The Press. — London, England, 1857-05-02 00:00:00

V 422 appear to he displeased with him. For many years in the House of Commons Mr. HORS MAN was a malcontent Ratio Ll. He has now become Chief Secretary of /rebind, and his rule has made the Irish Members unanimous in disapproving of him. Ministers, it would appear, are also displeased with him. He is blamed " for not having been more active at " the General Election." (Innocent Liberals !) If he had been so, it mighthave been so much the better for our Conservative friends in Ire• land. His repulsiveness when brought into action would have caused a popular Con servative movement in two or three counties. Going to Scotland was a good practical plan for helping his political friends at Dublin Castle. His absence was desirable eta deli. cate crisis, and he left his office for his party's good. What more could "discipline " effect? Mr. Honsmas became conspicuous in politics twenty years ago as " The Queen's Champion" by demanding " satisfaction." He ought to have what he wants at last, as all the II ish Members are hostile to him, and if they are not able to give him " satisfaction," we do not know where the Chief Secretary is to look. Mr. PHINN, ex-M.P. for Bath, is now ex permanent Secretary to the Admiralty, relin quishing fifteen hundred annual reasons for being satisfied, and giving up a house, coals, candles, and a waggon load of official et ceteras, in order to return to the pleasures of the Bar and the chance of finding a con stituency. The Learned Gentleman was another of the great dissatisfied, and ho has met his fate with resignation. He sat for a short time in Parliament, making short, smart speeches, delivered with an air of 81IteWdHeS4. We suspect that Mr. PHINN is not the only Admiralty official claiming to be gazetted to a " first-class" in the " dissatis fied." We can excuse Admiral BERKELEY for pressing his right to rank in that class, after the little affair that took place the other day amongst his former constituents at Gloucester. It is notorious that there are many other dissatisfied people in the Ministerial connec tion. Some aro angry because they cannot climb higher, and others wish that certain persons would resign, in order that their vacated places may be bestowed on new can didates for Ministerial favour. We can excuse the Chancellor-cum-Wilson of the Exchequer at not being allowed to have all his post to himself, and a single office should not be represented by a duality. His subordinates may, also, be dissatisfied that his superior and himself cannot be allowed to interchange heads and places, in order that the Whigs may, possibly, at last boast of a great financier. At present Lord JOHN RUSSELL scarcely ranks amongst the dissatisfied Liberals. He beat the Government in London, in spite of Mr. HAYTER and the Times, and the of his former colleagues. Ho has his new Re form Bill, with which he is perfectly satisfied himself, although, when it is propounded, and the Ministerialists will at last be obliged to speak out, there is every likelihood that the final result will not be displeasing to Censer. vatives, in increasing the number of dissatis fied Liberals, who say they wish something to be done, though they are unable to say what it is they want. PROSPECTS OF LAW REFORM. Tai miserable blundering of Sir Jons Bow- RING, involving, as it did, a war with the Celestial Empire, was a perfect godsend to the Cabinet. They were literally at a stand still when this lucky incident, by enabling the Premier to appeal to the ignorance and the prejudices of the nation, enabled him to obtain another lease of political existence, which, however, cannot possibly be a long one. Meanwhile, the peactical reforms which we were promised have been utterly lost sight of. It is true that Lord CRANWORTH brought for ward in February last a variety of measures for the reform of the law in accordance with the Ministerial programme. He had an elaborate scheme for remodelling the Eccle sialtieal Courts ; he had another for amending the Law of Divorce ; and he had a third for reforming the system of procedure in the THE PRESS. investigation of ecclesiastical offences. It is notorious that all these reforms were loudly called for. The mode of procedure, and more especially the rules of evidence adopted In the Ecclesiastical Courts, have been long, and we may say universally condemned, as being calculated to lead to the perversion of justice, and to involve the unhappy suitor in ruinous costs. Cases may be cited without number, some of them of very recent occurrence, in proof of what we now put forward. How did the LORD CHANCELLOR propose to deal with this important question ? By means of a remedy which would have proved morein tolerable than the disease. He would have established a court of a hybrid nature which was to be something between a Court of Common Law and a Court of Chancery, but in which the latter element was to predominate, inasmuch as it was to be presided over by an Equity Judge. We need not dwell on the details. Suffice it to say that with every dis position on the part of the judicial authorities in the Upper House to support any rational scheme for the reform of the Ecclesiastical Courts, they unanimously expressed their dis approbation of Lord CRAN WORTH'S plan. The Divorce Bill, as we pointed out to our readers at. the time, was open to objections of an equally serious character. It allowed the utmost facility for married parties to separate with more than the rights now incident to a legal separation, while the marriage tie still subsisted. It still practically confined to the husband the privilege of obtaining a divorce it vinculo, while it denied it to the wife ; and it made no provision whatever for the abolition of that most anomalous and indecent process which we call an action of trim. con. The Church Discipline Bill escaped criticism through the sudden dissolution of Parlia ment ; but if it is again brought forward, it will be found upon examination to be no less liable to objection than the two measures with which it was introduced. Are we to have a revival of Lord CRANWORTH'S failures in the new Parliament? We presume we must. The abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the state of the Law of Divorce, are a disgrace to any Civilised country; and even' though nothing may be done, something must be attempted. We need hardly say that we are not sanguine as to the result The LORD CHANCELLOR has so clearly proved his incom petence as a law reformer, that it would be a waste of time to argue the point. We give him all credit for sincerity of purpose, but it is his misfortune to occupy the woolsack at a time when abilities of a higher order than those which he possesses are required to work out the necessary changes in the ad ministration of the law. We want a clear head and a strong hand to accomplish this great task. We want, while removing proved abuses with an unsparing hand, carefully to preserve whatever is sound and just in the great fabric of English jurisprudence. This is the law reform which the country wants ; but it will look for it in vain at the hands of the present advisers of the Crown. Mr. DISRAELI told his constituents in Buck inghamshire the other day, that more had been done fer the reform of the law during the ten months that Lord DERBY was Premier, than in the long interval that has since elapsed. This is a fact beyond dispute, and it is very easily accounted for. The legal advisers of the Crown under Lord DERBY, with Lord ST. LEONARDS at their head, were thoroughly up to the work they took in hand, and they proposed nothing therefore which they did not carry. Their success was as uniform as has been the failure of those who have since attempted to follow in their foot steps. No man has dealt more largely in promises of law reform than the present Attorney-General. Whether in addressing ' the House of Commons, or his constituents, or the students of Lincoln's-inn, he is equally eloquent in denouncing abuses, and in his pledges to amend them. But, what has he (lone? During two different sessions of Par liament a committee of the House of Com mons sac for the purpose of inquiring into the expediency of appointing public prosecutors in England, as they are already appointed in Scotland and in Ireland, for the better detec • tam of crime. The committee unanimously SATURDAY, recommended the adoption of a similar plan in this portion of the kingdom, and the Govern ment, nearly a year ago, pledged itself to bring forward a plan in accordance with that recom:. mendation To Sir RICHARD BETHELL, as public prosecutor ex officio, we have looked, and looked in vain, for some announcement re specting this important measure. But both he and his colleagues have maintained an ominous silence ou t the subject. We believe that nothing has been done, and that nothing will be done, regarding it during the present session. If the Attorney-General aspires to the reputation of a legislator he must change his tactics. To earn that title ho must do something more than declaim at the Law Amendment Society, or raise a cheer from his Radical supporters at Aylesbury. Upon the whole, the prospects of law reform for the present. session are by no means blight. The legal advisers of the Queen have been weighed in the balance and found want ing ; and it is to the Opposition that the country must look for sound and practical measures of improvement. The plan for con. solidating the Statute Law proposed by Sir FITZROY KELLY and Lord STANLEY, it is satis factory to know, is being *steadily carried out, and the successful accomplishment of this gigantic undertaking is now only a question of time. Let the leaders of the Opposition persevere in this wise and patriotic course. Let them, as their opponents have shown themselves unequal to the task, continue to mature and bring forward measures of prac tical utility, and the country will take care that the Legislature adopts them. ADMIRALTY SUBORDINATES. WHAT is the reason of Mr. PHINN'S retirement from the Second Secretaryship of the Admi ralty ? The Daily News will have it that he objected to do " clerks' work ;" the Times that he would not submit to the drudgery of office. It is possible that neither one nor the other of these causes have led to this gentleman's retirement. The Board of Admiralty is oddly con stituted, and is a remnant, like the Exchequer office, of the well-intentioned but incomplete reforms undertaken about a quarter of a con. tury since. The permanent secretary of any department should be a man thoroughly versed in the whole of its business, able to control success fully those placed under his orders, and pre serve discipline, while, by his complete know ledge of his work and devotion to it, he should command the respect and confidence of his superiors, without having recourse to syco• phoney or any other means than those which become an honourable and upright man. In the short time while Mr. PHINN has been Secretary of the Admiralty, no doubt he may have gathered to himself much of the practice of the naval service ; hut the subdivision of the Board under individual Lords, some closely attending to their duties, others not so, owing to their Parliamentary or other pursuits, necessarily destroys that unity of action, as well as system, by means of which a permanent secretary could alone be informed of the wants of the service and, what is actually passing, and what ought to pass, before the Minister charged with the depart ment. It is believed to have been the object of Sir JAMES GRAHAM in 1832, when he broke up the navy and victualling boards, to insti tute such machinery as would keep the Minister of Marine informed upon any sub ject connected with the Admiralty, a proposal which involved an alteration of principle. For this reason he appointed certain principal officers of the navy who should be responsible to him as First Lord ; but he still retained the routine of political lords, nominally to superin tend the principal officers,- as weil as to sit in conclave upon the discipline of the naval service. It is quite possible that an intelligent and ambitious man like Mr. PH!NN might be weary of a place that called forth no powers of mil id, but which really placed him daily in a position subject to rebuke, or unpleasant remark, if he dared to exercise his judgineo upon any topic under discussion relating to the duties of his office. Many have though that the office of Admiralty would be better