The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

LONDON REVIEW.—Sir W. Atherton, in the
middle of the recess, has thrown up his attorney
generalship, after refusing probably half a dozen
puisne judgeships. An amusing and not altogether
uninstructive volume might be written on the
career and demeanour of rising lawyers in the house
of Commons. For the present a few passages must
must suffice. Every lawyer on the Ministerial side
—almost every lawyer in the house indeed—" goes
in" for the reputation of a legal reformer, and a
few years ago a certain hon. and learned gentleman
took up the law of partnership. He made a good
speech in favour of tile principle of limited liability,
and might have been delighted to witness the una-
nimity with which his motion was received by the
house if he had not discovered, by a friendly whis-
per from Mr. Hayter, that the Government were
in danger of being defeated if he pressed his motion
to a division. They had just been beaten on some-
thing else, and it was an object with them to avoid
another defeat just then. The hon. mid learned
law reformer was found by the Secretary of the
Treasury to be no stubborn and impracticable poli-
tician, for he manifested an instant and eager desire
to withdraw his motion in deference to the appeal
of the then Attorney-General. The house, however,
did not appreciate as it ought the alacrity with
which the mover of the resolution consented to give
the go-by to the principle which he had just de-
scribed as one of so much importance and such press-
ing value. The purity of his motives was not quite
so distinctly recognised, perhaps, as his desire to
avoid any appearance of factious opposition to the
Government, At any rate a storm of " oh's" and
cries of" divide" greeted the hon. and learned gen-
tleman's willingness to withdraw his motion. He
had only been too successful in his argu-
ments, and was appalled at his triumph. A
great commercial authority, the lamented Mr.
Ricardo, declared that he had never known
the house more unanimous in any debate within
his recollection. A dozen other M.P.'s joined
Mr. Ricardo in protesting against the withdrawal of
a reasonable resolution, on which the house was
agreed, because an Attorney-General had promised
that the question should be seriously considered by
Government. So the resolution was literally taken
out of the hands of the hon. and learned mover, and
carried in spite of him and against the Government.
It did not surprise any one when, after a decent
interval, this gentleman received a silk gown. But
it did astonish a good many M.P.'s a session after-
wards to hear him enter upon an elaborate defence
of abstract resolutions, taking credit, at the eame
time, for his own, and complaining of the readiness
of the Government on such occasions to " come in
at the death and bag the game." The hon. and
learned gentleman began after this to be talked of
for the next Solicitor-Generalship. He has not belied
the promise of his early career, yet a dozen times the
prize has evaded his outstretched hand, He has been
rather too Ministerial for a good many of his con-
stituents, and a little grumbling was now and then
heard. But he has been patient inside and outside
St. Stephen's. He has waited well. He took any-
thing in his way, was made Judge Advocate of the
fleet and counsel to the Admiralty. He drew up
resolutions on the defeat of the Paper Duty Aboli-
tion Bill, declaring that the Lords had committed a
breach of constitutional usage, and had encroached
on the privileges of the Commons, but allowed Lord
Palmerston to take the matter out of his hands. He
has voluuteeredapeeches in defence of the Government
when it has been hard pressed. He now reaps the re-
ward of his patience. At the levee he will go to Court
as Solicitor-General. He will receive the honour of
knighthood. His voice may be heard more frequently
in the courts of law, and in due time Sir R. Parrett
Collier will doubt:ess make a very respectable puisne
judge. It is one of the scandals of our party system
of government that the highest judicial prizes—the
" cushions," as they are called, of our common law
courts—are not awarded to the highest judicial
eminence, but are left to he scrambled and competed
for in the arena of the House of Commons. Lord
Palmerston deserves great praise for having so often
gone out of the House of Commons to find the fittest
judges, regardless of anything but merit and learn-
ing. Would not a Prime Minister also deserve well
of his country who should break through the legal
etiquette which gives the Attorney-General a claim
to be Lord Chief Justice or Chief _Baron, and pro-
mote occasionally to a vacant " cushion" the most
able, learned, and impartial among the puisne
judges? About the same time that Mr. Collier was
so seriously alarmed at the Frankenstein he had
created, and just after he had deprecated the passing
of his own resolution, as hon. and learned sergeant,
sitting on the same benches, considerably his senior,
became involved in a sharp dispute with the First
Minister of the Crown. The Irish members brought
in a Tenants' Compensation Bill, which the Govern-
ment tried to lick into shape. This hon. and learned
sergeant made a violent personal attack upon Lord
Palmerston, declaring that the Government were
not giving a bona fide support to the bill. Our noble
Viscount replied with more spirit and indignation
than he had manifested during the whole of the ses-
sion, and said that if Irish members objected to the
reasonable amendments he proposed it was only be
cause they were afraid oflosing a hustings' grievance.
The hon. and learned sergeant retorted still more
angrily, and Palmerston was even more severe in
his rejoinder. The Irish members were furious,
and it is doubtful whether the rupture has ever
since been healed. They declared that they
would vote against the Ministry on any pretext.
The Government, on their part, hinted that they
meant to carry the Irish Tenants' Compensation
Bill into the Lords in defiance of the learned ser-
geant and his party of malcontents; while English
and Scotch M.P.'s, with more reason, doubted
whether a measure of this kind, abandoned by its
authors, and not very enthusiastically supported by
the Government, would weather the opposition of
Irish landlords in the Upper House. A personal
squabble with a Prime Minister is not a thing to be
looked back upon with any complacency by a
lawyer who has his way to make. So, when an
occasion arose on which the hon. and learned ser-
geant could make the amende, he availed himself of
it. When the Opposition followed Mr. Whiteside
in his disastrous move upon Kars, Sir E. Bulwer
Lytton and the learned sergeant rose late at night
at the same moment—the former to move the ad-
journment, and the latter to make his peace with
the First Minister. The great novelist gave way,
and the learned sergeant expressed an opinion on
the treaty of peace with Russia (just published, but
not then before Parliament), which derived some
importance from its reception by the House. He
said, " The noble lord. (Palmerston) has prosecuted
with the utmost vigour, and to a most glorious and
successfui termination, the war in which this'coun-
try has been engaged. The noble lord has concluded
that war by what will no doubt be declared by this
House to be a safe end honourable peace." This
assertion was said in tones which seemed to invite
contradiction. The Conservative benches were at
that moment thoroughly out of humour, and were
just in the temper when hon. members cry " Oh !"
to anything debateable. Yet although the learned
sergeant's declaration was greeted with loud
cheers by the Ministerial benches, not a
single cry of " Oh !" was heard from any part of
the House. There was not even a murmur of dis-
sent, however slight. The Opposition had not
arranged its policy, and was taken somewhat un-
awares. Silence was taken for assent and approval,
and every one felt that the learned sergeant had
rendered the . Government an essential service.
During the rest of his career he gave the Premier
no serious cause for complaint. But at the last
general election, Ministerial proclivities and pos-
sible Ministerial advancement were no recommen-
dation to the favour of an Irish constituelecy, and
the electors of Kilkenny deprived of his seat a mem-
ber who would have served them well, and who had
notwithstanding, some claims on the Government.
Westminster Hall, we are told, regards Mr. Sergeant
Shee as at least as good a lawyer as Mr. Justice
Mellor. But the latter learned judge was never
involved in a squabble with the head of the Go-
vernment, and preserved his seat until the moment
of his elevation to the bench. These little matters
go forsomething even in dayslof political purism,and
Mr. Sergeant Slice must bide his time, and wait a
little longer.
SPECTATOR.—Wo have begun the civilisation of
Japan by bombarding, and apparently destroying
one of its cities, known to be populous, and said to
contain no less than 180,000 inhabitants, Now we
have never been disposed to admit the claim of bar-
barous, or even of semi. barbarous, nations to seal
themselves up hermetically in a social life of their
own, and to forbid the approach of every other
people. History shows that every great step in the
progress of nations has been marked by a new in-
tercourse between different races—even when that
intercourse has been forced by conquest. It was
conquest that moulded the national life of Israel,
conquest that spread over Europe the laws and
civilisation of Rome, conquest that made England
one of the greatest of European peoples ; and
though to the scrupulous equity of modern feel-
ing it might be exceedingly difficult to justify
some of these proceedings, no thoughtful man
can doubt thet conquest has played one of
the most important parts in the Divine govern-
ment et the world, and that there must be some
sense or other in which the higher civilisation has
a right to demand admittance to the lower, and
States
take upon itself the government of barbarousc Se tathe
which prove unwilling or unable to wlom
painful but salutary process of moral anetdintellec-
tualhe
grafting. We are not now going discuss
the limits under which this right must e asserted,
though, of course, there are obvious limits,rs without
which hoout
which it might be made the mere plea fo po
But we do wish to assert very strongly that it is a