The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-17 00:00:00

erproo.

Thema Irs Mak itailk Asewithol9llkia& United
Ststoo, on Womb so et So swain of Ws I
The wooolooll soliofir Mobs, MO^ Cloomob Or lowitalsbwolo
Efent.falm.olOtookimilknowl4owlar:Cbtoo. Ws Oraliniooloo.
low bo mit wo ea no voixidloo of tbo floptonfor.
no waled dowel mobs. win llinelbo, to do lisitsrissaisi.
=AA" o==srmo Mom to., will Moab op es tbo
of Me
Tbo mils kr Vigo, Oport.Vbaboa, Mokira, Oidls, sad Otbroboo
wW be ands up OM the deo lab Iteramlr.
The nobs for ?Err Soo* r' Yoe Diontoes 1- -
_.
foolond --- -

14111111111.118
Nair ettehte Ohio leth
She Wtet Mit mile. feekeleg Me its. litaasits, sad
the listaeash. mill be wide up es the neembeeetlhe fed (debit.
The meth Me the leseiVe
ass Wm Piste, Meet bite, Peream-
=Balk Naas. eel
eerie Oh Cleether. Ayres, will be nets up co the

lad Now

r emi fr. ICOMBELID.INTIL
0: 6111011•031111 1.01112MM0. st we, lad be
OS the 0114 ftwwWWwW 5,11 wk r 11. da tllNaltatar.

MOH WATT AT LONDON-111DM
14 au. I ; aftees4oo, L 041a..400 I
To.llossur—lferelAg, OWA Pea 7 Altawea..“ W. NA 7.

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEP T. 17 .

Wa have now the three countries and the three
races of the south of Europe straggling at the same
time for liberty and independence, for the enjoyment
and development of those faculties which constitute
political existence. Italy has once more entered upon
the career, in which Spain and Greece have for
some years been striving, if not progressing. With
what ardour, and joy, and hope, did not all English-
men, years back, bin the efforts of these southern
countries to "burst the ceremente of despotic rule!
How did men yearn after Lombard, and Neapolitan,
and Piedmontese success ! When Portugal stirred, and
Greece, what liberal Briton was not readywith hia hand
or his purse ? Our poets came with their verse; our
capitalists with their loans. Instead of struggling
for reform at home, Englishmen then placed their
political desires in beholding foreigners as free as
themselves.
A quarter of a century's experience has flung a
very ocean of cold water upon this national philan-
thropy. We have had the opportunity of contem-
plating and appreciating southern politicians of every
country and shade—Miguelito and Pedroite, Chartist
and Septembrist. We have made a ten years' study
of moderado and exaltado—have seen both parties
in power and out of power, in the reckless insolence
of office, and the undignified misery of exile.
The most poetic of our political philanthropists, the
Philhellenes, have had the rare satisfaction of seeing a
Greek prince and a Greek senate in Athens, and
have the opportunity of recording, which they do
daily, how much they are satisfied. It would be
invidious and illiberal to draw too true or too vivid a
picture of the patriotism or constitutionalism of
the Southern. It would be selfish to calculate
the amount of gratitude accruing to liberal Eng-
land, so often lavish both of blood and treasure.
But we might almost set it down as a maxim, that what-
ever country England aids in freeing or emancipat-
ing, she is sure to find in that country a suspicious
friend or an open foe. Nor have our material interests
been one atom more consulted, than our moral pre-
dilections. We trade less with the free peninsula
this we did with the enslaved. We have experienced
ea
mach commercial bigotry and political prejudices
Mtconstitutional statesmen of these newly
countries, as we ever did from their court
sad despotic ministers.
We wag Am feelings, not as arguments for des-
potism, ee es recommending a sympathy with it, but
se ea easels for a certain degree of lakewarmness
and misgiving experienced on beholding the last of
the leathern nations proceeding to follow the example
of those on either aide of it. We cannot but frankly
admit that the exuberant delight with which the Ant
and early manifestations of liberal spirit in Sue
countries was welcomed is now much damped, sea
infinitely lessened ; and that, on looking forward to a
free Italy, we cannot but look forward at the mums
time to the usual combinations of madness, and ingra-
titude, and disapntment.
In despite of this, it is impartible to contemplate
the attitude of Plus IX., without the warmest feel-
ings of admiration. His liberalism was indeed proprie
mote the result of an enlightened mind, a warm
heart!, and a bold head ; far different from the tardy
liberalism of some of his crowned imitators, who us
merely bidding or ontebidding
_each other for the I
'throne of Italy, and oaleulating,like Lana PBILIZTB,

much more the founding and extending of a great
dynasty, than the establishment of a free empire.
The British government has happily seized the
.opportunity opened to it of giving its countenance
and support to the menaced Pontiff. If the firm,
frank, and liberal attitude, assumed by England, has
induced Austria to withdraw from a policy of intimi-
dation and aggression, and if it at the same time has
forced the French government, for very shame, to
lend at least an apparent support to Italian reform,
such conduct on the part of England has proved an
immense boon to the patriot cause of Italy. We fully
join with the Journal des ll:bats in esteeming
that the greatest dangers which threaten this cause
are those flowing from its own extravagance or excesses.
' At the same time, wo know from the history of
France itself, that the most promotive cause of such
violence and frenzy, is menaces on the part of fineign
powers to dictate or to intervene. The removal,
therefore, from the eyes of Italians of all fear of in-
tervention to impede the progress of reform and
constitutional liberty, will be more conducive than
any thing else to strengthen the Lands of the
moderate liberals, and encourage the more ardent
of Italian citizens to put trust in their native
sovereign. We see indeed the effect of this in the
failure or subsiding of the several attempts at mein-
' tion, the great mass of the citizens not joining the more
violent in thtir attempts to wring by violence conces-
sions, which cannot be refused to the calm voice of
public opinion.
At the same time, whilst applauding the support
given to the Pope, we should hope that the ap-
pointment of an ambassador made so part of this
support. Lord MINTO, we trust, has been sent to Rome,
rather ;to put upon a proper and rational footing the
inevitable relations between an English government
and the Roman Pontiff, than to establish any British
influence, or hoist any British flag, on the field of
Italian polities. An admiral can best do this, if
required. We have had quite a surfeit of diplomatic
rivalry and diplomatic war ; and if the appointment
of an English ambassador at Rome were merely
to create a new scene for that antagonism which
has been displayed with so little profit at Con-
stantinople, and Athens, and Madrid, we must
own we should prefer doing without the embassy, and
without its equally-to-be-deprecated periods of ascend-
ancy or disgrace at court—of popularity or odium with
the people.

SOME of the legal periodicals are anticipating great
injury to the profession which they represent from
the withdrawal of a large portion of the business
which has hitherto occupied the superior tribunals.
There can be no doubt that the profits of circuits and
of sessions have greatly fallen off of late years. Soli-
citors, who generally practise both in law and equity,
have probably felt the loss less than the common law
bar, which year after year sees poor-law appeals
dwindling towards their impending extinction, and
compares the degenerate cause lists of modern times
with those of twenty years ago. The county courts
will still further diminish the business of Nisi Prius,
and, in a corresponding degree, that of the courts of
Westminster, by relieving the judges on circuit and
in bunco from the numerous petty suits which,
having been imprudently commenced, were necessa-
rily carried on for the purpose of determining the
right to costs. If the fortunes of the profession were
alone concerned in these changes, we should certainly
leave it to lawyers and to legal writers to discuss their
lanes, and the means of repairing them. They would
be as little disposed as ourselves to recommend that
bad laws and obstacles to justice should be main-
tained for the benefit of any class of men. When a
source of litigation is dried up, as in the case of parish
appeals, from the past and approaching improvement
of the poor law, or when an easier and simpler chan-
nel is provided for it, as in the case of the county
courts, the public gains or saves whatever the profes-
sion loses. There are cases, however, in which both
parties are losers, when lawyers are prevented from
procuring justice for those who are obliged to put up
with.wrong from the insufficiency of the law. We
have no doubt that the interest of the profession is
even more directly involved than that of the public
in a comprehensive improvement of the common law.
There is not half as much litigation as there ought
to be—a proposition which at first may sound para-
doxical, but.which many persona who have been com-
pelled to submit to oppression and injustice will re-
cognise as true. If it is an unmixed evil to recur to
legal remedies, there is already far too much litiga-
tion : but if a court of law was, as it ought to be, easy
of access, certain in its proceedings, and substantially
just in its decisions, it would be called upon to decide
innumerable cases which are now withheld from it
out of mere despair of redress. Hundreds of clients
are...tamed back from the entrance of the courts by
the disinterested recommendation of their legal &d-
-ykesn to make any compromise or sacrifice rather
than go to law—a proceeding for which lawyers
scarcely receive the credit they deserve, or the law
the indignation it merits. A physician who advised
his patients rather to submit to their diseases than to
buy physic at the neighbouring shop would not be
considered as disposed to compliment the druggist.
We might rejoice at a diminished consumption of
medicine if it proceeded from the absence of disease,
or at collapsing cause lists if we believed that disputes
among the community were becoming rare. As we
can see no reason whatever to suppose that as wealth
sad business increase, difficulties and uncertainties as
to property remain stationary or diminish, we can only
attribute the want of employment for lawyers to the
unsatisfactory quality and bad repute of the goods in
which alone they are able to deal. It is for this reason
that we say that there is far too little litigation.
The function of compelling the payment of simple
and ordinary debts is not, or ought not to be, a prin-
cipal employment of high judicial tribunals. It is
only from the chances afforded to dishonest debtors
by the excessive technicality of common law plead-
ing and procedure, and also from the overwhelming
burden of costs imposed upon the defendant if he
submits at en advanced stage of the action, that the
time of the courts is so much occupied with the claims
of tradesmen to be paid by their customers, and
holders of bills by the acceptors or indorsers. The
new local courts, though they. have jurisdiction over
oases of various kinds, are, in practice, chiefly em-
ployed in enforcing virtually undisputed claims—an
dace which is properly rather administrative than
judicial. It might, perhaps, hereafter be found
expedient even to extend their jurisdiction over debts,
properly so called, to a larger amount than that
with which they are at present empowered to
deal. A creditor who has not been paid, and a
debtor who simply cannot or does not pay, have pro-
perly no cause of litigation pending between them. It
is, as we have said, only when the law compels all
who have recourse to it to run the risk of a failure on
technical grounds that the debtor becomes a litigant.
His chance of raising a successful objection to the
pleadings on special demurrer forms his ground of de-
fence, his right to be heard before a judge familiar
with all the niceties and abominations of the law. if
the courts of Westminster dealt with simple debts as
debts, and not as suits at law, they might soon be re-
lieved altogether from the burden of dealing with
them. Every cause list contains a per-centage of un-
defended actions, generally on tradesmen's accounts
and notes or bills of exchange. In these cases all
that the creditor wants is execution, or at least the
security of a judgment, while the defendant
looks only for delay with a collateral view,
perhaps, to the inscrutable chances of the law.
An inferior tribunal would be fully competent to
indorse the claim in such a manner as to enable the
plaintiff to enforce it. The distinction between small
debts and large debts is by no means so great or real
as that between debts and disputes which require a
legal solution.
The proper ground of a suit at law is difference of
opinion between two parties concerned as to a right
connected with person or property. It often happens
that both may have plausible grounds for maintain-
ing their views, either in fairness or in law. The
customer, instead of being merely unable or unwilling
to pay for the goods that have been supplied to him,
may dispute the authority under which they were
ordered, or complain of the quality or of the time of
delivery, or may perhaps rely on some merely legal
objection to the claim, such as that the trans-
action was conducted orally, when the law
required a written document an the evidence
of its validity. In each instances as these,
and in every other, where there is really a
point in dispute, an issue of law or of fact, it is in
the highest degree expedient that there should be
facilities foe deciding it before the regular and proper
itliwrosustiegebunl.lisinArbmi:VedtrommPrtarenavoidrompioncelinyvalitesphves li:canhceanrtaindpstientyceontasof "azdreireurelesst::f
betalimabi.7"itatiore...timmatithe peroper:tidgeybeLostriabesusaariumilEdtsocerecoytrainou bedth.jusidgeadmfairalottensiY