The Sun.
London, England, 1852-01-26 00:00:00

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LUNDON, MONDAY. JANUARY 26, 1852.

Rumours, assuming the aspect of authority, render

it highly probable that the Law, under whatever name
designated, is destined to be a prominent feature in
the coming session; and if the subject be taken up
and prosecuted in an enlightened and comprehensive
spirit, it will go far to redeem the Whig Government
from the heavy load of suspicion of its sincerity and
competence, which now weighs upon it. Hitherto
Lord JOHN RUSSELL appears to have been more in-
tent upon strengthening the machinery of the courts
by the creation of additional judges than by recur-
rence to measures calculated to simplify the law, and
to ensure its prompt and inexpensive administration.
The extinction of a decayed borough, the enlarge-
ment of a mercenary constituency, the political birth
of a rising town, are judicious steps in the onward
course of Parliameusery reform, and in no way tend
to impede the eventual consummation of a wider sys-
tem of representation. But with the law the process
ought to be far different ; a meddling spirit is a per-
nicious evil, and bespeaks an utter ignorance of the
great principles upon which an enlightened system of
jurisprudence should be reared. The justice of this
remark is strongly and strikingly enforced in a letter,
just published, from Mr. WHITTLE HARVEY to Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, in which he insists that " whatever
is done must be done vigorously and compre-
hensively, evincing the calmness of the philosopher
and the practical wisdom of the statesman,"
and with great skill he divests his Lordship of all pre-
text for delay upon the score of unwilling or over-
worked colleagues. "No Minister," observes Mr.
HARVEY, " was ever so sustained in the cause of kn•
provement by the appliances at command, and which
await your bidding. The benches of our Common
Law Courts are filled with learned men, who owe
their position, not more to their profeesional preten-
sion than to their party adhesion. These venerable
functionaries can no longer plead the pressure of their
engagements as an excuse for inaction ; for it is well
known that the County Courts, whose useful labours
are daily extending, have well nigh stranded their
elder brethren. The tide of business is so rapidly
receding from Westminster Hall, as to render the
Courts of the Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and
the Exchequer little else than the seats of ermined
ease ; and assuredly no scheme could be better devised,
whereby to divert the public censure from these
scenes of learned leisure and extravagant emoluments,
than the engagement of our judicial sages upon the
great work of law reform." In past times, when de-
votion to abuses and a hatred of change were the
eagerly sought and easily secured qualifications for
public employment, and in no direction more so than
in the law, to have attempted the enlistment cf the
senior judges in the cause of legal regeneration
would have been to bespeak their decided and suc-
cessful hostility. In this respect all things are hap-
pily changed,; and the benches of our superior
courts are now cccupied by men who are bound to
the Government by the force of principle and the ties
of party to aid the cause of reform in every depart-
ment of the State, and especially of their own, where
of all others it is most needed. The letter of Mr.
HARVEY abounds in useful suggestions, and insists
that the country requires from the Government a
wisely conceived system of laws, to be administered
uprightly, " with speed without precipitation, and
with economy untarnished by parsimony."
As it might be expected from the pen of a man
who has been more cruelly injured than any public
character within our memory, Mr. HARVEY con-
tends that the benchers of the inns of court and bar-
risters ought to be made responsible to the law, and
he points at a simple and efficacious plan to make
them so. We have been much struck
.by the letters
which now appear, for the first time, from several
eminent Members of Parliament of all parties, who
express, in the most unmistakeable language, their
deep sense of the great injustice which has been done
tth
oone of the most distinguished orators of the Bri-
isSenate, and that, too, at a time when pre-emi-
nence was
appointed to more difficult to attain. Mr. O'Cortriuna,
who was the indefaclaims to be called to the bare
incluireti
ingtaoblaencdhrairman of the Committee
con-
duct of the benchers as
a pcohratruapcot
enrMi s
er H
s.
the eR ereTs
first-rate talents have been
extent, and efa'ase conspiracy by which
highest order have been prevented
p reovaelnit3recriofbrob to
from reaching
reaaon incal-
culablebyhingthe whichretensions of the very
elevation of public station to which they were and are
suited and naturally intended."
So writes a man "
m
highly qualified to judge, upon the
ucrt.oHf an
HARVEY
Y
ir-
responsible power, whose overthrowco
considers as an indispensable condition in any
plan AR
justly
which merits the appellation of Law Reform.
%Ve the less regret the want of space to insert the
el
PEEL, Mr.
letters of Sir LYTTON BULWER, Colonel
liodE, General EVANS, and others, as we can with
etter.
confidence refer outireaders to Mr. HeavE 's