The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-27 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1864,

According to the rate at which things are going
in the political world, we must soon begin to doubt
the testimony of our own senses. We allude to
what has been latterly occurring in the House of Com-
mons—and elsewhere, without the walls of Parlia-
ment—among some of our most conspicuous living
politicians. Take, for example, the suddenly hust-
ling away out of London of General GARIBALDI. Are
we there—to believe or not to believe our own sense:?
Are we to follow in that matter the simplest dic-
ta' es of " common" sense ? GARIBALDI himself
protests, in answer to every inquiry addressed
to him—even to the Enquiries addressed to
him by the most eminent surgeon living
—that he is uncommonly well. We see him
with our own eyes—and he looks what he
says he is, namely, uncommonly well. The Great
Surgeon, in his very last letter upon the subject of
GARIBALDI'S health, says, as plainly as words can
say anything, that on pressing him (GARIBALDI)
closely with his inquiries he appeared to be fagged
—and that on examining him very closely he looked
fagged. Well, for that matter, really the wonder
of the world would have been if he hadn't. Fancy
any man living, going through the fatigue and ex-
citement that GARIBALDI had been going through
for nearly a whole fortnight, and not acknowledging
when he is closely cross-questioned that he is rather
fagged—and not, when he comes to be very closely
scrutinized, looking rather fagged. " A throat of
brass and adamantine lungs," and all the rest of his
anatomy built up out of similar materiel?, would be
required in amen who could speak cr look otherwise
after such a fortnight as that following GARIBALDI'S
arrival in London. Fagged, of course, he was—
but otherwise, if we can believe himself, he
was uncommonly well. And, if we can be-
lieve our own eyes, he was so the day before
he left London. Oh, but he was something more
than fagged!
—the public have been seriously in-
formed. GARIBALDI wag something more than
merely fagged—he had a boil! Nay, he had "two
boils "—on 1118 arm! How very severe they must
have been, those boils, seeing that GARIBALDI could,
without wincing,
go through such an amount of
hand shaking, that it is a mercy his arms were
not wrung off before he could get away from the
metropolis. Then agair•—these boils on his arm,
that fairly compelled his more zealous friends,
Ministers of the crown
and others on the
score of his health advise his immediate de-
parture—these boils on Lis arm don't seem
to have interfered in the least with his rowing the
Dowager Dachees of Sutherland about the Thames!
More than that—What in the name of common
sense is the viva vice evidence given in by Mr.
BEALES, Mr. NICHOLAY, and others on Monday at
the London Tavern, before the City Garibaldi
Committee ? Why, the evidence is this—the
Chairman of that Committee, namely, Mr.
PEADEs, the Revising Barri.ter,falready mentioned,
Mr. NICIIOLAY also already mentioned, and

other members., said they had seen GARIBALDI
Cliefden on Surde.y. "He had assured them he
was in perfect health, and that the cause of his
departure must be attributed to other causes." Than
these, words could not be plainer—any more, in-
deed, than they could be more tautological!
Reading them—looking simply at very plain
facts remembering the look of GARl-
BALDl—remembering the assertions uttered by
GARIBALDI himself as recently as Thurs-
day in answer to inquiries about his health and
about the real reason for his hasty departure—
again we ask are we in future to believe
our own senses—are we to follow the dictates
simply of common sense ? Mr. GLADSTONE says
no. Lord PALMERSTON ditto. Lord SHAFTES-
BURY protests as distinctly as possible that we are
not—and according to what formula ?—upon his
honour as a gentleman ! Really—we cannot
help recalling to mind, in the midst of all this,
how very comically, only the other day, CHARLES
DICKENS, speaking of one cr two passages
in SHAKSPERE'S plays, remarked that, but that it
was SHAKSPERE, we should call it bosh! It is, for
all the world, exactly thus with us in regard to
this over-much speaking and writing of certain
noble lords and right hon. gentlemen about GARI-
BALDI'S Health. But that the assurances we are
listening to come from these noble lords and right
hon. gentlemen, we should be certainly very much
indeed inclined to call it bosh.

One of the most imprtant of the measures
affecting the interests of the trading community
which have been passed in our time is undoubtedly
that which first admitted the principle of limited
liability. It appears so manifestly unfair for a
man who has only taken a small share in a
business, or perhaps no share at all, save advanc-
ing some part of the money required for carrying
it on, to be held liable for the full consequences of
his partner's imprudence or misfortunes, that it is
only wonderful that such a measure should have
been so long delayed. Its omission was the more
to be regretted because, in a busy thriving com-
munity like our own, it is a matter of daily oc-
currence for capitalists to advance money to con-
cerns in which they take no active part. If a
man take a recognised share in the management
of a business, and induce others to trust him to
a large amount, he should, undoubtedly, be held
personally responsible for the consequences. But
if he has merely advanced a certain sum as a profit-
able investment, it is certainly not only hard but
unjust, that because his investment has proved a
bad one, he is to be forced to sacrifice the rest of
his means. The advantages of such a measure of

protection are very great in every way, putting a
restraint on those unprincipled persons who are
very willing to risk other people's money, knowing
that the consequences will not fall upon themselves,
and cautioning the public against putting too ready
faith in any company or speculation on the strength
of one or two names of known respectability, with-
out inquiring too closely into its actual means or
prospects. To require a mcn to be personally re-
sponsible for all tha liabilities of his firm is much as
if he were called upon to pay the value of the whole
freight of a vessel which had gone down with his
goods. No imposition is practised upon the creditors
by the regulation, Sille3 they are warned of
the state of affairs by the very name of the
company, eo that if a tradesman continue
to supply goods to an unsafe firm, rely-
ing on the private fortune of one of its members,
it is his own fault if he is disappointed. It was
this important principle which constituted the lead-
ing feature of Mr.ScnoLEFIELD's Partnership Law
Amendment Bill, which was read a second time in
the House of Commons on Monday night. The
bill proposes that the benefits of the Limited Lia-

bility Act, which at present are restricted to come

panies consisting of not loss than seven members,
should be extended, with certain te3trictions, to a
wider field, enabling capitalists who wished to ad-
vance money to an energetic man of business to do

so in a safe and prcfitable manner by being regis•
tered as partners of limited liability. It is practi.

cally the object of the measure to extend still fur.
ther the benefits oZ the Act already passed, but i'

will have a still wider influence. It will assist and

encourage the enterprise of self-made men, enabling
them to obtain the necessary capital on fair terms
from respectable capitalists as a matter of open and
regular business, instead of trusting to the liberality
of friends and relatives, or being driven into the
toils of professed money lenders. As Mr. MALINS
very justly observed, in his clear and sensible reply
to Mr. HUBBARD'S attack upon the bill, it is to the
advantage of the public that young men who pos-

seas skill and ability, though they may not have
capital, should be able to enter into business. Mr.
HODGSON supported the same view when he said
that so far from injuring the tone of commercial
morality, the bill in question would raise it by
giving greater freedom to contract, which meant
greater freedom to industry, and it would confer
upon honest and deserving men opportunities of
reaping the fruits of their industry which they have
not hitherto enjoyed. Mr. GREGSON'S objections
on the ground that while the non-acting partner
was only liable to a certain amount, there was
no limit to the credit to be obtained on the
strength of that sum, is scarcely tenable
in the face of the registration system by
which a creditor can ascertain not only the
amount of responsibility incurred by each individual

member of a firm, bat also how much of the capital
is paid up— so that if, as the hon. member sug-
gested, ten persons were duped on the strength of
a liability of £lO,OOO each to the full amount, it

must be their own fault, when they eould ascertain
whether or no the full £lO,OOO had been paid into
the concern. Mr. SCHOLEFIELD, in fact, called it

a creditor's measure, and pointed out that it did not

in the least affect the present law of partnership
regarding those who are held out to the public as

being partners, since the only persons limited to
the amount which they put down will be those of

whom the creditors know nothing excepting from
the registration of the amount of their liability. At
present, as the hon. member for Birmingham
pointed out, a capitalist can only lend money .0
a private partnership by doing so at a fixed
rate of interest, which the borrower may decline to
make a high one, and which at a low rate would

not repay his risk, or else by becoming a partner,
and thereby risking his whole property. It is, in
fact, proposed to extend to firms the advantage now

restricted to companies, and, if the Principle be

sand in the one case, there can be no reason why
it should not bo admitted in the other. We are
surprised to see a gentleman like Mr. HUBMRD,

who nas previously shown so much good sense and
fairness in dealing with commercial responsibilities
in the matter of the income tax, put himself so

decidedly in the wrong by his unqualified opposi-
-601 to this measure. Fcrtunately the House of
Commons were unconvinced by his arguments, since
the amendment was negatived without a division,
and the bill was read a second time, with a view,
we may trust, of its shortly becoming law.

It may be very convenient for the adherents of
the Government to keep silent under the awkward
eireurastaDces that attend upon the; very unwise