The Press. — London, England, 1856-08-16 00:00:00

AUGUST 16, 1856. Lord PALMERSTON, 128. He recollects tha Premier sitting for the University for twenty years as a Tory, then turning Reformer; and, after being rejected by Cambridge, finding his way into Parliament for the rotten borough of Bletchingley, nearly thirty years ago. He recollects—but space fails us to describe the extraordinary changes in the age, and in Lord PALMERSTON, which Sir CHARLES BURRELL re members. Not the least amongst these changes are the gradual alterations of the composition of the House of Commons. To the character of these latter changes our attention has been particularly drawn this week, by an able speech delivered on the Kerry hustings by the seconder of the new Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household. Mr. JAMES O'Coi4sEtt (brother of the late agitator) alluded to the circumstance of there being eighty lawyers in the present Parliament ! The fact is remarkable, and the number is certainly a most exaggerated representation of the legal profession. What is more remark. able is that many eminent barristers are not in the House of Commons at all. Mr. ROLT, Mr. EDWIN JAMES, Mr. BACON, Sergeant WILKINS, Mr. KNOWLES (Attorney-General of the County Palatine), and a host of other banisters, in many respects superior to most of the long robe" in the House of Commons, do not re present constituencies. The circumstance is curious. Boroughs and towns seem to job the legal representatives. Manufacturing ftthers or brothers, who give large wages, and who have " convenient " attorneys, contrive to nominate their legal kinsfolk to the represen- Wien. If this system, as CANNING said of the old rotten boroughs, " worked well " for genius and talent, we should not complain ; but the fact is, that some of the most pro mising minds in England are left unnoticed by constituencies under the present plan, and jobbing barristers of third-rate pretensions threaten to disparage the constitution of the House of Commons. If we take seventy members of the Whig and purely. aristocratic connection from the Parliamentary Liberals, we shall find that the rest of the Liberal representation is divided between pushing barristers and manufacturers of middle age. Independent gentlemen, whether Conservatives or Liberals, are un fairly weighted in the race against manufac turers, with their large wages' bills, and barristers with their organised legal connec tions. Is such a system " popular " or just? Is it not a coarse and crude monopoly of representative honours ? If the batches of barristers, so poured into Parliament, were likely to be Thesigers, or Kellys, or Cock burns, or Napiers, or Whitesides, objection would not be made to it; but, in point of fact, the Parliamentary lawyers are in many respects inferior to lay gentlemen as practical legis lators. They are wordy and disputatious, but they are deficient in large social knowledge, and they are not of that independent turn which is much to be desired in our repre sentatives. The Conservative gentry suffer severely from this state of things. Lerd DERBY, with his keen sagacity, alluded some time ago in the House of Peers to the extraordinary facili ties which barristers have of getting into Parliament. They are " pushing " persons; they travel circuit, and obtain a factitious personal notoriety. They are thrust into the House of Commons, in many instances, merely to play the parts of political attorneys Conservative country gentlemen, with three or four thousand a year. are pitted unfairly against such professional competitors, with their hard-browed assurance, their practised volubility, and their organised clacqueurs. Take the case of a country gentleman, with three thousand a year, and with talents for public life. He wishes to be in the House of Com mons, and his friends believe that he would serve the public cause with effect. He can not stand for the shire, as the expenses inci dent to such an onerous position would be beyond his means. Several of the seats in his locality may already be well filled by members of his own party, and if he try, what is face tiously called an " open" constituency, he finds that Lawyer Silvertongue has a " plat- THE PRESS. form," and that metallic influences of various sorts are used to support the " rising young " barrister." Let us look at the facts plainly. Can it be denied that there are several Conservative gentlemen in England who are most unfairly pushed aside from tho representation by ad venturing barristers ? The fact is indis putable, and deserves to be remedied. One eighth of the House of Commons is composed of lawyers ! Such a state of things threatens the independence of the Bench, and the purity of executives. For England the Bench has, for the most part, been qs yet kept free from politics. The puisne judges are chosen fairly from the Bar, and the last appointments —Mr. Justice WILLER and Mr. Baron BRAM WELL—never sat in the House of Commons at all. But in Scotland eight out of the twelve judges have been members of the House of Commons, and polities exercise an unfair influence in that country upon legal pro motions. Too many lawyers in the House of Commons detract from the independence and dignity of that assembly, and also threaten to undermine the Bar. The real gentry, Conservative and Liberal, suffer from this legal monopoly of Parliamentary honours, and the free talents of the country at large are unfairly treated. There are numbers of intelligent persons who would make better representatives than the third •rate barristers, who are " birds of passage" in the House of Commons, preparing for a flight to colonial situations. MAYNOOTH. Faom a number of communications on the subject of Maynooth we select the following, as embodying views directly adverse to those which we have thought It our duty to express. The italics are the writer's own : TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—Maynooth is the plague-spot of our country. I am sorry to see the manner in which you advocate the continuance of the act of 1845, by which the grant is transferred to the Consolidated Fund, instead of coming annually before Parliament. During the Administration of the late Right Hon. Spencer Perceval and the late Lord Eldon, the grant was for 8,0001., and having been carried by the Irish Parlia ment, they were pledged to it for twenty years. When Sir Robert Peel brought forward the act of 1845, he pledged himself that if the Papist clergy were not more loyal after the passing of that act be would bring forward another act to repeal the act of 1845. But, alas! this pledge was, like all his other pledges, " Vox et pis:acres nihil." Mr. Spooner and his confederates deserve the thanks of the country. He only committed in the last session one mistake, and that was, after carrying his bill by five majorities against the whole strength of the Government, he ought to have carried it all through, and not have withdrawn it. Had I a seat in the Legislature, so cordially do I hate all Papists, I would at the beginning of every session place a notice of motion on the votes of Parliament for the repeal of the odious act of 1829, and if the only voter in its favour I would resolutely divide against it. I am a Protestant, and as a Protestant I revere and almost to idolatry adore our most gracious Sovereign ; but oh, and abut omen, if she became a Papist, I for one, and I have no doubt I should be followed by millions, nay tens of millions of stanch Protestants, would hoist the standard of rebellion against her. As a Protestant I would lay down my life to save hers. Humanly speaking, there is no salvation for this country except a return to the High Church and old Tory principles of my father. Protestant ascen dance should be 'our motto.—l am, sir, yours obediently, FREDERICK JAMES PERCIEVAL. Coleshill, near Coventry, August 11, 1858. Mr. PERCEVAL is a consistent politician. " Cordially hating all Papists," he would de prive them of political power, reenact the old penal laws against them, and bring back Pro- testant ascendancy. This scheme of policy is intelligible and logical. Whether it is practical also is another question. Another system of policy is to recognise as a fact the status which Roman Catholics have acquired in our political system, and to fairly observe the principle of the Emancipation Act.. In that case, acknowledging the Roman Catholic population of these realms as entitled to all the political privileges of British sub jects, it will be only prudent to avoid needless causes of irritation. Having conferred (on 771 them political power, we must endeavour, within the limits of established institutions, to make them loyal and contented. A third scheme of policy seems to be favored by the great majority of those persons who agitate against the Maynooth grant. They do not propose the repeal of the Act of 1829 ; they do not call for the restoration of Protestant ascendancy; but they do insist that Roman Catholics shall be regarded as an alien and most dangerous element of the population, and that every opportunity shall be seized to attack and irritate them. We cannot help thinking that this latter course of policy is by far the most hurtful of the three. If the Roman Catholics are so dangerous why intrust them with power at all? The answer will probably be that the mischief is done, and cannot now be undone. Just so. But, then, must it not be extremely impolitic to urge any considerable portion of the British people to make a tad, or even hostile, use of the power we cannot prevent them from exercising? SIR GEORGE GREY AND THE RECENT EXECUTIONS. SIR GEORE GREY seems to have been refresh ing his mind after the fatigues of the session by a perusal of " Eothen." The author of that work informs us that on one occasion when his guide had misled him to the extent of a day's journey, it was seriously proposed to him by one of his Eastern attendants that the man should be put to death. The English man was at first fascinated by the novelty of the proposal, and reflected what an imperish able reputation for vigour he should acquire among his countrymen, were it once known that he had thus deliberately sacrificed a fellow-creature. He relented at last, yet not without certain secret regrets at having lost so good a chance of putting his character for decision for ever beyond dispute. It is possible that the Home Secretary, cast ing his eye over these said pages of " Eothen," may have come to the conclusion that Sergeant KIM/LAKE was a fool for his pains, and that when either a Government or an individual has an opportunity of that sort, it is the merest false compassion to waste it. To vindicate the vigour of the Executive, two criminals were put to death on Saturday last. The recommendation to mercy of the jury in the case of DOVE went for nought. Was it right so entirely to disregard the opi nion of the twelve men who tried the case ? The medical testimony at the trial raised a strong presumption of the prisoner's irrespon sibility, and the letter of Dr. Foams WINS LOW was stronger still " From my knowledge " of the conduct of juries," says the Doctor, " I feel convinced that DovE would never have " escaped the verdict of insanity, if the " question for their consideration had been of " a civil, and not of a criminal character." And he rightly quotes the case of Mrs. Cum- MING, who was unhesitatingly declared of un sound mind by a jury because she had a bad memory, and liked her cats better than her relatives. Men who have devoted their lives to the study of insanity have a right to be heard with attention when the sanity of a prisoner is in question. The great point, however, is, whether an English Minister can rightly disregard the recommendation of a jury, when that recom mendation is based on grounds which can only be decided by specia 1 inquiry. There is a well known story told of ERSKINE, we think, that after taking a distinguished foreigner into the Houses of Parliament, and explaining to him the complicated forms of our constitutional usages, he next led him to one of the common law courts, and told him that all our political institutions were but the machinery to place twelve men in the jury-box. If we commit the lives and fortunes of all the Queen's subjents, from the highest to the lowest, to the common sense of twelve ordinary men, it is very in consistent not to listen to all they have to say. The greater includes the less; and if arty judgment has sufficient weight to condemn a I