The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-16 00:00:00

TFIE SUN, LoN 00N. FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 16 1855:

PREFERENCE SHARES. ;

LAW INTELLIGENCE.-(THIS DAY).

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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90 - 92

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
SECOND COURT.

MR. ROEBUCK'S RESOLUTION.
( From the Times of this day.)
Among all the political changes effected or in progress
there is one thing that remains still unchanged, and
that the House of Commons will immediately have to
deal with. Mr. Roebuck's resolution having been car-
riedforgotten or evaded.countryev re
nk i known
on
be-
hind e3n:
in
nt by
dh
et the
House
bckla
isgesta
tent largest
:pn anti-Ministerial rnibtteiTi - Ashsulei
dierrhel, iescaiittecroaii
fatse r,jhie
noitigrity i
inquiry
roeynv
as
there
willr
thnhue nt'. brbl
eew simple,anipobise'tjopinion,
satisfactorythlWhat
7hba
straightforward,etitst ottalo'itei eeghdcotoono:e ensbttwer dtchoy
ao utui etr swe,itlhwl oti
large—the::
appointment of an impartial committee, with the tirgellt
recommendation to inquire to some practical and imme-
diate effect. The particular points on which the system
hal broken down are only too flagrant. Indeed, there
is a spirit of impudence in the failure which dares public
opinion to do its worst. It is possible, however, that
the same who resisted Mr. Roebuck's motion the other
night will do so again, either because it matters not to
inquire into the shortcomings of dead men, as the ex-
Premier and the ex-Secretary at War may now be con-
sidered, or that some other course will answer the pur-
pose much better. Nothing is more natural than that
Lord Palmerston, beginning an Administretion in
troublous times, and having his hands full of work,
should desire to be relieved et a committee of inquiry,
taking up everybody's time, and throwing the whole
administration of war into a sort of twilight existence,
between what it has been and what it is to be. Un-
happily, there is too much to be said against inquiries
of a political colour. There is, for example, the cele-
brated Ceylon affair, which was permitted to draggle
on through two sessions, and was eventually con-
cluded by every member of the committee voting true
to his party, and the chairman deciding by a casting
vote. In the present instance, indeed, the decision will
not signify much, as it is rather a full exposure of the
system that is wanted. That once made, there are so
many thousands of persons of all classes deeply, and
now painfully interested, in our military system, that
we rather look to the decision out of doors than in
doors, and snob a preeee - eteot compel re -
spite of e. nment opposition and the House of Lozee.
Yet there is something to be said against proceeding by
a Parliamentary committee of inquiry when we know
beforehand what its answer will be. If Government,
therefore, has .the wisdom and grace to propose a mixed
commission of Lords and Commons, or any other really
effective substitute for a committee, this will, at all
events, be a very natural mode of escape from a present
perplexity, and the threatener] farce ail merely partisan
report. To such a compromise-we shall feel no great
objection, particularly as it is just possible the mixed
commission might -consist of men better adapted for the
purpose than a committee of the House of Commons,
composed either of second rata men or of men too much
occupied with the duties of office.
But an inquiry there ought to be, and an inquiry
there assuredly will be. Old gentlemen, and young
gentlemen who have consorted with old gentlemen till
they are themselves even older and stupider, may talk
as thee like of the capture of Badajoz or the retreat
from Burgos ; but the country never will believe that it
was the "regular thing" that a magnificent army
should perish for want of food, clothing, covering, fuel,
and other "shop goods," within six miles of a port
crowded with our ships full of these very things. It
will insist on knowing the reason why some forty thou-
sand men successfully landed, and scarcely out of
reach of our ships, from that day till they mi-
serably perished, or miserably survive, were con-
demned to all the tortures of Tantalus for seve-
ral months —to hunger within reach of food, and
to freeze or rot within sight of clothing, covering,
and fuel. Every town, every village, will demand in-
quiry, for the blood of these victims crieth from the
ground. That inquiry, to be effectual and fair, must
embrace the whole of the management of the war, if
only because everybody and every class concerned in it
is now throwing the responsibility on the rest of the
system. At home they talk of Lord Raglan and the
Staff; in the Crimea of the departments at home. Nay,
at the very time when we hear a rumour that inquiry is
to be stifled altogether, if possible, it also reaches us—
from no sufficient source, indeed— that Lord Raglan and
Generals Airey, Estcourt, and Lucan are already re-
called. The news is only too good to be true, but the
bare existence of such a rumour shows how much the
responsibility of these miseries rents, in common opinion,
on the command in the Crimea, and how much justice
demands that no man, no office, no institution, shall be
spared at home. The inquiry, indeed, must, in the na-
ture of things, include whet has been done in the Cri-
mea ; but every neglect, every absurd order, every mis-
carriage of supplies, every case of official stupidity, must
be traced to its origin, in the official instructions, in the
appointment of the officers, in the origin of the evil, to
be found only at home. Inquiry is the only engine by
which a people too proud and too free to tolerate the
effective simplicity of despotism can obtain anything
like a good management of their affairs. This is only
what has been said a thousand times before—" Public
opinion, or a despot." But public opinion cannot exist
without inquiry ; and whatever resists inquiry, and
claims the privilege of not being known or understood,
is, in fact, a despotism, so far as it goes, and may go
very far. The manner of the inquiry is, indeed, a minor
affair. The tribunal that will do its work the best must
be preferred.
To us it seems so serious, so portentous a matter,
that inquiry should be resisted, and that an immense
national calamity should still claim a certain privileged
and inviolable character, that we are sure—such is our
trust in the good sense and the resolution of the Iffiritieh'
people—tho choice lies between an inquiry of the usual
constitutional character now, and one of the very un-
usual, and possibly unconstitutional character, before
long. The results of a refusal are too plain. In the
first instance, that refusal may or may not be submitted
to with some show of patience ; but it will be felt to be
due, and the people will hold Government and the Legis-
lature deep in its debt. Only too soon there will in-
evitably be new disasters, the results of the same system,
the same management, and the same thoroughly indo-
lent, selfish, crabbed, unaccommodating spirit. Every
fresh disaster will renew the demand for inquiry, and
suggest new forms and orders of a more searching, radi-
cal, not to say revolutionary character. Indeed, that is
the long and the short of it. It is not the Duke of
Newcastle, or Lord Raglan, or a few military gentlemen,
who are the subject of this inquiry ; it is not merely the
army or departments at home ; it is not only the oondact
and administration of the war,—nay, it is not a Go-
vernment, nor is it even a House of Commons. It is
the British constitution that is under trial. It is on
trial not before the British people alone, but before the
whole world. Everywhere is it spoken against. It is
the jest alike of our enemies and our Allies. Every
Englishman who shows himself abroad is regarded as
the representative of political stupidity and pretence.
What is the value, they ask, of a constitution that can
do nothing, and which is no sooner fairly tried in the
common field of war than its best men are found
pretenders to titles and professional rank they have
no real claim to, and whose whole system is a
miserable counterfeit ? That is the talk of camps
and of capitals, and every day these reproaches are
endured we sink so much lower in the opinion
of the world, and lose all solid strength in the great con-
tests of humanity. Will the nation be content thus to
give up the prize we have struggled for so long, and
which we fondly thought we had secured—that of being
foremost among Vie free, and all-powerful, not only in
the field, nor yet on the ocean, which we call our own,
but in the grander and nobler sphere of the free mind
of man

St.
20
St.
15

6. : 9.i

(Sittings at Guildhall, before Mr. Justice Wightinan and
a Common Jury.)

93 -

FALSE IMPRISONMENT-GLEEN 0. FIIITCHINSON.

This was an action to recover damages for false im-
pri6onntent.

.•• .... •

Mr. Sergeant Thomas and Mr. Sleigh were for the
plaintiff, and Mr. Wonllett and Mr. 111‘Donald were for
the defendant.

5i - 6.

- 1
121 - 13

The defendaet pleaded not guilty, and that he bad
Just reason fur having given the plaintiff in charge.
The proceedings arose out of the plaintiff baying
been given into custody by the defendant, a solicitor in
Earaa,rd's Inn, under these circumstances :—Plaintiff
bad been a baker at Wisbeach, and came up to
town to carry on business in partnership with
a man named Bays, who, after some negotia-
tion, paid over about 801. Bays became bank-
rupt, and a person named Tyler, who is clerk to defend-
ant, after the bankruptcy, gave plaintiff into custody for
having stolen 47 sacks of wheat. Upon this charge
the defendant was locked up in the station all
night, and, upon being taken before the magistrate,
was, at the request of the defendant, remanded for
a week, and at the end of that time was dis-
e'harged ; upon which the defendant again gave him
into custody for stealing a horse, and also embezzling
261. upon this charge. The magistrate at the South-
,wark Police-court, where the charge was preferred, held
the defendant to answer the charge at the Surrey Ses-
sions, where the grand jury ignored the bill upon which
::these proceedings were commenced.
The case was proceeding, when we went to press.

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... • ...
par -- ip

(From the Morning Post of this day.)
The House of Commons, by a majority so large and
unusual as one hundred and fifty-seven, has appointed a
committee of inquiry upon the conduct of the war and
the state of the army engaged in the campaign in the
East. In the usual course of business the next stage in
the proceedings would be the nomination of members to
be charged with its prosecution. That would be the first
and immediate step which routine would suggest on the
re-assembling of the house to-day. Will it, or ought it,
to be taken? Whether it ought, depends upon the
answer which that majority of the house who gave its
voice with the ayes would truly return to the question,
whether that vote was bona fide intended to involve an
inquiry in the form, and under the conditions, apparent
on the face of the motion : whether it will, depends upon
Parliamentary chances, which we may consider when we
have satisfactorily answered the first question which
we have proposed for solution. Upon that point we feel
no hesitation. We feel no difficulty in at once reply-
ing in the negative ; and we refer with entire confidence
to the speeches delivered by men of all parties in support
of the view which we take of the intention and of the
feeling of the house. There is, in point of fact, no doubt
that the resolution appointing a committee of inquiry,
whatever might have been the individual idea of Mr.
Roebuck, was regarded by the entire remainder of those
who took part in the discussion, and the division, by the
minority as well as the majority, simply and exclusively,
as a vote of censure upon the late Government, noTkin-
ally upon that Government as a whole, but directed
truly and practically, personally and exceptionally,
against Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle.
The motion has answered its real purpose. We may
say the whole of its real purpose. In obedience to the
spirit of the resolution, which was the result of its affir-
mation, those two Ministers have been removed from
the councils of the Crown, and the Cabinet, in the direc-
tion of which they have so palpaby failed, has been re-
modelled—Lord Panmure replacing the one, and Lord
Palmerston the other. There remains, therefore, no
purpose to pursue, and no object to seek, the attainment
of which could, as far as we can see, be in any degree
assisted by cairting the resolution of the house to
any farther conclusion, unless, indeed; Parliament and
the country are dissatisfied in liminc with the Cabinet
which Lord Palmerston has franked, and desire, by a
vote of anticipatory censure, as it were, to stop them
before they can so much as put their foot over the
threshold of the departments of Government. We
cannot believe that the house will commit itself in the
face of the country by as act so egregious and so un-
reasonable, or that it will, as a body, take upon itself
the responsibility of stopping hastily and peremptorily
the progress of that high and important policy which the
now Government has so promptly and decidedly ini-
tiated, and of standing in the way of the completion of
the measures so vigorously adopted for giving it imme-
diate action and instant effect. We do not believe that
the House of Commons will be so unwise, F 9 incon.=i-
c'. t.o. 0- '‘ the cr,r,t r'-'

.. .~::..• 1) ~.~

1):v- e.uy fththilT ho,r

gyvtaloutiit 01 toe country at this critical moment ; al-
though, bearing in mind the feeling that was exhibited,
and the language that was used, dazing the exiiiteuce pf