The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES. —The House of Commons never appears
to so little advantage as when it is executing the
delicate and invidious task of acting as judge in its
own cause. Assemblies are not free from the weak-
ness of egotism any mere than individuals. There
is the same disposition to make the best of every-
thing they do, and to slur over and extenuate faults
and shortcomings, of which every candid person is
more or less conscious when he attempts to estimate
his own conduct. On Tuesday night the great and
important question of the private business of the
House of Commons was brought before the house
by Lord R. Cecil. The opportunity was ill-chosen.
A motion of the most momentous consequence was
introduced in a thin house, and the possibility of any
satisfactory result was at once prevented by moving
that motion as an amendment to a proposition,
not very important certainly, but to which nobody
had any objection. The debate which followed
the question thus strangely raised did, it must be
admitted, bring out very forcibly the main points
of the subject, and also illustrated very clearly the
real difficulty, which undoubtedly is the indisposi-
tion of the House of Commons to part with any
portion of power or jurisdiction, even after it has
been conclusively proved that it cannot exercise it
for the public good. There was a manifest indis-
position to admit the grievance to its full extent, and
an equally manifest determination to refine away
the proposal for a remedy. The principal objections
to the present mode of conducting private business
are but too well-known. They are so over-
whelming that the continuance of the system
from year to year is perhaps the very best in-
stance that cau be given of that tenacity of life
inherent in English abuses. In what other
country was it ever thought necessary that, before
people could be allowed to execute groat public im-
provements, they should prove a complicated state
of facts, and that when this had been done they
should immediately be called upon to prove them
over again before a second tribunal ? What would
be said if no man could recover a debt till he had
obtained a judgment in two independent courts of
law, or obtain relief in equity without proving his
we to the satisfaction of two successive Vice-Cnan-
cellors ? Then, as to the tribunal, can anything be
more monstrous than that we should go on piling
decision upon decision and precedent upon prece-
dent without making the slightest approach to-
wards settling the principles upon which matters
of such immense importance to the community and
to all concerned are to be decided ? A decision in
a court of law is very often obtained with so
much expense, delay, and vexation that it can
be regarded as little short of an unmixed
evil to the litigants, vanquished and victo-
rious. But it is a great good to the community ;
it binds future decisions, and prevents future
litigation by giving those who are in a similar
position to the plaintiff and defendant a rule by
which to guide their conduct. The decisions of a
committee of the House of Commons have no such
effect. Nobody knows on what ground they are
arrived at. Tae decision of one committee does not
bind another, and often in adjacent rooms contra-
dictory conclusions are drawn from the same state
of facts. As nobody is certain, so nobody need
despair. The decisions of one session are good for
that session and no longer, and the same attempts
are renewed from year to year, to the infinite vexa-
tion and oppression of such persons as are interested
in opposing them. Mr. Massey says, in answer to
this, that even the Courts of Westminster-hall
occasionally differ from each other. They do so.
But how vast is the distinction between the oases !
The differences which exist between Courts are
differences us to the application of well-known
principles of law to a new state of circumstances.
The differences which exist between committees of
the House of Commons are generally caused by the
absence of any law at all. It is not, for instance,
settled up to the present day in what cases competi-
tion gives a right of appearing before a committee
to oppose a projected railway. The House of Com-
mons knows little or nothing of the proceedings of
its committees. Tho committees know just as little
of the proceedings of each other, and each Bill is
regarded as a purely isolated venture, controlled by
no law, and regulated by no principle. On the
members the effects of the system is equally unfor-
tunate. They are overworked in the transaction of
business which does not legitimately fall within the
duties of a central Legislature. They are wearied
by speeches from counsel which they cannot cur-
tail , and by examinations and arguments which
they cannot•contral. It is becoming every day
more difficult to find persons to discharge this
laborious and unsatisfactory duty, and although it
has long been assigned to the younger or less pro-
minent members of the house, they are evidently
anxious to escape a labour from which little is
learnt, and from which neither position nor influ-
ence is gained. This is the state of the private busi-
ness of the House of Commons, and with such
machinery it is about to meet the crushing amount
of railway business appointed for the present Ses-
sion. Surely never were interests so vast so repre-
hensibly trifled with ? The position of a young
civilian in India sent to administer between the in-
habitants such justice as occurs to him is painful
enough, but that firs case of hard necessity, while
our Parliamentary Committees are placed in
nearly equal difficulty without any necessity at
all There is not an evil we have enumerated
for which a remedy might not be found, and
we should have thought that all parties would
be glad to be rid of a system fraught with so much
evil and injustice to all concerned,—to those who
form the tribunal as well as those who appear be-
fore ito This, however, is not the case. If it be
proposed that the double inquiry should be saved
by appoiatlng a joint Committee of both Houses,
endless objections are raised as to their respective
rights and privileges. If it be urged that,a sepa-
rate legal tribunal might be formed to perform the
duties now intrusted to a Committee, as is the case
with Enclosure Acts, and that WC duties of the
House might be confined to affirming of rejecting
the conclusions of that tribunal, it is answered that
if the Report of the tribunal is to be final, the House
is deprived of its legislative powers, and if it is not
to be final, there may be a double inquiry—one be-
fore the tribunal, and one before Parliament, and
thus delay and vexation may ensue. Even if this
were so, we should be prepared to contend that it
would be better and more for the honour of Par-
liament to give up a jurisdiction which it cannot
exercise with satisfaction to itself or the public than
to cling to powers which its organisation renders
mischievees. But, in truth, this is not the case.
Parliament ought by all means to retain that part of
its duties le the despatch of private business which
it ie well calculated to diseharge. It should lay down
clearly and Watch vigilantly the principles upon
which private business is c® d
onduete, g the
labour of ascertaining facts to some less important
body. Parliament does exactly the contrary of this.
hers in the attempt to mas-
It Waatee the t,ime of
members in the attempt to mae-
er and adjuai(ito upofl details which a far inferior
ter and.adjudielte
Li_i_gence,u4h odebate
tribunat could dispousPe°6nf
isv neglecting t
better than itself and it com-
pensates for this over .1 Above all other
or consider those principles evis.- all to lay
bodies in the cotintty is pre.evainentilel
th i 8► bb
-mulay
down.. There are several W Ivh
ays in
inversion df fiinctions might be correctedi The tn.
banal might be appointed to take evidence, leaving
the Committee to form its jud
g '
fti
denee sio taken. Mr. Gibson says,elit Pon the evi-
indeed, that the
tribunal wodid not know what evid l
t
ence to take, but
(mid be fats to our
this objection, if it wer6
whole system of administering since we
can never be sure that the full court will ndt
hold
that the evidence taken in the inferior court was
addressed to the wrong point. But as in a civil
trial the adverse interests of the opposing parties
afford in practice a sufficient guarantee that all
things material to be proved will be proved, so would
it be in proving or disproving the preamble of a bill.
We by no means wish to see Parliament divest itself
of its powers of legislation in private business.
We wish that the question should be sifted and
reduced to its simplest expression before Par-
liament is called upon to deal with it, and that
its interference should be confined to the correction,
either by way of appeal or decision on evidence
already taken, of any error which may have been
committed by the tribunal below. For this duty a
joint Committee of the two Houses is admirably
qualified, and it would not be too much to expect
that for such a Committee the House of Commons
would be willing to spare several of its ablest and
most experienced members.
POST.—It is gratifying to olyterve that the French
authorities in Mexico are e ,ccomplishing reforms
which cannot fail to conci ‘iate the population,