The Press. — London, England, 1855-08-04 00:00:00

I 726 kr " combined weight of the past and present urdens must become too great for the most osperous people to support." here are limits to ear population as to our soil. When taxation rips bey a certaill height it becomes intblittible, ktitt Indust* seeks refuge in othet %Ade fr lottrdens it cannot support. Of this action *e have had a memorable example shape 184.. In future years we shall net on hate to dieoharge OW interest of the debt we now contract, but shall most probably have to maintain larger ihments than in our late security we imiieveti to be Beeessary, . These considerations render it of the first .nce that our expenditure should be ly watched. Whatever efforts arc ne _. for the honour of the country, must ilw should be made. But we dread that reck less profusion—dealing with millions as abstract quantities of little real significance— ' that levity, destitute of plan or foresight, have marked the career of the present •overnment. The country will yet have to - dearly for the Premiers happy heedless- Our resources are squandered without ig to our strength, or contributing in any to our success. While we urgently men, it looks like a mockery or a cheat mond additional millions for the Com- Oisse.riat. The contest may, after all, prove a ngthened one, calling for powers of endu -ne at home, as well as for active courage in _!ld. And it is positively appalling to Itntemplate what must be the effect on ngland of a few such years of enormous ponse and of indecisive warfare as have arkod the twelve months since our expedi tionary army set sail from the shores of Varna. establisi LAW REVOR M. the summary of proceedings of the Law Commission, inserted in our last number, we no encouraging inference as to the fate this well-meant endeavour. It is evident , the task of consolidation, already most arduous, grows more so every year that its completion is deferred ; for Parliament is pro- Mid of , and each session makes a point 'igno what has been done in the last. Lord CRANWORTH and his friends are, there engaged on a labour strictly analagous that of drawing water in a sieve, or trying divert a river by ladling it out in buckets. _ the Commissioners have other and even *raver obstacles to encounter. They have been set to work on a principle, as it seems to radically vicious, but the acceptance of ch is, we admit, made almost inevitable the existing state of English law. They dealing, not indeed exclusively, but mainly with the statutes, and only take power oases of absolute necessity to incorporate in consolidated acts portions of the Common I nwritten Law. Of that Common Law by the larger part remains, and will still in, in its present condition, i. e., literally -nwritten, and only to be gleaned from the recorded decisions of judges—the tradition of Westminster-hall. Therefore, supposing the mission to succeed beyond their own ex \dons or those of anyone else, and lite to be able to say on closing their sittings, , have done everything that power was tven us to do," what, after all, will have n effected ? Only this, that you will have a catalogue, arranged with admirable method skill, of exceptions to legal rules, such exceptions exceeding in number the rules themselves. We state that which is the strict theory of British law, undisputed and indis putable, however it may startle those who hear it for the first time. The statutes are only supplementary to the Common Law. It proposed to methodise the statutes ; but t Common Law itself is deemed too venerable to be touched, except where some little interference may be rendered inevitable by the possible oollision of the two. "But." it may be asked, " why not go on to " consolidate the Common Law separately ? " reply, " Because in that case you will have consolidations instead of one ; much of work will have to be done twice over ; a THE PRESS. continual reference from the first set of laws " to the second will become necessary; no " thing will be gaine in the way of simplicity i d " and uniformikt ;In , the accomplishment "of th eite objettts w be more distant that " evet, t a OA nioibaki will have been pet. " mandiAly adopted, and disorder itself or " ganitted into a system." In other words—yotll cannot, eonsolidata the Common and Statuta Law aaparately, kr by itself each is imperfeeb; a complete performance of that labour re quires their union ; and they can only be united by the fusion of both into a single code. Really to co.uolidate, you tnuot codify— , an alternative not willingly faced by English men, who dislike organic change, but one of which to us the adoption sooner or later seems unavoidable. There lies the choice before us—confusion amounting to chaos on one side, the gigantic labour and large innovation of a code on the other. No wonder the reso lution of even earnest reformers should falter and give way. No wonder that every plausible expedient should be tried, before the uncom fortable admission is finally made that no ' middle course exists, or can by any ingenuity be discovered. We do not blame those who shrink from such a responsibility as the future of law reform seems likely to bring with it : we only desire to prepare the public mind for that which, though long deferred, cannot be finally averted. Meantime, what can the Commission do ? Something, we believe, though not much. It may sweep off a good deal of superfluous matter which at present encumbers law-books; it may simplify the style of future Parliamentary enactments; it may sift the accumulated mounds of legal rubbish for the few grains of valuable matter which they contain, and dispose them in regular order to be hereafter carted away. Such preliminary work lies fairly in the line of its functions. More it cannot accomplish, wanting the necessary powers from Parlia ment—wanting also leisure and reforming energy among its members, and having com menced the execution of its functions on a plan essentially faulty. Our generation needs another Brougham : collective mediocrity can not supply the absence of individual genius. These co importance narrowly wt oessary for yr should ti less proful abstract qu and that le which have Governmer pay dearly ness. Our adding to degree to want men, to demand piissariat. lengthened ranee at ht the field. contemplal England o expense a marked th tionary ar Varna. FROM the k Commissic drew no of this wo that the t arduous, oompletiot lifid of bill of igno Lord Ci fore, enga to that of to divert But the C graver ob been set ti us, radios which is, by the ex are deali mainly w•i in oases o their eons or Unwrit far the I remain, ii unwritten recorded Westmint Commissi pectation , rally to 131 "We hav " given been effe4 catalogue and skill exception themselvl theory 01 putable, hear it f only supi is propot the Coin venerable little into by the pc it may " consolio We reply .0 two eon the wot 111111111\— DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS. Ws hear it remarked as singular, that Lord CLARENDON has gazetted no appointment in the diplomatic service for the last five months. It is probable that when Parliament is pro rogued, and no opportunity exists of ques tioning the propriety of particular appoint ments, a whole batch of Russells, Fanes, and Greys, may be pitchforked into vacant attacheships over the heads of our ablest men. Let Lord CLARENDON look to it, for he may rely upon our assurance that every one of his appointments will have to undergo a searching scrutiny. What has Mr. ODO RUSSELL, a flimsy diplomate of twenty-two, ever done, to entitle him to be sent from Con stantinople to Vienna, as is intended ! The appointment of Mr. SKENE to be Consul at Aleppo was probably designed as a sort of sop to the Cerberus of Opposition ; but his was less an appointment than a necessary step and who else has been gazetted ? We hear that several appointments have been decided on, and cannot understand why they should not be gazetted at once, if they are of a character to stand Parliamentary scrutiny. Let us drop two hints in the ear of Lord CLARENDON. First, that his want of can dour is the surest method in the present incensed and irritable state of the public mind of exciting a prejudice against the appointments he has decided on ; and next, that he should recognise but one ground for promotion—not length of service, but the un doubted fitness !of the person ho selects for the duties he is called on to fulfil. THE LAST GREAT JOB. Tua Administrative Reform Society has turned out to be one of the most enormous jobs of the day. Its suspiciously equivocal proceedings after its first formation raised SATURDAY, something more than doubts about the sin cerity of its promoters, and many refused to believe if& a society started, as was said in these columns, "by nobody knew who, to ob " tail nobody knew what" Its object is now plain to the whole country, The Society is to be Cwoolted fbr the beastit of a Cabinet in distress. Instesd of " /Orate theatricals " at Drury Lane, the Moneys and Tites are to per form the parts of electioneering agents when ever a Minister is anxious for his re-election. In thelanguage of that Australian region to which Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH has turned his at tention, the philosophical place-holder is to receive "a ticket of leave" for his re election from the Committee of the Administrative Reform Society. A literary Radical with a title and large fortune, who puts his princi ples into abeyance while he puts his body into a Secretaryship of State with patronage as boundless as the Colonies, is just " the right man " for a society of organised place hunters, who send Mr. TITZ down to Bath. Certainly the assurance of the leaders of the Association is remarkable. Their cool assumption of patriotism, and their hearty appetite for place, would be amusing if it were not mischievous. Lord JOHN RUSSELL may have been wrong in saying that those were attempts made to decry all authority ; but, taken in connection with the tergiversation of certain tribunes of the people, the conduct of the Drury-Lane Reformers is calculated to diminish injuriously the " authority," not of office, but of public opinion. If popular influences are to be brought into contempt, there could not be a better mode of achieving that purpose than by following the corrupting example of persons who organise an associa tion, and thus mortgage its credit on the Downing-street 'Change. Their flow of senti ment much resembles the state of Father Thames as described by FARADAY. Their ac tion, instead of washing rubbish away, is only calculated to generate infection. It is really with feelings of regret that we find ourselves thus compelled to censure a society from which many persons hoped that benefits would come. But Mr. Tim's earnest appeal to Mr. SCULLY not to divide the House, and Mr. MORLEY . S certificate to Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, leave fib room for doubting that the Drury-Lane Society is as entirely histrionic in its intention as the locality suggests Their bye-play with the Premier and Sir CHARLES WOOD is now perfectly appreciated. They found a political stage unoccupied, and, lest better performers should take it, they grasped at it themselves, and placarded the town with a splendid pro gramme, which deceived at first, and disap pointed afterwards. But their lease has rapidly run out, and even if it were extended they would play in future to empty benches. Organised leagues have never been favor ites with us. No popular society could deal with such a question as " Administrative Reform," though it might act honestly by the public cause. A Cabinet, really in earnest and united on domestic questions, can alone grapple with the defects in our official system. Those evils can be cured only upon some plan similar to that sketched with much ability by Mr. DISRAELI. How can any comprehensive scheme of Administrative Reform be expected from so discordant a Ministry as now sits in Downing-street ? Upon vital questions there is no accordance between its members ; and though the doors of the Cabinet are shut, it is notorious that its opinions de omnibus rebus are " open," as all great questions usually are in a Whig Ministry. It is to the advent of a sound and vigorous Cabinet that we must look for Administrative Reform. In the meanwhile, the Drury- Lane Society should he shunned for its deceit. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, when taunted with being " neither a Derbyite, nor a Russellite, nor " even a Peelite," answered that he was " not "an ite of any kind." But the Drury-Lane Society's members are all to a T "ites " of the kind shown by that honourable member who may " go to Bath " at the next election, and come back again " a wiser and a sadder man," when shorn of the letters " M.P." now added to his name.