The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-25 00:00:00

'NESDAY EVENING, JULY 25, 1855.

ante with the subsequent opinions of the Lords ;
and after protracted and repeated discussions,
which ended in the 'deputation to the Premier,
which was headed by Mr. Sadleir, the noble lord
having gone through the farce of pretending to
support clauses which, if passed, must have secured
the rejection of the bill as a ;natter of course in the
Lords, yesterday laments that the 24th of July has
arrived, and that a measure so dear to his heart,
must now be withdrawn !

" Quis talia fando, temperet a lachrymis ?"

Well did Mr. Stafford; in his pleasant and
piquant speech, observe " that every year was
opening the oyes of the tenantry ; that the annual
flowers, in two or three years, would be replaced
by imperial fruit, and Irishmen find out that the.
law Of prOperty for England would answer every
useful purpose of landlords and tenants in Ire-.
land."

Mr. Napier seems to have shown very conclu-
sively that, from the first, Lord Palmerston never
contemplated the completion of this bill. The noble
lord had declined to answer,the question put to him
at an early part of the session, in reference to the
,support to be given by the Government in the
House of Lords to the first V'T sections. His whole
course, therefore, has been a wilful waste of the
time of the house, with no other object than to
secure the votes of the gentlemen of the deputation
who struck their bargain at the happy moment of
a oriclic. On every debateablt- elauseand proviso di-
visions had been taken in 103, and certainly it is
not on the Conservative side-that we can find in-
consistent votes. With the record of former divi-
sions, and the decision of the House of Lords, the
noble lord spends more days and nights on this
dishonoured and rejected bill than would have
sufficed to have completed satisfactorily the new
partnership code, which must nor, it is to be
feared, be postponed for another session.
The several parties have now tried their bands
at this impracticable project of substituting legis-
lative interference for voluntary contract. It is
well that in succession they have made the experi-
ment, and it is still better ithat they have failed.
Differences there may be, and important differences
there are, between the successive plans ; and of
them all, last is undoubtedly the worst. It
satisfies no party ; and it settles nothing. It is
meagre, and yet unscrupulous.
But it is not worth while entering into the com-
parison of details, when the whole scheme is un-
sound. On express contract, and contract only,
can the relation of landlord and tenant be safely
placed ; and there seems no sufficient reason why
there should be a different law for laud in England
and land in Ireland. Every day the peculiar dif-
ferences are melting away ; every hour the process
of assimilation is going forward. We trust that the
next bill or bills on this subject proposed to Parlia-
ment may be Imperial, and then we need not fear
the promised or threatened patronage of the 14th
clause.—Requiescat in pace,-
The house is evidently tired of active duty.
Abortive measures, profitless debates, abandoned
bills, have exhausted the patience and the energies
of the members. Not a solitary measure of really
useful or remedial legislation testifies of the desire
and capacity of the Government for promoting sound
progress. Private members have been obstructed
in proposing and promoting measures of reform ;
flourishes have been made by a Government, oppo-
sing and proposing, but neither encouraging nor
completing any salutary legislation. Ireland has
been deluded ; Scotland has been defrauded ; Eng-
land has been neglected ; the House of Commons
has been degraded ; and on these conditions Lord
Palmerston and his Cabinet have been rescued
from present defeat.

(Prom the Times of this clay.)
The last act of that popular Irish farce, " the
Tenants' Improvements Compensation Bill," was
admirably performed yesterday in the Theatre
Royal, Westminister. All the parts were well sus-
tained, for the management had been excellent

and the representation had answered its purpose.
Lord Palmerston explained how that he had hoped
against hope, and done his utmost for the measure ;
how that somehow orother he could not persuade
people to be as accommodating as he was ; how
that the house had only got to the 14th clause in
a list of 53, and that same 14th clause, having al-
ready been the o?casion of one pitched battle, would
have to be fought over again more than once; how
that the Lords were likely to have a still stronger
feeling against the bill, and particularly the said
clause, than the Commons ; and how under these
circumstances it was impossible the bill could pass
this session. So far, indeed, Lord Palmerston is
perfectly right, for it would have been difficult to
name au occurrence more unlikely than the passing
of the bill with the 14th clause at the present
period of the session. But, after reciting the
labours of his Sisyphean task, and showing
such
an accumulation of moral difficulties in the way of
the bill as it breaks one's back to think of,
Lord
Palmerston calmly concluded, "It is well known
that this is the final day fixed upon in another 1
place for giving a second reading to bills from this
house ; but, leaving that out of consideration, it is
unnecessary to say how, utterly hopeless it would
be to attempt now to press forward this measure."
Here is impossibility enough and to
spare. It is
quite a pity so much should be wasted on one bad
bill, when there is enough with economy to founder
all the bad bills of a session. But, having in
ambush the utter impossibility created by the ar-
rangements of the Lords, in what delightful security
could Lord Palmerston do justice to his own la-
bours in behalf of the bill I What could be done
when the Lords had shut their door in his face ?
You are posting to catch a railway train, and your
driver, after assuring you that his horses are tired,
the carriage is heavy, the roads bad, and. night has
set in, finishes by observing that the train you want
has already started. ' What more can be done ?
Nothing, except go through the same farce next
year.
But the gist of the question was the 14th clause,
e
which had been already thrown out, and which
Lord Palmerston had undertaken to use all his in-
fluence to restore to the bill.
improvements,
value
o r , in other
of
Compensationwords,er for past
every
the transfer of
aconsiderable
estate from the
landowner ofwo
for ever
to
beforethetenant , isu nigthreyeyes of the Irish real
held
constituency. For the next 20 years, or the next
century, perhaps, they will see always before them,
within sniffing distance, the agreeable prospect of
sending in a compensation account to their land-
lords equal to several years' rent. That there
should be found people in Ireland to believe in such
a miracle of legislation is natural enough, and this
credulity is the basis of the Tenants' Compensation
Bill. We know what fish •Ce‘ll.l rise at, and we bait
our hook accordingly, and itis now an established
fact that Irish tenants will always rise at the pro-
mise of compensation. The promise, of course, must
be made if acandidate wishes to be returned ; but, the
promise made, then comes the fulfilment. This is an
t be put off.
affair of State done in the following manner :—The
ey
Irish members who have promised compensation
come to Lord Palmerston and insist on his giving it.
He must pass the retrospectivewon'clause. They
Twhilelytake
remindno himde of binial.Th s
solemn undertaking to
make all his Government vote for the clause.
assureTh e They warn
him
the him
pneootple of Ireland are not to be
to play them false. They
trifled with. He is not to calculate on their sup-
port on any emergency, unless in this point he will
satisfy the just expectations of a suffering and in-
dignant people. To give greater solemnity to their
demands, they publish to the world the resolution
passed at a meeting of Irish members, and the con-
sequent letter written to Lord Palmerston. What
more can they do in these days, when we don't as-
sassinate, but confine ourselves to words? Meanwhile
it is perfectly known, and well understood by
everybody in Parliament, that the clause will not
pass, and that, even if it passed the Commons
would be snuffed out the instant it reachef it
the
Lords. The Irish members all know this, and
Lord Palmerston knows it, and they eaoh know
that the other knows it, and the members have
promised what they know they cannot obtain, and
Lord Palmerston promises to the members what
he knows they will never got, and what he knows,
too, that they do not want ; for at the very time
that all this energetic agitation and conjuration is
going on to obtain the bill with the 14th clause it
purpose to make all
this is known that nobody really cares much about the
bill, or would have the bill, if it really rested with
himis rac.Oknet aboutlyitsu theit b
s p
i
and the 14th clause, for
it happens io be the only hold which the Govern-
ment '
has at this moment on the Irish people.
It must have been an immense relief to the
Irish members to find that the much-desired, long-
promised clause, was not only impossible, but
fairly gone by, done with for the present year,
quite gone to the bottom. How they must have
rejoiced there was a House of Lords ! There is
not much left for that house to do in these days,
but it does its duty as the God Terminus of the
British Constitution remarkably well. We may
not always know what it will do, but we know
what it will not do, and under the shelter of its

safe•and- solid resistance Irish members and Chief
Se'cretaries; and even Premiers, can promise what
they please. What may not a Man promise, so long
as .what he promises is not his to give? When the
session brought round the annual ceremony of post-
poning the fulfilment of the promise for another
twelvemonth there was nothing to be done but
express the; most bitter disappointment and the
most burning. indignation. Two Englishmen, in-
deed, ventured into the-debate and looked rather
astounded. Mr. Phillimore was at a loss to under-
stand.. the violent language used in regard to the
withdrawal of the bill, whisk it would havo been a
mere waste of time and a mockery to proceed with
under present• circumstances. ,Colonel Greville
with equal simplicity, and more sobriety, thought
Lord- Palmerston had exercised a wise discretion in
withdrawing the measure. This is like the rustic
speCtator in a theatre who is ready to rush on the
stage to the rescue of the heroine, and save her
from her murderers. Why, all that these Irish
members wanted. was to be murdered by the Pre-
mier., and robbed of the compensation clause.. They
had to make _ a decent resistance, and when the
deed was done, as it was already when the house
met yesterday, they could expostulate as much as
they liked—there was no longer
,any fear of their
succeeding. Now was the time to attack Ministers
without stint, 'and throw on them all the odium of
the failure. Could their constituents doubt the
hard fight they had had, the tremendous odds they
had had to contend against ?. Then, how did they
at the last show up Loid Palmerston's doubledeal-
ing ? We have no doubt they will gain immense
credit with their electors, the expectant Irish
tenantry, doomed to alternate for ever between
hope and disappointment, for the manliness and in-
dependence of their tone towards the British
Minister.

(Prom the Daily News of this day.)

As a matter of fair play we will continue t o ab-
stain from comment on the conduct of the police-
men actually employed in Hyde-park on the Ist of
July until the witnesses for the defenre have been
fully heard. But the monstrous doctrine pro-
pounded by Sir Richard Mayne, when examined
before the Hyde-park Commissioners yesterday,
must be denounced and exposed without delay.
Sir Richard said that he regarded the meeting
as held for the purpose of intimidating the Legis-
lature. He added that, having arrived at this con-
clusion, he consulted with the Home Department,
and that the Under-Secretary and the Legal Secre-
tary sanctioned his subsequent proceedings. Sir
Richard thereupon issued a proclamation warning
all people to keep away from the meeting, and mar-
shalled his force to put it down. Sir Richard
stated, as corroborative of theNiew he took of the
meeting, that Lord Robert Grosvenor withdrew
his bill in consequence of it. This is not strictly
accurate. Lord Robert withdrew his bill, not be-
cause the meeting had been held, but on account
of the irritation excited by Sir Richard Mayne's
highly injudicious interference, and the conse-
quent collision. This, however, is a secondary con-
sideration : we take cur ground upon the abstract
principle that the Chief Police Commissioner's
usurpation of authority was utterly unwarrantable.
If the doctrine maintained by Sir Richard Mayne
is to ho received 'as sound constitutional law, the
Chief Commissioner of Police in the metropolitan
districts has the power to decide what public meet-
ings
are legal and what are not. The Metropolitan
Police becomes, in this point of view, a force kept
on foot to limit and restrict the right to hold popu-
lar meetings. Sir Richard chose to regard the,
Hyde-park Meeting as a demonstration to intimi-
date the Legislature : he may put the same con-
struction to-morrow upon any open-air meeting to
promote Parliamentary or any other reform. And
he tells us that his opinion has received the sanc-
tion of the Home Department in a Ministry whose
leading members were, during the year 1831, in
close confidential communication with all the in-
fluential movers of the innumerable open air meet-
ings, held in the course of that year to promote
Lord Grey's Reform Bill. If the People and Par-
liament of England acquiesce without protest in the
monstrous doctrine of Sir Richard; they will place
their liberties at the mercy of a centralised political
police. They will soon find the Chief Commissioner
of Metropolitan Police an official functionary whose
powers are as dangerous and intolerable as those
of the Lieutenant de Police under the old French
monarchy.

The proceedings in Hyde-park show clearly the
spirit in which such a functionary would act. All
the special pleading of Sir Richard Mayne fails to
make out that the gathering in Hyde-park was an
organised meeting, with recognised leaders and a
definite aim. A few went, it would appear, to
tell the fre4uenters of the drive ',on Sunday what
they thought of the restrictions imposed by the
Legislature on similar Sabbath recreation of the
middle and lower classes. But the immense ma-
jority were mere curious spectators, most of them
attracted by Sir Richard's own proclamation. If
there was any rioting it was provoked by the un-
called-for interference•of Sir Richard and his myr-
midons. Sir Richard had predetermined that there
should be a riot and rioters, and had given orders
that every noisy and mischievous vagabond should
be invested with the dignity of that character. In
this, with all his energy, he signally failed. The
Crown Counsel, after sitting in deliberation till
near five o'clock on the Monday, could not find a
single case that would warrant such a stretch of
the law ; and theonly fruit of Sir Richard's amazing
energy was an intolerable and illegal degree of
hardship imposed on many respectable individuals,
who were refused to be admitted to bail on a pre-
text ultimately given up as untenable.
We have here a glaring illustration of the danger
—of which we have often warned our readers—of a
centralised police placed at the disposal, not of the
local magistrates, but of the Imperial Government.

It can at any time be used as an instrument to pro-
voke collisions with the people, which may be made
the pretext of encroachments on their liberties.
The business of Sir Richard Mayne is to preserve
the public peace, to enforce the awards of the ma-
gistrates and the Courts of law, and to protect
honest men from rogues. But he has usurped
the authority of detrmining beforehand, when,
where, for what purposes, and in what numbers
the people of England may assemble; and to carry
into effect his own arbitrary laws. And he tells
us he is borne out and supported in the exercise
of this unconstitutional authority by the Home
Department.
An incidental admission made by Sir Richard in
the course of his examination warrants the belief
that this usurpation of authority has been carried
on secretly and systematically for a considerable
time. He spoke in the highest terms of Superin-
tendent Hughes, but on cross-examination he was
obliged to admit that this model officer was 13
years ago fined for entering a house without a war-
rant. The Superintendent had then been 11 years
in the force, and could not be ignorant of the law.
Sir Richard further stated that there is a regula-
tion to the effect that any policeman convicted be-
fore a magistrate shall be dismissed the force,
except in special instances. Are we to understand
that such special instances are those in which an
officer wantonly sets the restraints of law at de-
fiance ?
There appears to be only one means of escaping
from the danger of having the police force converted
into a political instrument that may subserve the
purposes of an arbitrary Administration ' • and that
is by returning immediately to the old constitu-
tional practice of placing the police of every district
under the control of the local authorities. If Sir
Benjamin Hall's bill become law, this step will be
materially facilitated, for that measure goes to in-
stitute 12 Boards in the metropolis, upon whom
the control of the police in their respective districts
might with advantage be devolved. We might
then have throughout the whole of the metropolis
an available police force as efficient and as free from
all suspicion of being a political instrument as that
of the City.

WHALES ASHORE.—The Glasgow Daily Mail says that
whales are dashing ashore in various parts of Skye, and
that considerable numbers of them have been stranded
and taken. At Sconser, a shepherd despatched upwards
of twenty of them the other week with an old scythe.
PRICE or GOLD.—The quotation of gold at Paris is
about at par (according to the last tariff), which, at the
English Mint price of 3/. 17s. AO. per ounce for stan-
dard gold, gives an exchange of 25.17 ; and, the exchange
at Paris on London at short being 25.071, it follows that
gold is about 0.38 per cent. dearer in Paris than in Lon-
don. By advices from Hamburg the prise of gold is
4254 per mark, which,—at the English Mint price of
3/. 17s. 100. per ounce for standard gold, gives an ex-
change of 13.51 ; and, the exchange at Hamburg on
London at short being 13.51, it follows that gold is_tehxe.
same price in Hamburg and London. The course_
___,
change at New York on London for bills at 60 °sr'
erroent. "
sight is 1101 'per cent. ; and, the par of exochange be-
tween England and America being 109 23-t!iiiPakiii,
it follows that the exchange is 0.67 P
the present rate
transport and difference of interee..
f gold from the
England ; and, after making allosv
rte,tlon o
leaves a small profit on 09 in3P°
United States.
taernecee for charges of