The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-03 00:00:00

either party, it is the Attorney-General's particular
wish that you cause to be summoned for the Crown
Court a panel of the most respectable freeholders of
}'our county, Protestant and Catholic, without reli-
gious di..tiuetion." To which the High Sheriff
makes the following answer :—" If duties devolving
on me as Sheriff of the county are to be prescribed
by the Attorney-General or by any other officer of the,
Crown, the patent which I have the honour to hold
from his 'Majesty may be forthwith reversed, end
another Sheriff appointed in my place." This an-
swer has given offence—it is stigmatised as ill-timed
and petulant—the reproach which the sycophants of
power would naturally cast upon any hottest and
spirited assertion of official independerree. To say
the least of it, the interference of the Attorney-
General with the peculiar fuactions of the High
Sheriff, was indecorous end in bad taste. It might
also be drawn into a precedent most prejudicial to
the administration of justice ; for, if the principle
be once allowed of the Crown prosecutor dictating
to the Sheriff what description of Jury he is to re-
turn, it would come to the same thing as if the At-
torney-General himself selected the Jury who were
to determine cases of which he was the prosecutor !
Now we say this is a monstrous doctrine, and justly
held in abhorrence by the English Constitution.
We do not say that the directions of the Attorney-
General were in this instance given for any im-
proper purpose. On the Contrary, the motive
that dictated them seem to have been a good
and laudable one--.namely, an anxiety for an
impartial jury, to try causes arising out of bitter
party feeling and political animosity. But it is
the principle of such interference that we object
to, and in discussing principles, we must leave oat
or view those temporary circumstances for which
they are too often sacrificed. It was a wise and
salutary statute which prohibited all interference by
any power or party, with the duties of the Sheriff in •
summoning Juries; and made it an offence for any
person to " denominate," as the Statute has it, to
that officer the Jury whom he is to return. •If the
spirit of the Statute is to be contravened, and the
prosecutor for the Crown in political trials is to
have a right of interference in the appointment of
the Jury, one of the great safeguards of Trial by
Jury is gone ; and, in bad times, with a vindictive
and tyrannical Government, such as at some former
periods of our history, existed, and may exist again,
the consequences would be dreadful. The inter-
ference in the present case, it is true, was to procure
an impartial Jury, and one above all suspicion of
prejudice or favour ; but just as readily might similar
interference be exercised to procure a partial and
complaisant panel. Therefore we protest against it,
and denounce it as unknown to the spirit, and

foreign to the practice of, the laws of England. The
Sheriff was originally a popular officer—that is, he
was chosen by the people, meaning thereby the
freeholders of the county, as the Coroner is at

present. With the exception of one or two instances
the appointment of that efficer is now in the
Crown. But though appointed by the Crown, he is
the servant of the Constitution. That Constitution
defines the duties which he is to perform, and the ex-
tent of responsibility which attaches to them. The
Attorney-General has no more right to interfere
with his office, than he has to interfere with the
office of the Attorney-Gt neral. He must stand in-
different between the Crown and the accused. He
must not listen to the recommendations of either in

the summoning .of Juries. He is the minister of
justice, not the minion of power, and should submit
to no dictation but that of the law—no suggestion
but that of an upright conscience. If he must learn
his duty from others, he it; unfit fer the situation,
and the Crown should not have appointed him. It
is in the power of the Government to chose none
bot competent and impartial men to fill this high
office, and having once made the choice they should
not stultify their own selection. He must be
utterly unfit for the office of High Sheriff who re-
quires to receive lessons as to his official conduct
from the Attorney-General. We are sure no She-
tiff in Esgland would submit to such dictation, and
we are equally sure that the gentleman to whom we
allude, imtendering his resignation under such cir-
cumstances acted only with a becoming spirit. Had
lie not taken so decided a step, he would have sur-
rendered the independence of his office, as far as
the servile compliance of an individual could do so,
into the keeping of the Law Officers of the Crown,
and have compromised the rights and privileges of
his successors. We have dwelt upon this subject,
not on account of the circumstances out of which it
nrose, and which are transitory, but because of the
great principle which it involves.—Morn. Herald.
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer an-
nounced that Ministers had at length resolved to
put an end to the brewers' monopoly, not one per-
son in a thousand imagined that the repeal of the
tax on beer would be of much service to the pub-
lic, but nearly all were convinced that the destruc-
tion of the shameful " licensing system," that is to
say, of the brewers' monopoly, would be extremely
beneficial to the community by throwing open the
trade in beer to public competition. Not one Mem
ber of Parliament, we believe, thanked the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer for the repeal of the beer
tax, but many spoke warmly in favour of the
other division of the measure—the opening of the
trade to all who should wish to embark in it.
From one end of the country to the other the knell
of the licensing system was heard with joy, if
we except only the sorrow of the great breweis
and their dependents, the publicans. Every man,
we were told, would soon be able to brew, or buy,
and then sell, beer, like other commodities not sub-
ject to monopoly—the trade was to be " thrown
open"—the enormous monopoly profits of the
brewers and licensed victuallers were to be divided
amongst the public—no man was any longer to pos-
sess the power of forcing his immediate neighbours
to drink beer-and-water, or poisonous beer—every
public-house was to have its rival—and the seller of
beer, like the seller of bread, was to drive a trade,
great or small, in proportion to the goodness or bad-
ness, the cheapness or dearness, of the article which
he should sell. 'these were grand promises to this
beer-drinking community. They were heard with
satisfaction by those who are not beer drinkers, be-
cause they held out a prospect of real advantage to
the most numerous class, which is always the
most miserable, and that to which every hu-
mane roan of the other classes is most anxious
to afford relief. These promises were consi-
dered so important that they tended, at least,
to produce a general feeling in favour of Mr.
Goulburn, who, until; he made those promises, had
not the slightest claim to public respect. Those
promises were made gravely, even solemnly, if the
word be not unsuited to the subject; but it appears
that they were false promises, and that the hopes to
- which they gave rise were entirely delusive. The
courier of Saturday announces, officially, that " a
clause is.to be introduced into the bill now. before

Parliament for the sale of beer to the effect that

the licenses to retail beer to be granted under the
act shall not authorise the persons receiving them
to sell beer to be consumed on their premises, or
to keep rooms for the entertainment of com-
pany." In other words, the trade in beer is not to
be thrown open to general competition. The Go-
vernment hacks (what is Goulburn but a hark
of the Duke of Wellington %) may contend
that the clause in question will not preserve
th• monopoly; that every man will still be
able to brew, or buy, and sell beer without
hindrance from the great brewers ; and that, conse-
quently, the promises of the Government will not
be forfeited. But it will be plain to all that this is
a mere shuffle to evade the spirit of the promise
without departing from its letter. The retail
trade in beer, like those of the tavern-keeper,
the pastry-cook, the letter of lodgings, the deli-
list, the theatrelatentee, and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, IS no trade at all unless it be con-
ducted "on the premises." The consumption
of beer on the spot where it is sold is as much
an essential feature of' the beer trade as is the
use of a fixed and known official residence oi
the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr.