The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-15 00:00:00

BRITA NI

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AULD ROLIN

HIGH WATICR AT LONDON BRIDGE.

'IWZB DLit —Morning, Oh. 47.11 Afternona, Ih.
tallifillOW—Sforning, lb. 31m Afternoon, Ili. elm.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 15.

ti ea of all this evidence as valid, and with only
the right to the appellants to adduce evidence for
themselves, differ from an " appeal I" The ori-
ginal objection to the character of tho evidence is
waived in the one case as much as in the other,
awl the claimants are placed at the same disadvan-
tage in the one case as het the other—a disad-
vantage, indeed, aggravated by the fact that their
witnesses are now dispersed. Moreover, Lord
STANLEY thus waives all consideration of the fact
that even the evidence originally produced has
been since proved, by the reports of our Consul at
Cacti; and by the affidavits of the men after their
liberation, to have been half extorted by threats
and half procured by misunderstanding of the
questions and mistranslation of the replies, while
the witnesses were refused the assistance or
advice of any countryman of their own,
or any representative of our Government.
If such falsified testimony, added to the inad-
missible evidence which it was coupled with,
deserved the stigma of our Minister in January, and
was declared so incurably unfair that an appeal
could not remedy it, what are we to think of the
Minister who in June, after its character has been
made more thoroughly apparent, actually offers,
before he is asked, that it shall all be received
without objection, on condition that the further
proceedings are called a now trial instead of au
appeal?

We cannot doubt that this unhappy blunder-
ing is directly traceable to tho pri-
mary blunder made by Lord STANLEY in as-
suming to himself the prerogative of judging
whether the owners of the Tornado had a good
case or not. Failing to recognise that this was no
question for a Minister of the Crown, and mis-
calculating his own capacity to deal with the
scraps of evidence which reached him, Lord
STANLEY has committed himself to statements and
doctrines which can now be upheld only by the
condemnation of the vessel. He admitted, as
matter worthy of being received in evidence on
this head, and as sufficient to determine his own
opinion, certain affidavits by a man of the name
of TROTTER, giving a hearsay story about the
official rank in the Chilian service of a DANIEL
MAVPHERSON, alleged to bo as such agent on board
the Tornado when captured, and about the conceal-
ment of his papers ; but the only person of that
surname on board the Tornado was a JOHN MAC-
PHERSON, who lost no time in denying by affidavit
every allegation made by TaoTTEE. And in the
now papers there is an affidavit from one JENKINS,
who was TaorrEa's alleged informant, stating that
Tatirrea had invented the whole stlry. Then
there was a despatch from our Chalon Consul,
stating that the talk there was that the Tornado
was purchased for the Government of Chili, but
that he had no authority beyond gossip for the
rumour. And we have now a despatch from the
same Consul, stating that he has searched in vain
through the official Gazette for any confirmation of
the rumour. Finally, there were certain state-
ments made by Commander WIEILLor, R.N., re-
specting his having been offered the command of
the Tornado as a Chilian cruiser. But to this as •
sertion there was the objection of some evident
incongruity of date and other circumstances, and
of Commander WICILLor being himself under a
charge of breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act.
Unfortunately, however, Lord STANLEY, unable to
perceive the legal doubts hanging over such
testimony, even before it was formally dis-
proved, committed himself to accept it
so far as to abstain from pressing the
nudoubtedly just demands of the British owners
of the Tornado to have the rules of international

IT is very desirable that, even at the cost of
delaying the Reform Bill for one evening, a die-
cuasion should take place in the House of Commons
on the recent pnaoedings of the Foreign-office in
the case of the Tornado. As our readers know, the
matter has recently entered upon an entirely new
phase, and a further issue of papers just made sug-
gests grave doubts respecting the propriety of the
course to which Lord STANLEY is committing the
country. It will be remembered that on the first
condemnation of the vessel his lordship protested
in firm and dignified language against the sen-
tence, as being essentially contrary to justice, be-
cause pronounced on inadmissible evidence, and
without hearing the parties on the other side.
Meantime, however, the parties themselves ap-
pealed to a superior court, on the separate ground
that the inferior court had no legal jurisdiction.
That appeal Iris bg....en successful, and, as we anti-
cipated when the news first reached this country,
the Tribunal of Appeal has declared that neither
the inferior court nor itself has any jurisdiction
in such a matter, because they are judicial
tribunals, and the law of Spain refers questions of
prize exclusively to tho decision of the Executive
Government. This principle was stated in a letter
of the MINISTER of MARINE in February last, it
was confirmed by the report of the Crown Fiscal
in the case of the Alice Ward on the 18th March,
and it was finally adopted by the Court in that
case. Yet all this time General CALoNiiE was
amusing himself with resisting Lord STANLEY'S
protests on the ground that the proceedings were
set a purely " judicial character," and that the
Spanish Government could not interfere with the
action of the courts. When, however, it became
probable that the courts themselves would declare
their own incompetency, Lord STANLEY had be-
come more Spaniard than the Spaniards them-
selves. He directed our Minister at Madrid to
intimate that if the proceedings up to that date
were declared uull, he would not object to ac-
quiesce in a now trial being commenced from the
beginning. And now we find that so recently as
the 25th ultimo he has made the offer that if they
will declare the first trial null, he will assent to the
whole of the evidence taken under it being used on
the second trial. On the 26th, one day after the
date of this despatch. the Spanish Court did pro-
nounce the first trial null. And we must
now presume that the Spanish Government, which
is declared to have the right of acting auto Teti-
eally, will be only too ready to close with Lord
STANLEY'S offer, to allow :.11 the false and garbled
statements collected in the " Sumario " of the
original proceedings to be used as to data for
arriving, in the mode our Foreign-office has indi-
cated, at a conclusive condemnation of the vessel.
The• Spanish Government may well be satisfied to
allow Lord STANLEY the barren triumph of his
protest against the first proreedings, on the con-
dition which he has offered, that they shall be en-
tirely effective in a different way.
It needs no argument added to this dry state-
ment of the position of affairs to prove that our
Foreign-office is saving its formal credit by sub-
stantial sacrifice of justice. On 18th January
Lord STANLEY wrote :—" The Prize-court has not
" only examined the crew by a public functionary,
" or rather by a court composed of public func-
" tionaries, but has also imported a great variety
" of extrinsic evidence, if it is to be so called,
" from newspapers, from diplomatic correspon-
" denee, public Acts of the State, the conduct of
" other vessels, and carious other sources.
" All this evidence has been produced behind
" the backs of the claimants ; and it is to be
" observed that it is wholly different in
" kiwi from the evidence afforded by the ship's
"papers and the depositions of the crew. On this
" kind of evidence the Court has proceeded to pro-
" nounce a sentence of coudenination, without
" notice to the claimants, and without hearing them.
" Her Manovrv's Government consider that they
" have ground for eompleining of these proceedingr,
" followed as they have been by a sentence of con-
" demnation. . And the offer of an appeal does
" not remove the original injustice." But in what
does the offer of a new trial, subject to the recep-

law enforced in their behalf. Carried away by
this primary error, he has since sought to support
his position by withholding from publication—at
least in their proper place—statements at variance
with his preconceived views, and by offering con-
ditions to Spain contradictory to the principles he
had already laid down, and to the universal
principles of international law. All this time,
too, he refuses to ask that compensation to the
crew for their sufferings and losses to which,
whatever the character of the vessel, they are be-
yond doubt entitled. For these things we do not
desire to prejudge Lord STLNLET before he has
been heard in his defence. But they are too
serious not to call for parliamentary inquiry with-
out any further delay.

THE EXPRE>S, SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 15, 1867.

Herahl says, spyarently did not think the honour of par-
liament sale in the keeping of their own leiaers, end in-
flicted upon the house a purposeless and foolish division
which dooidad nothing.