The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-08 00:00:00

Social Science Congress at Edinburgh.

The seventh annual meeting of the National Associatien
for the Promotion of Social :e.:eclilenee opened at Edinburgh
ached at 2 o'clock in St. Giles's
yesterday. A sermon was p o
Courch before:a large audience by
the Rev, Dr. Argot, one
cc the in.clembente, and in the eveninbee the general meeting
of members and associates took place in the Free Church
Asserebly-h all. The Right Hon. Lord Broughern, President
of the Asseciation (who arrived on Tuesday evening, and is
the guest of the Lord Provost), occupied the chair, and was
fee.
f.WA •SS tieally received by the crowded assemtlage.
Lord BROUGHAM delivered the following opening ad-
" We now hold our seventh Congress in the ancient
dore:-s —i'al of Scotland, renowned for its services and its sacri-
tiel'es to the independence of the country and the meinte-
wines of her religion; but famous also for those whom she
retired as instructors of mankind. Here is planted the
greatest of the Scotch Universities, and here those illustrious
teachers flow ished whose discoveries liid the foundation of
en, mical science, whose writings and lectures made an era
iu p )litical philosophy, whose toils assisted in restoring the
ancient geometry, and in expounding that of modern times.
They are gone from the scene which they once made famous.
and have been followed by others whose enlightened labours
and brilliant fancy adorned a later age. Black, Smith, the
Stover ts, Playfair, Robinson, Thomas Campbell, Jeffrey,
are no longer spared to our admiration, but they have left
their example to guide us, their success to cheer. Since
our last Congress the association has sustained the irrepar-
able loss of Sir Benjamin Brodie;
we had to lament except that of the amiable and accom-
plished and none so great have
Sir James Stephen, who presided at our second. meet-
ing was
over the department of which the great
are
the other:chairman. When our feelings. mine especially,
our duty to
touched by the blank which surrounds us,
physiolos
is
submit, but it is also my consolation, at leastit rtlect that
loved and
the period of separation from those we
well say with Cicero
loot is drawing fast to a close. I may
tury—` Me ilis°
when he was younger by a quarter ofaauwo-len
inter nos digres-
consolabar, existimans, non longir
_ewe.
23). In looking
snm et discessum fore:—
what has been done, we
back to the past year, (Cie: d
have once morelto chidean mingatience of well-meaning
ajeleenivi.
but unreflecting men who complain lapin that our progress has
First of all they underrate
not kept pace with their wishes.
mind's eye is deceived by the
what has been done.
desire of rapid progress, as the natural eye when, in driving
quickly on the river'sbank, we suppose the vessel carried
down the stream is standing still. Next, one great truth
must ever be kept in
.the minds of all who desire the good
of society---9, truth in the science of Government and of
that the people who hasten to improve
hthuemiral nature—
eleolitical lot faster than the safety of society permits
of going wrong and coming to a bad end as
arethlaovilenr dyi v sure
i dual who makes haste to be rich, Anarchy and
await. the people as the gibbet awaits the man.
sWhen we cast our eyes towards other countries and con-
sider the progress which social • science has there made, we
view a state of things far from fulfilling the hopes cherished
at our last meeting. But let us begin with the gratifica-
tion of marking the great step taken by the Emperor of
Russia in furtherance of the important work on which we
have heretofore expressed our approval and our thanks—
the emancipation of the serfs. Encountering as he did
great difficulties from the selfishness of the landowners,
but also from the ignorance of the serfs themselves, he has,
by an act impossible to be too highly praised, given entire
freedom to all the serfs on the domains of the Crown—thus
converting 2,000,000 bondmen into unfettered proprietors,
and their labourers into free workmen. It is hoped that
this great measure may have a salutary influence upon
the possessors of other estates, and that the Russians are
fall of confidence in the effects of emancipation. It is cer-
tain they have turned their attention to the co-operative
system which has, so beneficially to our labouring classes,
been established in this country. Men from St. Peters-
burg and Moscow have visited our towns where
co-operative institutions are established, that they
might profit by our experience. There have indeed long
exirted in Russia a rude kind of co-operative unions (what
is termed Ateles) ; but the change in the condition of the
peasantry has enforced the expediency of introducing the
complete system with all its improvements, Education has
also been greatly encouraged, a vast number of schools
having been established for instructing the peasantry.
While we justly commend the Czar's wise and liberal mea-
sures in his own country—measures so worthy of his kind
and amiable nature, so well known in his visit to England
when Czarowitch—it is truly painful to find how the scenes
exhibited in his Polish dominions make it but too likely
that with his succession to the throne his character has
undergone a change. That which mortals covet as the
greatest blessing, but which is the greatest curse both to
themselves and the rest of mankind—the possession of
arbitrary power—has this, besides other evils, that its pos-
sessor imparts his caprices to his subordinates. But the
tyrant's appointed punishment is fear; and it is a comfort,
though a poor one, to those whom he oppresses that he is
more terrified than they—
" ' Qu.i tenet pins ipso timet, sore ista tyrannis
" Convenit.'
Assuredly his fears are the chief of his qualities which he
communicates to his instruments, and their terrors are only
to be allayed by countless treacheries and merciless cruel-
ties. But whether by his own authority or by the zeal and
the fears of his agents—for whose acts he must be held re-
sponsible at the very least when they come to his knowledge
—it is on all hands allowed that the unhappy Poles have
been visited with the most grievous inflictions, which almost
unavoidably drove them into revolt. That which in the
eyes of all nations is hold the worst of those acts, uniting
as it does the extremes of both treachery and cruelty,
has been the conscription, as it pretended to be, but which,
in truth, was a proscription, the forcible seizure of the most
eminent men in all classes, and transporting some to
Siberia, some to the Russian army—a fate they almost as
much dreaded as the penal servitude of the mines. But
other atrocities have been committed in the barbarous treat-
ment of both sexes and all ranks, the clerical not excepted;
wholesale confiscations of property have laid waste the
land ; and the wretched country is plunged into a civil war,
which is deplored as the measures that caused it are loudly
blamed by the people of every European community, and
by the Governments, too, excepting that of Prussia, the ac-
complice of Russia, and thus sharing in the universal repro-
bation of its own subjects smell as its neighbours. The friends
of social science have viewed these painful scenes with the
feelings they are so well fitted to raise for the sufferers, and
with the alarm they unavoidably cause for the peace of the
world, held as the first of blessings by all welt-wishers to
the best interests of mankind. But deeply to be lamented
as are the sufferings of Poland, and strongly to be cen-
sured as is the conduct of her oppressors, let us cherish the
hope that the universal opinion of Europe may avail to
obtain her redress, without any such hostile interference
as unreflecting men, under the influence of their feel-
ings, are prone to recommend. The agitation which per-
vades Germany occasions another danger, though far
less, to the tranquillity of the Continent. But it is satis-
factory to find that the chief question has arisen respecting
the Constitution proposed by Austria upon very liberal
grounds, and that the only real doubt is to what extent the
Bound and long-tried principles of our own constitutional
system shall be adopted. In no part of Germany except
the Prussian States does the Government reject these prin-
ciples, and the people whom that Government at once op-
presses and betrays are heartily opposed to its views and its
policy, both foreign and domestic. Our French neighbours
have, since last Congress, passed through an electoral crisis
without any change in the form of their Government or in
the balance of parties, but with a manifest exhibition of the
popular influence, notwithstanding the constant, indeed
sysfernalie, interference of the executive power with the
elceti„n:, and the fetters still continued on the press. The
injud;cious conduct of one Minister (who has
I), tendered into a formal eulogy of absolute power) turned
the elections in some of the provincial towns, but still more
in the capital, against the Government, or, it may be more
truly said,
in favour of theOpposiotiton, meni being chosen
ecau
addition e they
has been made -
from no love of their p
oeh ub
a very small
because
°PPG" the
Government.
e 0 ,r
the votes of the Opposition, yet in debating
force it has largely
gained. Nor can any doubt be reason-
ably entertained that in the exercise of a sound and en-
lightened judgraentithe ruling power will protect itself by
ractical administration of the law.
Meting greater latitude of free discussion, as well as by
the P
improvements in
A, in custody,u important beginning has already been made
by re a
quiring
to with view
the immediate trial of persons _
their prosecution. Nothing can be more contrary to justice,
the existing law and
or,
sed, to common sense, tsar
Practice by which a person may be
kept in prison for a
ld be sentenced on
Period longer than that for which he cou
conviction, The code of criminal procedure has mandytvoearyn
the accuse
great defects. The p Pee o' subjecting
inquisitorial
quite intolerable, and byfear of its getting into our
Proceali practice
'the 'examination of the judge is
it was the
procedure that frustrated my repeated attempts to extendlaw
to
.criminal cases that t improvement in our .
of evidence which
in civil suite, by t criminal
cases the option admits.rea the testimony of parties
of gjelnn,g the
subject,defendant
to cross-examination. Theb only reason of course
this has been the apprehension declined to
level' himself of tha option might
that whoevereverurged against
corsciousness of guilt. But, battlebae supposed
el:var.:our in which a private prosecutor
in all cases of ue
to do so
ifsroi:
ad-
versary should have the like
stands, ene party is heard on oath and ihe
pow7ris examined, his
As out law now
° the
ther's mouth is
n
closed. o French law is framed to preventi:seape of the
guilty, without a due regard to the safety of
the innocent ,
ours is in some respects too favourable to the gui
oppressive to the innocent. Except, perhaps, tiye, ve
is others
an acquittal on appeal is cases of misdemeanour (delft)g,
there is nothing more censurable in the French criminal
pro cedure than the uncertainty which is brought into the
law by the jury being allowed—nay, called upon—to con-
sider what are termed extenuating circumstances, A the
precision, and as
law &vie not define them. with sufficient re • • a
ot specify them, the judge is left from his
the verdict does n
recollection of the case to award the mitigation of the pun-
ishment.
There can be no doubt that in many cases a por-
tiondisacppa by refusing
the law has recourse to exte-
ting circteras of the jail refusing to join in the verdict
without this addition
eouata n
as in England the dissentient jury-
men often ree uira a ,
recommendation to mercy as a condition
of ea.& concurrence, but that
does not operate impera-
utt
'lag circumstances in the French
tively, like extena