The Sun.
London, England, 1830-03-12 00:00:00

PORTUGUESE AFFAIRS.

LIST OF THE MINORITY
°F szTitterv-rnitts, WOO VOTED FOR LORD PALMERSTON'S MOTION
FOR THE PRODUCTION OF PAPERS RESPECTING TOE PROCEEDINGS
IN PORTUGAL.
liankti, H. Hobhouse, J. C.
Beaumont, T. W. Hovrick, Lord
,Lord G. Honywood, W. P.
nernal. IL Horton, Rt. Hou. W,
Blakelt. Sir
ir F.
F. Huskisson, Rt. Hon
13urde S W.
Canning, Sir S. Inglis, Sir
Carter, J. Jet,lison, C. D.
etealthnr.,pe,Hon. F. Knight, R.
—ye' n• u• Labouchere, IL
Cavendish, H. Lamb, Hon. G.
Cavendish, W. Lambert, J. S.
Chichester, A. Lennard, T. 13.
Davenport, E. Littleton, E. J.
buncombe, Hon. W. Macdonald, Sir J.
Denison, J. E. Macqueen, T.
Dundas, Hon. T. Maberly, Viscount
Ellis, Viscount Morpeth, Viscount
Ellis, Hon. G. A. Norton, G.
Ellis. Hon. A. Nugent, Lord
Encombe Lord ,O'Connell, D.
Ewan, W.
Ord, W.
Fazakerlev, J. N. Peach N.
Eyler T. V - Pendarres, E. W.
Graham,Grahi Sir J. Philips, Sir G.
a Hon. C. Philips, G. It.
Grant, IL Phillimore, Dr.
lieneage, G. P. Price, R.

Protheroe, E.
Rice, T. S.
Robinson, Sir G.
Rumbold, C. E.
Russell, Lord John
Sibthorpe, C. D.
Sefton, Earl of
Smith, W.
Stanley, Hon. E. G.
Tennyson, C.
Thomson, C. P.
Townshend, Lord C.
Vyvyan, Sir R.
Uxbridge, Earl of
Warrender, Sir G.
Wetherell, Sir C.
Whitmore, W. W.
Wood, C.

TELLICIti.
IsPaanlmdoenr:tvonis,cVouisnet.

PAIRED OFF.
Hume, Joseph
Ingilby, Sir W.
Gordon, R.
Wilson, Sir R.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We have much satisfaction in publishing a " peti-
tion (which will be seen in our reports of the de-
bates) to the Honourable the Commons of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," from " the
undersigned merchants and agents connected with
the trade of the East Indies, and resident in Lon-
don." One merit of this petition, is its temper—a
second is its clearness—a third, its force. Though
latterly familiar with many able writings against a
prolongation of that great commercial anomaly and
grievance, the exclusion of British merchants from
the common right of trading freely with countries
tea vast and so rich in all the materials of profit-
able merchandise, as the peninsula of India and
the Chinese empire, we do not recollect to have
een any paper more comprehensive and at the same
time so concise and cogent. It was presented last
night to to the House by Mr. P. Thomson. There is
one remarkable circumstance attending this particular
departure from sound principles of liberty and justice
exhibited in the East India and China case, and
which we recommend to the notice even of those who
bewail so loudly the breaking up of ordinary mo-
nopolies,—viz., that inasmuch as other prohibitory
and exclusive systems have been maintained on be-
half of the British merchant and against the fo-
reigner, and have therefore some show of domestic
preference and patriotic spirit to excuse them, this
extraordinary system, for whose overthrow the whole
kingdom now unites, is actually a monopoly esta-
blished by England herself, in favour of all foreign
merchants, and against her own ! For every trader
of every country under Heaven, and every flag that
navigates the seas, can enter unmolested all the
ports to the eastward of the Cape, and drive a lu-
crative commerce there,—save only the merchant
and the flag of England, which, under a penalty
affixed to them by English laws, and self•made the
victims of a close anti-national monopoly, are held to
be contraband of peace and war, and in derision of
their boasted pretensions to the character of a com-
mercial power, are stigmatised as the only outcasts
from a privilege enjoyed at pleasure by the whole
community of mankind. This question, therefore,
of free trade with India and China, we must again
impress upon the somewhat sodden intellects of the
lovers of monopoly in the abstract, involves a very
different species of improvement from the common
one of letting foreign merchants into competition
with those of England. The breaking up of the
India Company's and American merchant's mono-
poly, is for the purpose of serving the British ship-
owner and merchant, by letting them into a rival-
ship with the monopolists of Leadenhall-street
and New York. As for any benefit proposed
or attainable on behalf of the people of England,
the consumer: on this occasion, we forbear to
urge an argument so odious to those who wor-
ship as" the wisdom of our ancestors," every crumb-
ling monument of their ignorance, blindness,
and imbecility. An unpleasant notion had got
abroad about the merchants of the metropolis, that
they did not partake the solicitude of tae commercial
interest throughout the kingdom for a general open-
ing of the two important trades now adverted to, or
attach any value to the improvement of India itself
by the influx of British capital into its territories
and the access of British skill to its productions.
London being the centre of action for the India
Company, the sole port to which the returns from
China are by law admitted, and the chief one to
which in practice the commercial operations of the
eountry are confined, was suspected in many quarters
of
the entertaining a certain degree of sympathy with
d numnpolists of Leadenhall-street, and was
re,ded aa at least their negative ally. The de-
m ren _ 0
the 70dn win great part dispelled ; and although
qn petitioners express a suitable. un-
tial i prejudged by
Parha% ss to have the question
ents or decided without full and =por-
al nvestigation, they came forward with a power-
tweapression of their sentiments on the China
etu,,e) in the paragraph with which the petition con-
,4 'es- We may add one word upon the singular ad-
oretage possessed by the Company in the arrange-
tnt of evidence before the Parliamentary Commit-
o. Their supercargoes and other agents at Can-
riui_u are the only British subjects who have a recog-
-o,4_ed and unquestioned opportunity of acquainting
emselves with the course of business at Canton,
ec'ermwith the habits and characteristics of Chinese
v_. merce. Without insinuating one word unfa-
,"4l4ll to the honour and veracity of these gen-
ti erne, .
how st) It must be well understood by every body,
man `r°llg a bias the mind of even an honest
porta, ins 7 receive on any practical and im-
re
rdi.t subject, from constantly meditating and
lga nil :it in connexion with one exclusive
cyaests it is finterests, purposes, and transactions.
that the dorornm witnesses thus inevitably influenced,
mittees of Parliament have been corn-
by
gelled to derive their impressions of the case at-
temptedßtish corn the India Company. On the side of
commerce generally, resort must be had, we
take f
tor granted, to the evidence of foreign mer-
Uetsn or their Captains (seeing that Englishmen
have all access to Canton); yet these foreigners
out the af direct and obvious interest for shutting
Porta, an,fee British merchant from the Chinese
al
elusive ri.in maintaining to all eternity these ex-
ceramerei v ii.eges of the Company, by which no
alone. 71, rights are injured but those of England
buyetthioen rantees,
Come facts will doubtless be borne in mind
q
of in reporting upon the general
free trade, and by their respective houses

No. 11,609.

in legislating for the country, whose confidence
seems to rise with the hourly progress of the in-
vest igation.— Times.
. It will be recollected by our readers how ostenta-
tiously the subject of" Legal Reform" was put

forward in the Speech from the Throne at the com-
mencement of the present Session. We had some

suspicion at the time that it was used pretty much
'ad caplandum ; and what fell from the Attorney-
General on Tuesday night, when moving for leave
to bring in a Bill " for the more effectual Admini-
stration of Justice in England and the Principality

of Wales," tends to confirm that suspicion. From
what the learned Prosecutor of the Press stated on

that occasion, it appears that the great work of
" Legal Reform " is to begin by annihilating the
present system of administration of justice in Wales
—not only without the concurrence, but against the
expressed sense of the natives of the principality.
If the people of Wales had called out for a revision
or abolition of their judicial system, it would have
been the bounden duty of the Governinent to in-
quire into the grounds of their complaints, and, if
practicable, to have obviated them ; for nothing
touches the characters or interests of a Government
so nearly as that the people should have confidence
in the administration of justice. If the Welch sys-
tem were wrong, the people of Wales were alone
affected by it, and they alone had cause of com-
plaint. If, on the contrary, they have confidence
in the system, why take it away ? Can any
other mode of administering justice which is to
be substituted in its place inspire them with
more than confidence? The Welch system of
judicature has existed, with some additions, from
the time of Edward the First. He, who was the
greatest improver of English law since the days of
Alfred, introduced the English code into Wales
with a separate judicature. The legal Constitution
which he had begun was completed under Henry the
Eighth, consequently the Welch have had a long
trial of the system—a system introduced by that
Monarch who has been distinguished in history by
the illustrious title of the " English Justinian," of
whom Sir Matthew Hale said "that more was done
in the first thirteen years of his reign to settle and
establish the distributive justice of the kingdom than
in all the ages since that time put together." Here
we have the character of the great and sagacious
founder of the Welch system of administering justice,
and the satisfied experience of the people of that
country for centuries against the sic volo, sic jubeo
style of alteration about to be carried into effect by
Government. It is true, Sir James Scarlett arro-
gates great merit for his employers, in not wishing
to increase the patronage of the Crown by the con-
templated arrangements with regard to Wales, it
being the intention to add three new Judges to the
twelve Judges of the land, in place of the eight
Welch Judges who are to he deprived of the ermine.
Now Mr. Peel stated in the House of Commons
not long ago, that the salaries of the eight Welch
Judges are 9,8004 a year, and that in the instance
of the last four:appointments of the Judges for
Wales, it was notified to each of tbem at his ap-
pointment, that if Parliament should determine upon
a change of jurisdiction, no claim for compensation
could be allowed to him. He also said that there
was an intention of revising the Act which settles
the salaries of the Puisne Judges at 5,5001. a-year,
and that it would be open to consider whether it
may not be expedient to attach a salary of 5,0001.
only to all Puisne Judges to be hereafter appointed,
Taking this statement to be correct, it appears that
Government intend, in that spirit of self-denying
economy which distinguishes them, to relinquish
a patronage of 9,8001. a-year, and substitute for
it a patronage of the annual value of 15,0001.
Whether this be a diminution or an increase
of patronage, we leave to those to determine
who understand any thing of Cocker and com-
mon sense I Moreover, to the sum which the
new arrangement is to cost the country, we are
to add the compensation which is to be given to
four of the Welch Judges, on the ground of com-
pensation, for the loss of " vested rights." Here
will be some thousands more to take out of the
taxes or add to the Pension List, and thus
we see that the balance, both in a pecuniary
sense and in point of patronage, is considerably
in favour of the Crown. We have said before,
and we now repeat it, that Government ought
to have preserved the judicial system of Wales
as long as was satisfactory to the Welch them-
selkes. They had it in their own power to
support its respectability by appointing competent
lawyers to Welch Judgeships. This species of re-
formatio►► they had in their own hands; and the best
of it was—though, perhaps, it did not recommend
it much in their eyes—that they could not exer-
cise it without reforming themselves, as far as
the system of judicial patronage was concerned.
Now, let us look at the consistency of our legal
reformers in office. Though the Attorney-Ge-
neral is so excessively anxious to force legal re-
formation on the Welch, who tell him they do
not want it, he determines to withhold it

from the English in that most essential point
which the public universally demand it—we mean
the system of special pleading. He declares—
in the face of reason, of experience, and of pub-
lic opinion—that system to be unobjectionable ;
he absolutely eulogizes it, though certainly nothing
was ever invented that was better calculated to
make law a lottery, and to give an absurd pre-
ference to fictitions, intricate forms, and tech-
nical jargon, over the real merits of a case, than
the present sistem of special pleading. It is, in
fact, a system, the spirit and operation of which
is to bring verbal finesse in collision with substantial
justice, and give the triumph to the former. The
Attorney-General speaks of it as a part and parcel
of our ancient institutions, on which he does not like
to see the hand of innovation busy. We thought
he had been better read in legal history than such a
statement proves him to be. If the value of the
institution depends upon its antiquity, we believe it
will be found that, by reforming special pleading—
by reducing it from a state of intricate verbiage and
subtle absurdity to clear, concise, and simple forms
—an ancient institution will not be destroyed, but
restored. Pleadings, says Blackstone, were, in the
reign of Edward the First, short, nervous, and per-
spicuous—not intricate, verbose, and formal. Who
will say that pleadings are now either short or per-
spicuous ? As to their shortness, we know that it
is not unusual to devote 40 or .50 or even 100 folio
pages to what, as was emphatically said by the late
Learned Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, could
be better expressed within the space of the palm of
a man's hand. As to their clearness, everybody is
aware that a Jury knows nothing of the cause of
action as set forth in a declaration until the leading
Counsel opens the case, and in a speech explains
that which the pleader made unintelligible, and
which the declaration ought to have explained, if
the language of pleading was that of common sense.
Of what use legal forms can be, which tend only to
obscure not to elucidate the claims of suitors, and
to embarrass those who have to decide upon their
claims in the Jury-box, we leave to the ingenuity of
the Attorney-General to show ; but certain we are
that the age is too far advanced to bear much
longer, even on the recommendation of a Nisi Prins
tactician, with this most beautiful portion of the
" best of all possible systems." Was it of modern
times (oat Lord Coke observed, in commenting upon
the practice of the law, that "no way was given to
nice exceptions, so long as the substance of the mat-