The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-05-09 00:00:00

THE WESTBURY SCANDAL.

The Timex—The constitution of the committee, con.
taming so many members of the government, makes its
censures fall with crushing weight upon the Lord
Chancellor. He is tried by a jury of his own friends,
and convicted on two counts. We, like them, abstain
from any speculation as to his motives; but when we
are dealing with a person of the greatest ability and
the most extended experience we are not bound to seek '
for motives, because we may feel sure that such a
person must have perfectly well known what was the
course he ought to pursue. A man of much less
experience and intelligence than Lord Westbury would
have felt that it is highly improper for a person accused
by the report of two Queen's counsel of the com-
mission of several felonies to be permitted to stifle 1
inquiry by resigning and promising to eay back what-
ever public money he had stolen ; and it is even more
clear that this compounding a felony could not justify
any one, much less the highest judge in the land, in
withholding from the committee circumstances which
distinctly proved that to grant Mr. Edmunds a pension
would be a fraud upon the patine. The act was
culpable in itself; it was committed by • person in
whom such culpability is least of all excusable, and we
may reasonably rest contented with these facts without
prying into motives to which we have no sufficient
clue. Where an act is indifferent it is from the motive
alone that we can determine its criminality; where it
is culpable in itself all inquiry into motives is superfluous.
We may say, in conclusion, that we think the investi-
gation reflects much honour on the Lords' committee.
They have not scrupled to award blame where it is due,
even though it falls upon those from whom they would
naturally be most anxious to avert it.
Daily Newx—The Chancellor thinks that it was no
part of his public duty to bring the public conduct of
Mr. Felinuuda, of which he had official notice, before
the House of Lords. It is impossible to concur in this
opinion, and the committee have not hesitated distinctly
to gay so. The grant of Mr. Edmunds' pension
depended on his public conduot ; that public conduct
had been scandalous and fraudulent in the opinion of
the Chancellor, and that opinion ought to have been
communicated to the Peers. And what has been the
result? By the silence of the Chancellor a public
defaulter has obtained a pension of £BOO a-year. But
unhappily the scandal does not end here. The pension
was granted upon the recommendation of a committee.
The members of that committee were certainly aware
of some of the circumstances connected with Mr.
Edmund,' resignation of this patent-office appoint-
ment. No single question was put upon the subject.
The pension was granted without investigation. And
in this respect the conduct of thote who sanctioned the
grant of a pension to Mr. Edmunds without investiga-
tion has been visited with the censure of the select
committee in their report. Thus it seems that from
the beginning to the end every effort was made to screen
Mr. Edmunds from public. justice; and, unhappily,
those who played the most prominent part in affording
this public defaulter protection are in theory the
guardians of public morality, and one of them is the
highest judge in the realm.
Morning Herald.—A foul blot has soiled the character
of the judicial bench. The highest in rank and pre-
cedence of her Majesty's servants has been convicted
of • scandalous misuse of his official power ; of screen-
ing from punishment an offender accused of malveraation
in an office of pecuniary trust ; of permitting him to
escape from inquiry and exposure by the resignation of
his position and emoluments ; of having rewarded it by
recommending him for a pension to persons necessarily
ignorant of the circumstances which had led to his
resignation; and of taking advantage of this violently
enforced and improperly permitted resignation to
bestow the vacant appointments upon two near relatives
of his own. The moat exalted judicial officer in the
kingdom has been convicted of an a‘t which, if not
technically and in strict legal form, yet in fact and in
naoral significance, amounts to littie less than the corn.
pounding of a felony. The keeper of her Majesty's con-
science has been found guilty of conduct which even
his own colleagues declare to have been inconsistent
with his duty—and that in a matter in which his duty
was perfectly clear and unquestionable—and in which
all his judges who were not pledged beforehand to do
their best for his acquittal, all but those who had
a strong party and even personal interest in the
acquittal of a colleague, formally reface to ascribe
to pardonable motives. The Minister charged with the
ecclesiastical and judicial patronage of the Crown, in
whose gifts are hundreds of livings, and who has the
selection of every judge of every court in the realm, has
been tried and condemned on a charge of direct abuse of
his patronage. The tribbnal by which he was tried was
no constituted that only the clearest evidence of his guilt
amid prevent his complete and triumphant acquittal.
Five of the members of the committee were Conserve-
hives; but only three of them were of Ministerial rank;
and every one of them belonged to a class of gentlemen
whom their worst enemies would not aeons° of any
disposition to press unfairly a charge of personal mis-
conduct against an adversary. Fear were actual
colleagues of the accused. Two others had been so, or
bad belonged to the Ministries of whioh he had been a
warm supporter. The minority were certain to do him
justice. The majority were certain to strain every
point in his favour. Yet all agree in condemning his
conduct. Is it possible that after such a trial and such
a verdict that the First Minister of the Queen can allow
Lord Westbury to sit in the Cabinet, to preside in the
Lipper House, to deliver judgment in the most august
tribunals of the realm, end to wield the most extensive
patronage entrusted to any servant of the Crown?

THERE are 700 clerical cabmen in Paris; or, at least,
700 suspended priests, a great proportion of whom are
following that and similar occupations.
MRS. &SITU, the wife of a tradesman at Mile End,
was fined is. and costa by the magistrates at Worship
-
street on Friday, for leaving a train while in motion on
the Great Eastern Railway. A heavy penalty was not
asked for by the company, as Mrs. Smith was severely
punished by the injuries she received in falling on the
platform.
THE population of Munich are just now in great
delight at the prospect of an early abolition of the duty
on beer, the Chamber of Deputies having, on the 28th
ult., adopted a resolution to that effect, which was
adhered to by the Minister of the Interior, in the name
of the Government. The people are convinced that,
under these circumstances, the other Chamber will not
run counter to the general wish.
The special committee appointed for the purpose of
investigating the merits of Captain Cole's system of
shipbuilding went down to Woolwich on Thursday, and
inspected her Majesty's iron-cased cupola ship Prince
Albert, 2,592 tons, in coarse of completion on that
system. The committee consisted of the Earl of Lauder-
dale, C. 8., Rear-Admiral Hastings, R. Yelverton, C. 8.,
Capt. Kennedy, Capt. Caldwell, CO., and Sir John
Phillimore. Captain Coles was prevented from being
prevent by severe indisposition.
PLAGUE OP LOOUSTSIS STRlA.—Palestineand Central
Syria have recently been threatened by scarcity both
from the visitation of locusts and the premature
stoppage of rain, the latter being most needful for the
preservation of the crops in this country. From Gas*
to Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon "Hermon," the
loon isliterally filled the skies. This scourge, which
has weighed upon the land during the whole of the
last month, has caused general alarm, and the prices of
cereals have risen 20 per cent. But it has fortunately
been averted by a strong southerly wind, which has
driven past a vast quantity of these destructive insects
on their course from the desert aloag the seaboard from
south to north. l'hose that have escaped destruction
at the hands of the natives have either laid their eggs
or proceeded northward.