The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-24 00:00:00

THREE DAYS

ampled difficulty. We shall take the earliest conve-
nient opportunity of adverting at some length to some
very important inferences which may be drawn from
last night's debate upon this momentous question.

The reader will be both instructed and amused
by the little conflict of opinion which was mani-
fested last night in the House of Commons between
the highest law authorities in the land. Lord Chief
Justice DENNIAN volunteered an opinion in the
House of Lords on Thursday night concerning the
jurisdiction of the County Magistrates within the
borough of Birmingham ; and having, as he said,
looked into the law and formed a deliberate opinion,
which he thought it his duty to express for the be-
nefit of the public, he declared that County Magis-
trates had no concurrent jurisdiction in Birming-
ham, or in any borough possessing a chartered Ma-
gistracy. Lords BROUGHAM, LYNDHURST, and
WYNFORD, with the LORD CHANCELLOR, were
all present when Lord DENMAN stated this to be
the law, and he appealed to those Noble Lords for
his correctness. Not one of them contradicted
him, and Lord BROUGHANI who spoke after-
wards, confirmed, as we believe, the statement of
the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. A Morning Journal of
yesterday, more learned in the law than he is, flatly
contradicted him, and cited several cases to show
that the CHIEF JUSTICE did not know what the law
is. In the House of Commons, last night, the
ATTORNEY-GENERAL took the same view as the
Newspaper, and asset ted that the opinion of the
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE was not correct. He was
of opinion that the County Magistrates have a con-
current jurisdiction within the borough of Birming-
ham, and he supported his opinion by learned legal
arguments. Here, then, we have two of the highest
legal authorities in the country, each declaring that
the other does not know what the law is on a matter
which, the number of cases cited shows, must be
familiar to legal men. We arrogate to ourselves
no title to settle the difference between these legal
divinities, but, like Mr. HUME, we wish it should
be settled, if possible, by a declaratory law, though
it is probable that the two conflicting lawyers would
each interpret that in his own peculiar manner.
We advert to this difference for a totally different
purpose from that of presuming to decide it.
A very short time after the ATTORNEY-GENE-
RAL had done proving that the LORD CHIEF
JUSTICE was ignorant of the law, the Birmingham
question came under discussion, and Lord JOHN
RUSSELL went into an argument to show that,
touching the question of lawful meetings, the
people ought to have known the laws, and on the
unlawfulness of the meeting at Birmingham he
;rounded his defence of the first attack of the Ma-
gistrates on the people, which has already led to
the burning of three houses in that town, and to the
lestruction of property to a considerable amount,
while the probability of what it may lead to is ter-
rifying both Houses of Parliament out of their wits.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL expects the people to be
better lawyers than the ATTORNEY-GENERAL and
he LORD CHIEF JUSTICE. They must know the
law, though SirJ. CAMPBELL or Lord DENNIAN,
both of whom have studied it all their lives, is
profoundly ignorant of it. Not knowing the law,
for which they are to be punished—though the
equally ignorant lawyers ate highly honoured—they
felt indignant at being illegally treated ; and out of
their ignorance of law, and their indignation at the
Magistrates, who, knowing the law, acted according
to its dictates, have arisen the calamities of Bir-
mingham, and the threatened calamities of the
empire. Now, it strikes us as a very curious subject
for reflection—at least it ought to be to those who
are about to adopt new means of coercing the
people into obedience to law—that such an
unknown thing as the law, which is anything
and everything that the passions, and interest,
or the ignorance of those who interpret it choose
to make it—that such a law is an amazingly
unsafe and dangerous staff on which to rest the
peace and tranquillity of this great empire. That
which is to be the guide of men—that, which not to
obey is to deserve punishment—ought to be as clear
and bright as noon-day, not so obscure that the
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and the ATTORNEY-
GENERAL cannot tell whether it be dark or day-
_ _

light. Such an exposure of the doubtful nature of
law, while the Parliament was engaged in passing
other it easures to enforce obedience to it, is calcu-
lated to excite painful reflections, we think, in our
legislators.

The public must now begin to share the alarm
for the future tranquillity of the country which was
last night so openly expressed in the House of
Commons. A considerable number of motions,

and amongst them one to take into consideration
the case of Messrs. LOVETT and COLLINS were

all postponed to allow Lord JOHN RUSSELL to
bring forward, out of order, his motion to
provide for the tranquillity of Birmingham
and the country. The case was considered so
urgent that Whigs, Tories, and Radicals,
all ran to the same conclusion, and only five, in a
House of 151 Members, thought it was proper to
stick to the old rule of redressing grievances before
voting money. The Members of all parties joined
in the same ci) It was necessary to provide for
the public tranquillity—it was the first duty of the
State to protect its peaceful subjects ; and so the
usages of Parliament were departed from, a resolu-
tion to grant money passed, and a Bill brought in
and read a fist time. Not only is the danger now

become menacing, but Sir R. PEEL observed that
he thought there had for some time been
indications which might have enabled Ministers
to have brought forward such measures before the
23d of July. From the concurrent testimony, then,
of words and things, it is at length plain that the
condition of the country requires the most serious
and earnest attention of the Legislature. That is
a doctrine we have long preached, but we much
fear that those who have at length opened
their eyes to the danger, like men just aroused from
sleep, will not be capable of accurately appreciating
their situation.

Sir ROBERT PEEL, for example, was eloquent
on the necessity for protecting the people ; but how
comes it, then, that he has no compassion, no sense
of duty, for Messrs. LOVETT and COLLINS, who
have been more harshly treated than any inhabi-
tant of Birmingham, by Sir ROBERT PEEL'S in-
strumentality, for he contributed to make the law
under the authority of which they were treated like
felons? Sir ROBERT PEEL, with other Tories,

opinions, erroneous and mischievous though they
be, will in the end be fatal to the public peace.

The discreditable part played by the Duke of
WELLINGTON in the House of Lords, when the
late disturbances at Birmingham Ivete, for factious
purposes, made tho subject of discussion in that
House, has been charitably imputed to the effects
of that decay of the mental faculties which is the
natural concomitant of age. This decay, no doubt,
manifests itself at different periods of life according
to the constitution of different individuals. In men

like the Duke of WELLINGTON, whose position
necessarily leads to an extraordinary expenditure of
mental energy, the decline may be reasonably
expected to commence at an earlier stage than it
does in those whose mental powers have not been
kept, like his, almost constantly on the rack, but
who have been lucky enough to jog on through
life without any great wear and tear of the inward
man. We are, therefore, by no means surprised,
however we may regret, to find that the DUKE at
seventy-one is not so vigorous either in mind
or body as he was at forty or fifty. It is no
disparagement to him to say that he has not been
made an exception to an universal law of na-
ture, nor can we at all perceive the wisdom
of the course pursued by some of his would-be
friends, who not only stand up for the unimpaired
vigour of his faculties, but bellow forth all sorts of
factious motives against those who hint that " his
vigorous judgment has begun to fail him," that he
has become " feeble in mind and obstreperous in
temper." We are among those who think that
there is some foundation for these assertions. When
the Duke of WELLINGTON stated in the House of
Lords that the riot which lately took place at Birming-
ham, and which ended in the burning of two houses
and the destruction of a trifling amount of property,
without the commission of a single act of personal
violence by the rioters towards any inhabitant of
the town, was Characterised by greater atrocities
than he had ever known to have been per-
petrated by an infuriated soldiery after taking a
town by storm, all men, must be convinced that,
whatever faculties may remain entire in his Grace's
mind, memory at least is not one of them.
This, however, is not the only instance of late
which has given evidence of the Duke of WEL-
LINGTON'S declining powers. No one could wit-
ness the exhibition in the House of Lords, when

he undertook to explain the transactions that took
place with reference to the formation of a Tory
Administration, without being painfully impressed
with the idea that time had begun to tell very sensibly
on his intellectual frame.

Since these observations were put into type, the
eminent person to whom. they refer has reiterated
the extraordinary statement which called them forth.
The Noble Duke, irritated, as is but too plainly
evident from the Speech delivered by him on Mon-
day night, at the animadversions made on his
strange conduct, has stood forward with his usual
gallantry, though not with his usual prudence,
to justify his former " exaggeration, " and
even, " as he has gone so far, to go a little
farther." In the prosecution of this--it must be
confessed—most chivalrous purpose, he insists in
language, if possible more emphatic, certainly more
vehement, than that which he had employed on the
previous occasion—that the Birmingham riot
surpassed in the excesses of which the rioters
were guilty, everything that had taken place
in any of those towns which he " had ever
known or seen taken by storm." Now we
give the Duke of WELLINGTON credit for the
utmost sincerity in what he has thus so so-
lemnly advanced and repeated on this subject.
We believe him utterly incapable of stating a
deliberate " exaggeration ;" and therefore when,
with this belief strong in our minds, we look at the
following description of the scenes which accompa-
nied the storming_ of Badajos—an exploit which is
by some esteemed one of the most meritorious ever
performed by the Noble Duke—penned by an en-
thusiastic admirer •of his achievements, the gal-
lant historian of the Peninsular war—we find it
utterly in vain to attempt to resist the conclusion,
that the Duke of WELLINGTON'S faculties are in
a state very different from what they were even a
year or two ago. -
" Now," says Colonel NAPIER, gg commenced
that wild and desperate wickedness which tar-
nished the lustre of the soldier's heroism.
All, indeed, were not alike, for hundreds risked,
and many lost their lives, in striving to stop
the violence ; but the madness generally prevailed,
and, as the worst men were leaders here, all the
dreadful passions of human nature were displayed.
Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust,
cruelty, and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations,
groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires
bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and
windows, and the reports of muskets used in vio-
lence, resounded for two days and nights in the
streets of Badajos ! On the 3d, when the city was
sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their
own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was
quelled."
The irrelevant and incoherent matter with which

the Noble Duke followed up this notable compa-
rison of his, might, were it worth while, be adduced
as of itself a sufficient proof that his mental orga-
nization is undergoing a somewhat rapid process of
decomposition ; but such evidence is really quite
superfluous.

We have had suspicions for some time that the
privilege of franking letters, which Peers and Com-
moners prize for itS honour as well as its profit,
would be a formidable obstacle in the way of the
Penny Postage Bill, and these have been unfortu-
nately confirmed by some casual observations
of Sir ROBERT PEEL and Sir ROBERT INGLIS
on Monday evening. They of course disclaimed
any wish to retain it for their own advantage—
for what then do our readers. imagine x For
the sake of the poor, whose comfort, well-being,
and protection plausible hypocrites profess to have
so much at heart I The wealthy, overgrown Church
Establishment is supported by these men, because
it is the poor man's Church ; the conduct, however
absurd or mischievous, of the hereditary collective
wisdom, is defended, because the Peers are the
tribunes of the poor ; and the privilege of franking
is to be claimed, because it is for the benefit of the
poor. Had this argument been suggested by
some of the hereditary tribunes, no surprise
would have been evinced, but to have it gravely
put forward by the leader of the minority in
the House of Commons—the proximate Prime
Minister—and that, too, without exciting ridicule,
would appear incredible were it not given distinctly
and unequivocally in the Parliamentary Report, in
these words :—" It should be recollected also that
the privilege of franking would limit, to a certain
extent, the correspondence of the lower classes,
for that privilege was greatly exercised in
favour of those to whom even a penny
would be an obstacle in corresponding with their
friends." This sentence requires no comment nor
refutation. Perhaps it would be impossible to men-
tion any privilege, or right, or even law, bad as
many of our laws are for the poor, which could
not be more easily defended on the same grounds.
This shows how far selfish interests Hill pro-
cure favour for the most absurd arguments. It
shows also to Mr. SPRING RICE what sort of ob•

jections are to be started by the friends of the poor
in another place, and it ought to teach him, if he is
really sincere in his professions to carry the mea-
sure, to contrive some plan by which Members of
both Houses may be allowed to retain this all but
empty honour. Two shillings a day for each Mem-
ber would not cause much defalcation, and he had
better lose the difference than lose the Bill, par-
ticularly when he is gravely assured that it is all for
the good of the poor.