The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(Front the Times of this day.)
To any unprejudiced observer it must appear, at first
sight, a very remarkable thing that there should he any
opposition at all to such a measure as the Limited
Liability Bill. Why in the world is it so obnoxious, so
,ntolerable, so execrable a thing that a man having, we
viii say, five hundred pounds, should not be permitted
co lend it to a neighbour on the simple and innocent
condition of sharing his neighbour's profits, in case of
success, and losing no more than his five hundred
pounds, in the case of failure ? Where is the extrava-
gance, where is the dishonesty, where the peril, where is
the un-English character, where is the inevitable loop-
hole for roguery and folly, in such a proposition ? In
ear humble opinion, it may fairly be assumed that, as a
general rule, an Englishman who has scraped together .
five hundred pounds, or even come by it in some less
tedious way, will take care of it, if he can, and will not
put it into the hands of the first fool, or the first knave,
who asks for the use of it. The penalty of losing the
money will generally be quits enough to deter the owner
From a very wild investment, if there is the opportunity
of a better one. Why is it, then, that the proposed
liberty of advancing money on the terms just described
should be fiercely disputed, on the ground that the
penalty of losing all'the money so advanced is not
enough, and that the lender must be bound not only to
the amount of his advance, but to the whole of his
means, every farthing he has in the world, every earthly
ching he possesses, and his personal liberty besides
Why this desperate determination to bind a man not
only up to the whole of his venture, but to all that he ,
has, body and soul ? Shylock had a particular and not
very creditable reason for binding his creditor, not
only to the whole of his. six thousand ducats, but to the
very flesh on his bones. But it is natural to ask with
some curiosity who they are, in a Christian community,
Who insist that the law ,between debtor and creditor
shall always be of this excruciating and murderous cha-
racter. Who are they who insist that in every instance
there shall not only be theforfeiture of the sum expressed
in the bond, but of everything else the debtor has in -the
world? We can only answer a simple question, and we
answer it only from the columns before us. The hon.
members who make this demand are Mr. Muntz, Mr.
Glyn, Mr. W. Brown, Mr. Strutt, Mr. Spooner, Mr.
Bass, Mr. J. Forster, Mr. Mitchell, and Mr. Hastie, and
then we are told this is nota capitalist question ! Why,
these are all capitalists.
It does really seem to us a most invidious proceeding
that a dozen wealthy men, with great command of capi-
tal, and great opportunities of employing it to advantage,
should come down to the house in a body for the pur-
pose of debarring the man with small means from using
those small means to the best advantage, except at the
risk of everything he has in the world. If it is not a
question of capital versus labour, these gentlemen are
bound to explain why it is that the opposition to the
measure in the house is conducted almost exclusively by
very large capitalists. We should be, and, indeed, always
have been, the very last to encourage any jealousy be•
tween capital and labour, or, to speak in plainer language,
between the rich and the poor. We shall ever insist, not
only on the rights of capital, but on the duty of the Le-
gislature to protect and cherish it from envious and ma-
licious agitation. But we hold it also a matter both of
policy and of duty to foster the more humble savings of
the poor and increase the opportunities fortheir use. The
wealthy gentlemen who argued afrbainstthe bill last night
admitted that limited liability did .for France, for the
United States, and indeed, for all other countries in the
world. But then, it is argued, all these are poor countries,
hat is, in France, for example, there is a very numerous
class of small proprietors, who have not separately enough
:or large enterprises, while the enterprises themselves
are flagging for want of means. But, if England is a
rich country, it is also a poor country, for there are poor
Ls well as rich in it. Everybody who has to do with the
poor must be painfully arware of two continual demands
co be found everywhere—on the one hand, persons want-
ing a little money to carry on some small business or to
seize some opportunity of extending it ; and on the other
hand, persons having a little money, and wanting to put
it out to the best advantage. Now, what do these peo-
ple do with their money at present? They put it in a
savings-bank, which gives them 2i per cent., that is 2/.
155., per annum for every hundred pounds. They in-
vest it in a shop or apublic-house, and are ruined. They
put it into a building society, with the same result.
['hey join a freehold land society, and get saddled with
a bit of land they don't know what to do with, two miles
,r ten miles oft. If the sum of money is a little larger,
'hey buy shares in a railway, or a mine, being totally
ignorant of both, and pay the penalty of ignorance by
considerable losses. The question before us is how to
leal with these two kinds of demand--the demand for a

ittle capital, and the demand for small investments.
We maintain that the most obvious, natural, and, on the
whole, the safest way, is to encourage people with small
sums to advance them to small tradesmen on the condi-
tion which Mr. Strutt deprecates as the chance of un-
limited gain with a limited chance of loss ; that is to say,
a chance of 10 per cent., and no danger of losing more
than the 1001. We accept the description, and ask for
he th'ng so described. Some people know ope anot`ier.
They know whom they may trust. They know an ho-
est man, a clever man, and a diligent man. They are
safer in dealing with their neighbours than in large
invrutable, and remote speculations requiring mil-
lions of eapi al. We are aware that, as the
Duke of, Wellington toll his soldiers after the war,
"geed interest is only another name for bad secu-
rity ;" but we are also aware that few people will
be content with 21. 15s. from the savings-bank, or even
31. Gs. from the funds at their present price. No good
reason can be assigned why they should not be allowed
te advance their money to a neighbour whom they knew
and whom they trust, on the condition of sharing the
profits to the extent of the advance, and no further.
This evident conspiracy of capitalists, unbecoming and
suspicious enough in itself, wears a still uglier aspect
ellen it resorts to the pettiest mode of opposition. The
forms of the house are intended to give every opportu-
nity for discussing the merits of a question, not for
multiplying obstructions. But no trades' union ever in-
dulged in so purely vexatious a warfare as that which
these millionnaires are now employing to prevent a poor
man from putting his money into a business without
running the risk of utter destruction. The measure
itself is one that particularly appeals to the generosity
of the rich, and all the generosity shown in this case is
to raise a debate at every possible stage of the measure.
Then, when every kind, of obstruction has been offered,
when the promoters of the bill have been baffled at
every turn, and velien„euch a delay has been effected
that the bill has only been got into committee, or rather
on to the threshold, on the 26th of July, there rises the
cry that it is too late to do anything with the bill this
year. Why, whose fault is it that the bill is too late ?
Whose fault is it that the bill cannot now be fully dis-
cussed in a week, if necessary ? But if the House of
Commons does not mean to lose its character, and
provoke as great a cry for legislative as there is for
administrative reform, it would do well to put an end
to the practice of a purely vexatious and dilatory op-
position. It is a mode of proceeding tolerated in no
society, no class in this country ; and the extensive
use of it in the House of Commons very much dero-
gates from the character of that body as a moral guide
to the nation. Laws are seldom well obeyed unless they
are respected, and they will not be respected unless the
men who make them are respected also ; but, when
members are seen to practise every kind of trickery and
annoyance in order to waste 'Lime and to wear out pa-
tience, the people at large will naturally conclude these
must be very ordinary mortals, something lower and
meaner, indeed, than ordinary mortals. This measure,
and the sister one for the regulation of partnerships, are
not the only victims. Sir William C'ay has been obliged
to give up his Church Rates Abolition Bill, not from
any defeat, or prospect of defeat, on its merits, but
simply because a vexatious use of the constitutional forms
of the house had driven him too late for any prospect of
success in this session. At this rate, and with these fre-
quent examples of successful annoyance, the house will
find ere long that it has wholly lost the power of legisla-
tion. Already it is not very far from that result. Yet
all that is wanted is for a few honest men to set their
faces against an improper use of the forms of the house,
and denounce it whenever it occurs. The country must
have good laws, and, if it cannot have them otherwise,
it will not allow the forms of the house to stand in the
W ay.

( From the Daily News of this day.)

Now that the chance of passing the Partnership
Amendment and Limited Liability Bills has become
almost a forlorn hope, the noble lord at the head of
the Government has suddenly awakened to a sense of
their vital importance. The principle of limited
liability is so well established that any bill framed
with a liberal and frank acceptance of it might have
been carried almost without an effort. But whether it
is that Lord Palmerston has only just discovered that a
relaxation of the present law of partnership would be a
most popular addition to his scanty stock of Government
measures, or that he scorns an easy victory and cannot
condescend t o any but a dashing and desperate service,
he has contrived to delay the discussion of the bills upon
this subject to a period when it will need all his energy
backed by unusual forbearance on the part of his oppo-
nents, and some concession from the House of Lords, to
enable them to become a law. It is very easy to under-
stand the ad captandant deciaration by which the noble
viscount endeavoured yesterday to cast off the responsi-
bility of the delay that threatens to be fatal to legislation
for this session at least. With the well-assumed indigna-
tion of a man whose strenuous efforts bad been thwarted by
an organised opposition, he assured the house that he would
go on from day to day, from morning to morning, perhaps
into Sdptember, rather than suffer the bills to be talked out
and the hopes of the country to be baulked. And this
magniloquent explosion comes from a Minister who has
never given an entire sitting to the discussion until the
time has passed after which the House of Lords has re-
solved not to read a bill a second time. We believe that
Ministers do desire to carry these bills. We are quite
sure they wish to have credit for doing so. But the re-
sults of yesterday's debate are not very encouraging.
The house did not get beyond Mr. Munta's amendment,
the whole morning having been exhausted in re-affirm-
ing a principle sanctioned a year ago by a unanimous
rqrsolution of the Commons, and all but universally