the subject of conversations and of motions in Parliament, it is once more discussed with much warmth and some knowledge. We cannot say that we augur wholly well of the present movement. Much of what passes in the House of Commons, many of the utterances of the public press, will remind students of history of the discussions which were rife in the closing years of the last century, when the Legislature, reflecting public opinion, sowed the seed that grew with such fearful rapidity, and the harvest of which was reaped in the dismal years immediately preceding reform.

The works at the head of this article are an evidence that public interest is aroused. We have long lacked a com

* Coningsby, book iii. chap. iii.

† Sybil, book ii. chap. i.

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