The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-23 00:00:00

the intervention of their powerful and unscru pulous protectors ? Farther, it seems that even the renunciation of these advantages by their possessor cannot deprive him of them , and that, if it is desired to ground a quarrel upon the violated rights of eitizenship, the disavowal of all such citizenship will pass un noticed. The case may one day be our own : something analogous did actually occur at Charleston, and would most certainly have offered a justifiable case for grave complaint had it been convenient to the Ministers of the day to avail themselves of it. In Turkey it is well known that a Christian when taken in the actual commission of a crime may escape the consequences by pro fessing his conversi►►n to Islamism. The pretensions of America to invest the criminals of other countries with similar immunities, if admitted, will render all intercourse with that country intolerable. The consequences of this unfortunate quar rel are not over. The occasion, it seems, was seized by our own authorities at Smyrna for one of those offensive displays of hostility to wards the allies of England which of late have been so common. On the evening in which the arrest of the Hungari►un rebel took place, and before the excitement to which it had given rise had subsided, three Austrian officers belonging to the vessel-of-war in the harbour had the impudence (or the boldness) to enter a public coffee-house, and to call for the cus tomary refreshments. The opportunity was not to be neglected. While they were quietly smoking their pipes, relying upon their total innocence of all offence, and upon the laws of the country for their protection. they were suddenly surrounded and assaulted by about twenty or thirty men, refugees from Hungary and Italy, but chiefly from the latter. A scuffle ensued, at the commencement of which one of the Austrians escaped ; another was killed on the spot ; and the third, mortally wounded, sunk in the water, and was drowned in an attempt to swim to his vessel. The indignation of the Austrians and the consternation of the Turkish authorities were great. The praetice of assassination, which was once attributed to Italy as her peculiar disgrace, is now boasted of as a merit by the Liberals of all nations. It has been adopted as part of the tactics of the West, and attended with complete success at Presburg, Vienna, Prague, and Frankfort ; and nothing but the timely escape of the victim (the aged General HAYNAU) prevented our own streets from being polluted by the same crime. The bodies of the murdered officers were recovered, and received a decent burial. The eldest, Lieut. AUSCHAMMER, was in his twen tieth year; the youngest, Baron HACKELBERG, was two years younger ; and both, we are assured, were promising youths, and much beloved by their superiors and comrades. When the funeral took place, it was less in sympathy with the peculiarly distressing cir cumstances of the ease than in respect to common usage that the colours of every vessel in the harbour were hoisted half-mast high— with the exception of the English and Ameri can. Such conduct, so little in accordance with the good feeling and hmnanity of the English character, is wholly inexplicable ; and we are assured that the circumstance is com mented upon in Austrian garrisons with a - bitterness that all the insolence of our hostile diplomacy. and even the unpunished outrage on General HAYNAU, had failed to excite. and with a burning thirst for revenge that must. we fear, soon lead to an outbreak, which will still further compromise our relations with the Austrian Government. The infatuation of our Government does, we own, astonish us ; for the Ministers must be held responsible for the hostility of the Medi terranean fleet. However little we might hope from their equity and courtesy, we should have expected more prudence, and that the present moment would not have been selected for adding to the long catalogue of insults and injuries which they have heaped upon an ally on whose cordial and sincere co-operation they eould calculate in the war which their imprudence has. humanly speaking, rendered kogvitable, even if degrading concessions avert It for the moment. THE PRESS. PARALYSIS OF LAW IN IRELAND. LET no man despair of painting ebony black when it is found possible to deepen the gloom which broods over the horizon of Ireland. Among the occurrences of last week are two of so disheartening a character as to lem'e us in doubt whether we ever before appreciated the extent of Ireland's ealamity. Our readers will forestall us in calling to mind the separa tion of the jury without coming to a verdict in the case of the Bateson murder, and Lord PALM ERMTON's declaration Of the intentions of Government, or rather of the absence of all intention, with respect to the prosecutiim of the reverend gentlemen engaged in the Six mile-bridge affray. It is not merely that in Ireland those cherished institutions of Englishmen, without which we cannot live ourselves, and can scarcely bear to let any one else live—the safeguards of our liberties, trial by jury and representative government are found to break down under their own weight, but, by the peculiar infelicity of that unhappy country, a blessing is turned into a curse, and trial by jury becomes an engine for depriving inno cence of its shield, and securing impunity to crime ; while the representative system is employed to impose a yoke such as no Govern ment in modern days would have the power or the boldness to inflict on an unrepresented people—"Comptio optimi est pessima "—and this double corruption, reciprocally connected as alternately cause and effect, has worked with fearful rapidity, till at last the reign of law is over, and the course of ,justice, which has long been clogged, is entirely stopped. It argues a high average of sense and honesty in the community when the law can safely summon from the ranks twelve ordinary citizens and bid them sit in judgment on their fellows. But in Ireland each one of these twelve needs the courage of a hero and the devotion of a martyr to enable him to ful .fil his duty, and if one fails the ends of justice are defeated. As the juror enters the box, the voice of sad experience rings in his ears, " If you persist in refusing to falsify your oath, you will be deserted by your customers and ruined, you will be shunned by your ac qunintance and persecuted by all; and, if you are not cruelly beaten, and perhaps murdered, you must owe your escape to your own strength and vigilance, for the law can neither protect you while living nor avenge you when dead." Truly we think it highly creditable to Irish courage and honesty that so many in each panel are found undismayed by these terrors, and ready to encounter an attenuating fast. and an arduous struggle with their weak or ill-disposed brethren, in order to satisfy their consciences and do their duty. What right has society to require to he served at such cost of s If-sacrifice ? What right has it to impose duties in the discharge of which it affords no protection? This is no exaggerated statement, as our renders know well ; and to this condition Ire land has been brought by the expedient first reluctantly adopted by the Whigs, and now deliberately continued by the present Admi nistration, of governing by means of the priests. In pursuance of this same system, Lord PALMERSTON announces the resolution which must, in fact, have been taken when office was offered to Messrs. KEOGH and Co. of abandon ing the prosecution of the two priests concerned in the riot at Six-mile-bridge. And, strange as this course may appear. it is less extraordinary than the statement and the reasoning on which it is grounded. All the Irish priesthood, Lord PALMERSTON tells us, have interfered with the freedom of election ; and, as all cannot be punished. he argues. it would be unjust to single out these two criminals as exceptions to the general impunity. What ! does Lord PALMERSTON mean that imperfect justice is synonymous with injustice, and, as all human justice is necessarily imperfect. would he abandon the attempt to administer justice altogether? If two pickpockets are taken in the fact, would he discharge them scot free because the police have a moral cer tainty that in the same neighbourhood five SATURDAY, hundred others as bad are pursuing their voca tion unmolested? It used to he supposed that, if a crime was common, the necessity of making an example was proportionably urgent; and justice, in selecting the subjects for punishment, pursued " the good old rule, the simple plan, of amercing those whom she could catch, or, if the delinquents are too numerous for her sense of humanity, she obviously would and ought to choose the most criminal. Where, if this rule were fol lowed, could two be found more guilty than the reverend ringleaders on this occasion? 11l as we know the Irish priesthood behaved in the late elections, we think Lord PALMERS TON does them injustice when he ranks them all with Fathers BURKE and CLINE. They had coerced their flock—they had headed an attack on the Queen's troops—they were responsible for the loss of life, unhappily very considerable, which ensued. Their punish. ment was required to vindicate our free insti tutions, to prove that the Rornish religion is not incompatible with representative government ; it was required to protect the people, and to vindicate the honour of the troops, whose admirable conduct on that occasion had brought upon them insult and persecution, such as would disgust and intimidate all other troops but our own. But nothing is to be done ! Is it that no jury will convict, or that Govern ment dares not prosecute ? Alas ! to the public it matters not what answer is returned. The little that remained of law in Ireland is abolished : the priesthood are left to insult authority, to threaten the people, and to pur sue their revenge if they please in perfect safety. Let them only be bold enough and violent enough, let them only take the pre caution of offending in a body, and Ministers offer them impunity. We are, indeed, descending the hill rapidly. The horses are running away. Fertur equis auriga—but not retinacula tendene—the coach man has dropped the reins in order to hold on by the seat, content to shut his eyes till he is aroused by the inevitable crash. WORKING-MEN'S STRIKES, AND THEIR REMEDY. IF it be an irrational thing that two gentlemen should shoot at one another with pistols by way of proving their own and disproving each other's veracity (and on that point society seems agreed), not much more can be said in favour of the prevalent fashion of settling dis putes between employer and employed in the manufacturing and mercantile world. A mill owner or contractor offers two shillings a day for some particular kind of work ; the me chanic thinks himself entitled to half-a-crown ; no compromise can be effected ; a trial of strength ensues ; and the problem, " What shall be the rate of wages for a certain kind of labour in a certain locality ?" is decided according as the master or the workman hap pens to suffer least by a compulsory and pro tracted suspension of business. The rationale of the arrangement is, that both are supposed to be in the meanwhile looking out in all quarters, the one for employment, the other for men willing to accept it. And where the strike is on a small scale, and affects only a few people, this may really be the case. But in those instances where general union exists among all who follow a particular occupation within a large tract of country, or where, as sometimes happens, the movement is or ganised throughout England, no such easy solution offers. The question then becomes one, not of reason, but of force. If the me chanic or artisan has saved nothing, he must soon give in. If his wages have been high and himself prudent he may carry on the blockade for weeks, though at the cost of losing, probably, whatever he may have laid up as a provision for sickness or old age. The employer. no doubt. pays dearly for vic tory, but he generally gains it in the . end. Setting aside the absurd law (now in process of being repealed) which prohibited meetings of workmen for the purpose of raising their wages, while conceding to the masters 1► cot-