The Press.
London, England, 1854-03-25 00:00:00

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As the bill stands at present, it is impos
sible, however, to discuss properly the prin
ciples it involves ; and we wait to see these
elicited in the course of debate. The
principles for which it behoves all the true
friends of Oxford to be vigilant and even con-
tentious are well understood. The Univdsity
of Oxford has hitherto fulfilled its duty, as a
great educational estate, under the two
conditions or by the two agencies of its
academic independence, and its connection
with the Church of England. AR the Coalition
inclndes the enemies, secret or avowed, of
both, let our friends be discreetly suspicious,
and satisfy themselves, before this measure be-
comes law, that its provisions will in no
respect trench upon either.

JUS BELLI.

AMONGST its other blessings, the impending
war seems likely to give the British public
some enlightenment on the recondite subject

of international law. A good deal of anx-

iety, we hear, exists both in this country and
in France for a clear understanding with the
United States on the vexed question of
neutral vessels. The States themselves are,
by tradition, sensitively—perhaps morbidly—
jealous of any exercise of the right of search.
Russian agents have been busily at work in
the transatlantic seaports for some months
past; and the American Ministers in London

and Paris have received intimation that mea
sures on the subject are in concert between
the two Powers, and will shortly be submitted
for the consent and co-operation of the Re-
public.
Again, the British merchants at Riga, through
their Consul, wish to learn " what respect
" would be paid by British cruisers, in the
" event of war, to bond fide British property,
" the produce of Russia, if shipped on board
" neutral vessels?" The answer i 8 :
By the law and practice of nations, a belligorent has a
right to consider as enemies all persons who reside in a
hostile conotry, or who maintain commercial establish-
ments therein. Whether these pe3ple be by birth neutral,
allies, enemies, or fellow-subjects, the property of such
persons exported from such countries is therefore red hos-
tium, and, as such, lawful prize of war. Stich property will
be considered as a prize, although its owner is a native-born
subject of the captor's country, and although it may be in
transition to that country ; and its being laid on board a
neutral ship will not protect the property.
Trade must cease altogether between
the countries ; Russian merchants must
be ruined "for the good of the public ";
and the public sin turn must suffer for
nobody's good whatever. It will be re-
plied, it is one of the calamities of war—we
cannot help ourselves. Our friends of the
Peace Society make their stock argument for
" Peace at any price " out of the injuries
inflicted upon commerce. Now, we long as
earnestly as any pundit of the sect for the
time when "the nations shall not learn war
" any more." But, until America is indifferent
to annexidion, and Russia is rational, and
peace societies cease to be pugnacious, and
men in drab speak less in the second person
and think less of the first,—until selfishness
and ambition, fraud and force, are well-nigh
banished from the world,—we are content to
await the sure accomplishment of the fair
vision of peace in " the new heavens and the
" new earth." It may be that the last gun
will be fired to salute the sunset of the present
state of things. But meanwhile, terrible as
war is and must always be to those who take
part in it, does it necessarily involve the
miseries that may now be legally inflicted on
neutrals in the quarrel, or even on the (un-
armed) subjects of the Powers actually at war?
Can it not be confined to the forces actually
engaged? Can it not be made an pfficial
proceeding, and its calamities (to some extent)
limited to its officials ?
It is so at present between armies and fleets,
when they personally face each other: courtesy
and chivalry did not die with HENRY and
CHAIINDOS, with BAYARD and Du GIIERCLINI: but
it is upon the innocent bystanders, the poor
natives of the seat of war, or the (as innocent)
wayfarers of the seas, that its heaviest brunt

THE PRESS.

now falls. It is the banditti that straggle and
plunder in the rear of the camp, the privateers
that infest the sea,—these, after all, cause

the real misery of war, and with no gain to
either side in the contest. In war (especially
iu naval warfare) a nation legalises piracy ;
gives free licence to burn houses, sink ships,
kill men; to every sort of murder, robbery,
and lust ; awl necessarily gives it to them
that have pleasure in all this: it arms the
worst of the human race, men of fiendlike

passions, men even more fiendlike if cold-
blooded and passionless, the hostes humani
generic, against fair, open, honest foes ; and
all with no conceivable reason beyond the
knowledge that its enemy may do the same
against itself.
In short, the fundamental principle of the
existing jus bah is, that everything which
hurts your enemy must proportionately benefit
yourself,—a hardly perceptible improvement
on the old Scythian theory, that the strength
of the slain man passes into the slayer, or the
arithmetic of Borneo, by which, if you scalp a
man who has already scalped nineteen, you
are allowed to credit yourself with the entire
score. If the reckoning up of scalps and
damage done were with us, as with them, a
matter of religious obligation, we could quite
understand the existing theory. Our own
" religion of war " we may, perhaps, gather
from the prayer " to be used at sea every day,"
and which thousands are now daily offering
on shore, that our fleet may be " a safeguard
" unto our most gracious sovereign lady
" Queen Victoria and her dominions, and a
" security for such as pass on the seas upon
" their lawful occasions."
Oddly enough, the prayer and the Foreign
Secretary bring the matter exactly to an
issue. Which shall be the rule of warfare,
to extend as widely as we can the range
and security of " lawful occasions," or
the " right to consider us enemies " every body
we can include under the title ? We have
heard of the boy who " had a good right to be
" flogged" with an odd feeling of misgiving as
to the extent and multifariousness of an Eng-
lishman's " rights ;" but Lord CLARENDON 's
" right" is at once the most amiable and com
prehensive we have ever met with. And yet
Lord CLARENDON states the law correctly. We
have a "right" to sink English merchandise
coming to England—not only in Russian, but
in neutral, in any but English bottoms (and
how English ships are to come from Russia, or
get there, in this time of war, does not appear).
A Russian privateer has a " right" to sink an
English gold-ship from Victoria. We have a
" right " in return to sink a Russian corn-ship
from Odessa; finally, everybody under a "letter
of marque " has s right to do all the injury he
can to everybody else. These are only a very
few of the " rights "of war. If her Majestys
Ministers, who are for ever quoting Dr. An-
!COLD as an authority on matters of which he
knew nothing, would listen to him on a sub-
ject which he thoroughly understood, they
have at this moment the first opportunity
which has offered within many centuries (the
two chief naval powers being for the first time
at one) to humanise the system and incidents
of naval warfare ; and, if the First Lord of the
Admiralty would apply himself to the consi
deration of a few of the terrible histories re-
corded in the Admiralty Court, he would per-
haps be as usefully and as respectably
employed as when spouting pot-valiant bra-
vado after dinner at a partisan club.

THE GOVERNMENT DISFRANCHISING
BILLS.

Os Monday last the Attorney-General introduced a
series of bills to disfranchise those electors of the
city of Canterbury, and of the boroughs of Cam-
bridge, 31aldon, 13arnstaple, and Kingston-upon-
Hull, who admitted to the commissioners appointed
to inquire into the recent elections for those towns
that they had accepted bribes to vote. We entertain
a strong opinion that the Government measures are in
principle unjust ; and, from the spirit manifested by
the House when the first reading of the first bill was
moved, we cherish the hope that they will be rejected.
When the bill empowering the issue of commissions
became law a fundamental principle of English

267

jurisprudence was violated, and the commissioners
were empowered to compel witnesses to answer with-
out reserve questions tending to criminate themselves ;
but another bill was also passed exempting witnesses
from the pains, penalties, and" forfeiture " attaching
to those acts.
On Monday last the debate partly turned on the
words of the indemnifying clause, but this, we appre-
hend, will not be the point on which the fate of the
bills will depend. The House of Commons will not,
we trust, condescend to quibble on the rigid con-
struction of words, but will consider what was the
spirit in which the measure was intended, and what
was the sense in which it was understood.
The existence of bribery was notorious—its proof,
so long as the rules of evidence were adhered to,
impossible. Under these circumstances those rules
which are founded on justice were abrogated, and
persons criminated themselves, relying on the in-
demnity. The Attorneys General and the supporters
of the bills contend that, as it was known that the

commissions were preliminary to legislation, these
voters, whom it is disposed to disfranchise, must have
been prepared for the consequences of their answers.
It, is true that general legislation, applicable to the
whole kingdom, was expected, but it is not true that
particular and limited legislation, visiting on the
persons indemnified the consequences of their con•
fession, was foreseen ; if it had been, the evidence
on which they are convicted would never have been
obtained.
Not many years since a clergyman was murdered
by a gang of burglars, against whom there was a
deficiency of proof. The usual course was adopted.
One of the accused was induced to turn king's evi-
dence on the promise of a free pardon. The testi-
mony of the traitor was corroborated, and his trustier
companions in guilt were convicted. But, in the
course of the trial, proof of another and independent
crime was obtained against the traitor. On this it
was proposed to arraign him. But Baron ALDERSON
said, " Faith must be kept ; to violate public faith
" will prevent the conviction of future offenders.
" According to the letter of the pardon we might try
" this man, but according to the spirit he wax to be
" free from the consequences of all termer guilt,"
Will the House of Commons interpret words less
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liberally than a learned Baron of the Exchequer?
Shall the courts of law and the House of Commons
invert their functions, and Baron Num: take an
enlarged view of justice and policy, whilst Lord Juitm
RUSSELL looks only to the words of his bond and the
letter of the statute? We trust nut, and have a
strong hope that the nation will be saved the dis-
grace of violating public faith, which the enactment
of these unjustifiable measures would involve.

FRAUDS ON THE COMMISSARIAT
DEPARTMENT.
IN the universal execration of the fraud attempted on
the Commissariat department, the particulars of which
will be found in another part of the paper, there is ,c.
41
some danger that principles of sound policy may be
forgotten. As Lord BROUOHAM remarked, it is not
wise to legislate for particular cases. What Parlia-
ment
has to consider is, not how one detected scoun-
drel can be punished, but how frauds on the Commis-
sariat department can be prevented, and the health
of the military protected. In the Upper House Noble
Lords call for legislation if the present law will not
"meet the case;" in the Lower House, in the
latter very probable contingency, Sir JAMES GITAIIAM
pledges himself to introduce a bill. It is with
great diffidence we venture to suggest that such
eminent personages seem to confound two distinct
and separate subjects—the punishment of the offender
and the prevention of the fraud. At first, in this par-
ticular .`
instance, it was said that one of the inevi
"split" upon his infamous employer, and divulge 4
the intended fraud; but now it is alleged that the
discovery is owing to the restless vigilance of those
officers whose duty it was to inspect the trusses of
pressed hay. If so, it is a pity tney wasted time by
allowing "several hundred tons of it" to be stowed
away on board the transports before they acted on
their discovery ; and a still greater pity that they
were not on duty when many thousand eases of gar-
bage were passed into the naval stores under the
name of" GOLDNER'S preserved meats." That frightful
case, which might have caused death and pestilence
in every sea where an English pendant flies, suffi-
ciently proves that those whose duty it is to examine
contract stores do not, to say the least, carry their
investigations to a vexatious extent. But if they are
negligent when, from the state of the law, they have
every motive to be scrupulously cautious, what would
he their conduct if the law declared that these frauds
shall be deemed felony ?
For some years after steam was introduced into the
navy, commanders, to make quick passages, took
"short cuts," grazing isle and headland in their
course, until the Avenger rested on bur coral reef

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