xxv] THRE MERITS OF THE CONTROVERSY. 899
begged to retire from the personal part of the controversy.

There can now be very little difference of opinion among
candid men as to the merits of the controversy. It is hardly
possible to deny two propositions ; first, that the interpretation
 by the Times of what had been said at Rochdale was
plainly unjust, heedless, and calumnious ; second, that Mr,
Delane’s attempt to explain away the imputation of violence
and spoliation was wholly unsuccessful. No editor ever
stambled into a more palpable scrape, nor chose a less
fortunate way out of it. The simple and manly course
which the Editor of the Times ought to have taken was
to say something of this kind ;:—*“ My article was written
in good faith. It is possible, however, that the writer may
have been led by certain conscious or unconscious prepossessions
 against the speakers to read something in Mr.
Bright’s speech and in yours which was not literally there.
I now see, looking at the speeches more carefully, that your
words could not bear the construction that was put upon
them, and that your complaint is justified. I will, as Editor,
publicly retract an imputation which I now perceive to have
been erroneous.”
As this apology was not forthcoming, Cobden was entirely
 justified in publicly seizing Mr. Delane by name, and
fixing upon him personally the misdemeanour for which
he contumaciously made himself answerable. Anonymous
journalism may be tolerated and defended on account of
certain incidental conveniences—~Cobden himself wrote
plenty of anonymous articles—but the system cannot be
invoked to protect the writer or the conductor of a public
print from liability to be called publicly to account in case
of persistent and proved misrepresentation. On the other
hand, it can hardly be denied that Cobden put himself in
the wrong by accusing the conductors of the Times of cor-1868.


Ar. 59.