A Word on Freedom of the Press to the Honest Countryfolk of Tyrol

A word on freedom of the press to the honest countryfolk of Tyrol.

Freedom of the press has been granted to us! — Do you know what freedom of the press means? — It means that anyone can have whatever they have thought and written printed without hindrance, and distribute it further through the press. — Hitherto this was not so. — If anyone wanted to have something printed, they had first to submit it to an office known as the censorship. In this office, the manuscript intended for print was read through beforehand, and if it contained anything by which state institutions were censured, the printing was prohibited. — This prohibition was issued without regard to whether the censure expressed was just or unjust. No matter how fine, no matter how instructive for the people the content of a text might be, if it did not unconditionally approve everything decreed by the government, the path to publication through the press was closed to it. — That is how it was with us. — How could an improvement in public affairs be expected under such circumstances? — And how utterly differently must things now take shape among us, when everyone is permitted to speak out freely and candidly about public affairs? — A contest of opinions will arise; a peaceful contest in which you too, dear friends, will take part; and as the result of this contest, a definite, well-grounded, sensible view on public affairs will gradually form among you, that is, among the people. The view that becomes predominant among the people in this manner is called public opinion, and it is this which, in free, constitutional states—to whose ranks we now also belong—passes laws and grants taxes. It does this through the representatives chosen by the people in its spirit. Public opinion is thus the first and most important prime mover in the course of government in constitutional countries, and the fact that this, namely public opinion, is primarily an outcome of the free press, is where the supreme importance of the latter resides. — Let us grasp the matter even more simply. — I say: what is recognized by the people as harmful, as unsuitable, cannot be maintained against the people's will where freedom of the press exists. In thousands upon thousands of pamphlets and books, public indignation makes itself known and compels, with irresistible force, the abandonment of what the people have recognized as bad and its replacement with something better. Do you think, for example, that our high salt prices hitherto would not long since have been lowered if we had possessed freedom of the press? Do you think that the arrangement existing with regard to the excise, under which many wealthy private individuals drink their wine tax-free, while the common man must pay tax on every drop he drinks, could have been maintained until now if every free word about such an abuse had not been denied us by press restriction? — Or do you think the unpopular Stamp Act of 1840 would still exist if the voice of the people and of the sensible among the people had been allowed to speak openly about it through the press? — Yes, all of this, and a great deal more that was not hitherto as it should have been, would have been different, or rather what happened could never have happened, had not the press hitherto been placed in chains among us, and free speech restrained. I could tell you a great deal more about the inestimable value of freedom of the press, not merely for nations as such, but for humanity in general; yet I believe what has been stated will suffice to make clear to you that the gift bestowed upon us by our gracious monarch through the grant of freedom of the press is of immeasurable importance for the welfare of our land and of the entire Austrian imperial state. — Do not let yourselves be led astray if someone says to you that freedom of the press is reprehensible, because the Catholic religion and morality are endangered by it. To be sure, where freedom of the press exists, anyone may have printed whatever they wish; but with freedom of the press there is always linked a repressive law, that is to say, a law whereby anyone who abuses the freedom of the press to blaspheme the prevailing religion, to offend public morality, or to injure the honour of other citizens, becomes subject to judicial investigation and punishment. So it is everywhere that freedom of the press exists, and so it will be with us. That freedom of the press cannot, despite this, be abused by certain wicked individuals, I by no means deny; but where was there ever a human institution that was subject to no abuse? — In any case, the good that accrues from freedom of the press for the welfare of nations is infinitely preponderant, — and this suffices. Moreover, if those accusations against freedom of the press were true, if specifically the Catholic religion were in danger because of it, do you suppose our Holy Father, the Pope, would have granted freedom of the press to his own peoples? — He has granted it to them, and indeed full, unrestricted freedom of the press. — In Munich too, the pious Archbishop Count Reisach has spoken out publicly in favour of freedom of the press, and a multitude of other Catholic clergymen has declared for it in the German chambers. Be assured, if freedom of the press were something reprehensible, if it were incompatible with the true Catholic faith, the Holy Father Pius IX, whom the whole of Christendom honours and admires as a paragon of wisdom and true piety, would rather have suffered death tenfold than have given his assent to so dangerous an innovation in his states, and the many pious priests who in Germany and Italy have declared for freedom of the press would rather have earned the palm of martyrdom than have confirmed and approved something that ran contrary to their conviction in the holiest of matters. — Receive, therefore, the gift of freedom of the press, which our monarch has magnanimously granted us, as an inestimable pledge of the public good with gratitude, and if anyone tries to persuade you that something dangerous to the Catholic religion lies behind it, appeal to the example of the Holy Father, and say that it is a sin to want to be more Catholic than the Pope. —