The Press. — London, England, 1854-06-10 00:00:00

JUNE 10, 1854. retained it within my own knowledge, without communicating it to the Duke. Am Ito understand that if you had been aware of the circumstance, and if you were aware that that circumstance had not been mentioned in Mr. Stonor's letter to the Duke o f Newcastle, soliciting tho appointment, you would have considered it incumbent upon you, in discharge of your duty in the position you hold, to have mentioned the fact to the Duke of Newcastle ?—Undoubtedly. You would have considered it a dereliction of duty not to have done so ?-41 very great and agruas dereliction of :hay, on account of the peculiarly confidential position in which individually I was placed in the Colonial-office. These replies of Mr. ROBERTS seem to re flect with great severity upon Mr. MERIYALE. But the latter gentleman, on further examina tion, reiterates his previous assertion of having mentioned Mr. STONOR'S acts at Mr. TOWNLEY'S election. He again says (394) : I have a most distinct reCollictic; of using the words, but I cannot say more than I did yesterday. To which of the two I used the words I do not know ; I can hardly imagine that it was to any one else. My impression is that probably it was to his grace. I remember that I haci no answer; from which my own inference is, that I spoke hastily in a conversation, and alluded to something which I thought was understood. My allusion escaped notice altogether ; that is my impression. I certainly remember using the words very distinctly, And under examination by Mr. HORSMAN he says, with reference to the printed paper about the Sligo affair, that (398) "he took for " granted the Duke must have read it, and " been aware of its contents, and that he " thought, also, that the thing was notorious " amongst parliamentary people and others." And on the latter point we think that " par liamentary people" of both Houses will concur with Mr. MERIVALE. Our readers ara already aware how the Duke had overlooked the printed statement enclosed to him by Mr. STONOR, but not referred to in that gentleman's letter of application. After severely blaming Mr. MoonE for his having brought charges of political corruption on insufficient grounds against the Duke of NEWCASTLE, the Committee conclude their Report with the following censure on the Colo nial Department : But your committee are also unanimously of opinion that in filling up the vacancy which had occured in the office of a judge in the colony of Victoria a want of due caution aid discrimination was evinced by the Colonial Department, and that no sufficient care was taken to ensure compliance with the wishes of the Lieutenant-Governor of the colony, or to satisfy the requirements of the public service. Thus the condemnation is made general, and the various officials all get some asper sion. But we might have supposed that one of those statesmen who so pride them selves on their administrative aptitude could not have blundered so much as the Duke of NEWCASTLE appears to have done. Apart from any reference to Sligo electioneering, it would appear that a " conveyancer " was not exactly the person suitable for a colonial judge. Bar. risters who look for colonial promotion do not attach themselves to the equity department of the profession, but go circuit, and attend the courts of common law. A judge for the " Supreme Court of Victoria ' ought. to be practised in dealing with facts, and habitually conversant with all the rules of evidence. An arbiter in cases of life and death, he should have been accustomed to the emergencies of common-law practice (so much more urgent than those of a " conveyancer"). The Lieute nant-Governor of the colony applied to the Secretary of State for a " thoroughly competent " third judge" (Report, p. 7), and alluded in his despatch to " the rapidly-increasing " pressure of the public business," and to " the public requirements at the central " court, and on circuit." And he then pro seeds to state that, after consulting the Execu tive Council, they were unanimously of opinion that in the present peculiar circumstances of the colony the members are unanimous in considering that I have no alter native but to apply to your grace for assistance, and to request that you will be pleased to select a thoroughly qualified officer to fill the vacancy ; one, ij poesibk, whose standing will at once justify the 'pleasure which I take upon me to recom mend. lam impressed with the importance that, under the present circumstances and prospects of the colony, the judicial bench should be filled by men not only possessed of unimpeachabk character, and general qualifications which may command the public respect, but also of high legal attain ments. And in answer to that pressing request, made with such peculiar emphasis, his Grace the Duke (if NEWCASTLE selected from the bars of England and Ireland the " conveyancer " Mr. STONOR, with whose antecedents he was not familiar, though, according to his Under- THE PRESS. Secretary of State, they were supposed to be " notorious to all parliamentary people" ! Far more severe than the words of the Committee is the effect left upon the mind on reading the Lieutenant-Governor's despatch, and thinking that the Colonial-office had actually to cashier its appointee. REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, &c., FOR LONDON. ON this subject Lord EBRINGTON has published a thoughtful pamphlet, which well deserves the consideration of public men. Its author belongs to a class of politicians unknown ex cept in England, and even here not very com mon—the unobtrusively useful—those who, destitute of ambition, and not specially soli citous about popularity, content themselves with assiduous, generally unrewarded, labours in some department of social progress. Sani tary, educational, and poor-law questions are Lord EBRINGTON'S peculiar field ; and, dry as to most persons these subjects appear, it is indis putable that the habitual study of them has communicated to his style nothing of statisti cal pedantry or dryness. His argument may be briefly summed up as follows : London is at present, and long has been, without a government, its inhabitants living in a state of theoretical anarchy which only English good sense prevents from being the cause of serious evils. London, taking the area included in the bills of mortality, con tains in round numbers 120 square miles, two and-a-half million of inhabitants, and property assessed at more than 12,000,0001. a year. In other words, the population of London exceeds that of Scctland, and constitutes one-eighth part of that of England and Wales ; while the assessed property amounts to one-eighth of that similarly assessed in the whole of Great Britain. The City, on the other hand, con tains one square mile, and 120,000 inhabitants, being less than one-twentieth of the area and less than one-tenth of the population of the metropolis ; its government is, as all the world knows, specially provided for—not, perhaps, in the most satisfactory manner—but still in a manner preferable to the absence of all ad ministration, such as prevails elsewhere. The question now is—how to give to all London, not merely to that fraction of it which bears the distinguishing name of " City," self-govern ment of the representative kind ? The necessity which exists for some such step needs no proof. The local acts regulating metropolitan concerns are equally innumerable and unknown. There are eighty distinct local jurisdictions, " many of which coincide neither " with parish, nor union, nor police district, " nor with any other recognised division." Two sides of the same street are sometimes under separate paving boards. The local acts, besides having cost large sums to pass them through Parliament, are obscure and prolific of lawsuits. To take one instance out of many of the effects of this multiplication of authorities—it is found that seven or eight distinct bodies, public and private, have legal power to take up the street pavement. Hence the perpetual and most inconvenient block ades to which metropolitan residents are liable, involving an enormous waste of money and much injury to the roadway. Other more serious evils force themselves daily on our notice. The state of the Thames is notorious, and needs no mention. Sanitary precautions are everywhere neglected ; and the question is, not how to palliate all this mischief, but how permanently to remedy it, and prevent its re currence ? The schemes most generally suggested are— a. The creation of a Metropolitan Corpora tion, including all London. 2. The division of London into a multitude of separate boroughs, adjoining one another, but unconnected and independent. 3. The establishment of a governing Board of Commissioners under the presidency of a parliamentary Minister. All these projects Lord Esau-tons reviews and rejects in turn. Against tho first he 531 urges the danger of creating an imperium in imperio—of making London govern England, as Paris governs (or used to govern) France ; and the chance of collisions between the im perial authority and the chief magistrate of a municipality so enormously overgrown. These objections are weighty; and we be lieve that they are generally felt to be so. The plan of a metropolitan mayor ruling over one twelfth of the population of these islands is not supported, so far as we know, by any class of politicians. The third plan, that of Commissioners ap pointed by the Crown, finds little favour in Lord Esnmoroa's eyes, and still less in ours. Sanitarists have for the most part some tinc ture of bureaucratic ideas, from which his lordship is not wholly exempt ; but he ad mits that the being taxed by an irrespon sible authority would " engender discontent," which would most certainly, and most justly, be the case. This proposition, therefore, is also set aside. "But why not divide London into boroughs ?" A query often put, and not so easily replied to as the others. There is a good deal to be said in favour of the idea. It is simple—it gets rid of the difficulty of enormous num oers—it places the metropolis on precisely the same footing as any provincial town. Lord EHRINOTON, however, points out, sensibly enough, the inconvenience arising out of a divided responsibility, where—as in sanitary matters—unity of action is the first requisite. The sewerage of London is actually under seven independent commissions. And mark the result. One division has been drained on a different level from the rest, and to repair this error a quarter of a million is wanted. The same objection holds in the case of thoroughfares, plans for purifying the Thames, police, and many minor concerns. Even if there be no jealousy, the division of power impairs efficiency. Offices are multiplied; each official has less to do ; salaries are, for economy's sake, made lower, whereby the best candidates are prevented from applying, and persons of inferior skill occupy their place. An instance of this is supplied in the Con solidated Sewers Commission, which (lid more work, at a lower rate, than all its seven pre decessors. Rejecting, therefore, the three propositions hitherto discussed for the government of London, Lord EHRINOTON proceeds to suggest one of his own, of which we have only space to insert the leading features. He would assign the various functions of administration to different bodies, each having a local authority extending over the whole metropolis, but each limited to its own special duty, and devoid of all other power. The details of this plan are worked out at considerable length, and with much suggestive ingenuity. Without expressing a decisivo opinion on Lord EBRINOTON'S scheme, we unhesitatingly say that lie deserves well of the public for proposing it, and that it merits a close and careful scrutiny. JUDICIAL OPINIONS ON AN EX-LORD OF THE TREASURY. THE Court of Exchequer in Ireland has, within the last few days, given an indirect opinion on the dis cretion shown by the Coalition in its choice of Mr. JOHN SADLEIR for a Lord of the Treasury. In another of the interminable phases of the scandalous case of "Crotty and Dowling," the Lord Chief Baron (Nom.) stated "that the arrest of the defendant " was contrary to all conscience, law, and equity, " and it should be most strongly condemned." lie was followed by Baron PENNEFATHER, who also re ferred to Mr. JOHN SADLEIR in a style that must have been anything but gratifying to that gentleman, recording, with minute particularity, certain incidents in the case that Mr. SADLEIR would willingly have consigned to oblivion. Baron RICHARDS also chro nicled "the misconduct of Mr. Summit," and how he " had grievously but properly suffered for it." It is on record that Mr. SADLEIR was the first of " the Irish party " to hint publicly, in a speech at a Carlow dinner, upon the feasibility of a Coalition ; and some Roman Catholic prelate soon after cautioned his flock against Mr. SADLEIR'S projects. The certificates given to him by the Barons of the Exchequer at Dublin will not, we presume, be put into envelopes, along with other testimonials in his favour from the Duke of NEwcaeme and the Earl of ABIRDEXN mu -