The Sun.
London, England, 1830-02-15 00:00:00

crease protecting dutiea,while the officers of Govern-
ment are not provided with the means of enforcing
them, would be users. But Congress cannot re-
fuse to the far Mer and manufacturer all the benefits
which have been solemnly promised. The faith and
honour of the Government cannot permit a lasting
disappointment. It would be humiliating to a na-
tional reputation to allow foreign adventurers to
amass fortunes by the violation of our laws, while
our own citizens, in consequence, were sinking down
in bankruptcy and ruin. On this subject there can
be DO difference of opinion.—" The alleged evasions
of our revenue and protecting laws require an imme-
diate and thorough investigation. If they are found
to exist, the most effectual means should be em-
ployed to prevent them in future. When this is
dune, it is probable all may be satisfied that higher
protecting duties should not be required. Until this
is done, it is impossible to determine how efficient
those duties may be made to operate. The Coin-
mittee have already proceeded to the consideration
of this subject.—Morning Chronicle.
We had long ago called the attention of the pub-
lie and the Legislature to the fees on justice, pay-
able to the Clerk of the Peace. Mr. Peel has, we
perceive, brought in a Bill for the abolition of fees
payable by persons on their acquittal, on any crimi-
nal charge. If any one thing can be more decidedly
in the teeth of that excellent clause in the old-
fashioned end almost forgotten document called
Magna Charta, that justice shall not be sold, it is
this—that a man shall be made to pay even for the
vindication of his innocence. The doing away then
with such an anomaly as this is what every one, ex-
cept the persons beneficially interested in the abuse
must approve of, and not without a feeling of wonder
that any thing so monstrously absurd and unjust,
can have been so long allowed to inflict a stain on
the much boasted purity and justice of our Courts.
But giving Mr. Peel every credit for this, as a soli-
tary and isolated act of humanity and justice, it ap-
pears to us to fall very short of what is really wanting
upon the subject, and looks rather too much like the
act of an unskilful surgeon, who contents himself with
merely cieatrizinga small wound, while the whole body
remains a mass of corruption and disease. Would it
not, we would ask, be a much wiser course, and one
more satisfactory to the country, if the Right Hon.
Gentleman, instead of proposing this partial remedy,
were to refer the whole subject of the fees payable
to Clerks of the Peace (as it was given out some
time ago he meant to do) to a Committee, who
would doubtless either recommend their abolition
altogether, or such a reform of them as would include
the abolition of many more than those contemplated
by this partial measure, however just arid desirable
in itself ? A correspondent has favoured us with a
sight of the table of fees payable to the Clerk of
the Peace of the county of Middlesex. They are
printed in treble columns, upon a sheet two feet
'square, and are no less than 169 in number. Of
course, we cannot profess to give tire contents of a
sheet as large as one side of our paper; but we defy
any man of common sense to run his eye over it and
not pronounce it a mass of injustice, riot to say of
extortion, which it is a disgrace to any legislature to
permit. Among these fees we find the following,
which we suppose are some of those which Mr.
Peel's Bill is intended to abolish, viz. :
I:Wording the conviction and acquittal of every
peraoo upon trial of traverse, on every indict
:neat of trespass, and for discharging of the
recognizance
Fur the discharge of every person out of prison 2s. Od.
Tlio monstrous injustice of calling upon a man to
pay a price for his own innocence and escape from a
groundless accusation, can hardly admit of a parallel,
we should suppose, in the venal records of a Turkish
Cadi ; but there are in this precious list, we can
assure our readers (and there are, we dare say, in
similar lists in all the counties in England) other
extortions even higher in amount, and, if possible,
more unjust than these ; and what is still worse,
these demands are allowed to exist not only not in
return for any service performed, but to swell the
istofits of an office which is generally performed by
deputy, while the lazy principals revel in what their
.substitute can grind out of the needy, the injured,
or the innocent. But it is not these persons that
are to blame, but the system tinder which they act.
Surely then this is not a case where such partial re-
lief as is scow offered is all that is required, but one
in which a full inquiry may be followed by such a
free and vigorous application of the pruning knife,
as will allow every Court of Criminal Jurisdiction
in the land to inscribe over its door the immortal
words of the Great Charter—" null vendenzus
justifiam!"—.2lforning Herald.
The distress of the country increases ;—while the
" vvistiorn" of Parliament ranges over the globe to
find subjects of debate, and topics of political sym-
pathy and excitement, the industrious population at
lame languish under the pressure of calamity that
aught to forestall arid engross the attention of our
representatives and the anxiety of our rulers. In
the mean time accounts of the difficulties and ere-
learrassments which beset the country pour in upon
us from all sides, nor have we space for the insertion
of one half of them. We are not exclusionists in
charity, but we do not admire that erratic benevo-
.Sesece which circumnavigates the world to find out
materiel for the exercise of the generous feelings of
our tragic, while our countrymen perish around us,
And cry ;err our protection in vain. There are
journals that: have affected the tone of philanthropy
by expatiating :Jevons the miseries of Spanish and
Portuguese refugees, and at the same time sneer at
surd taunt the sufferings of Englishmen. There are
Also Senators whose hearts seem to embrace in their
exiSensive sympathies the afflicted and oppressed of
every e!icue and region but their own. It matters
not to them how many degrees of latitude the ob-
jects of their generous care are removed from their
immediate inspection—the farther the better; but
to misery at borne, however poignant and general,
they are cold arid insensible. Sir Robert Wilson
exhausts his sympathies on the republicans of
Mexico—Mr. Fowell Buxton sighs over the blaex
gwptilation of the Wcst one takes the rocks
;And patriots of Terceira under his protection ;
Another searches for objects of compassion on the
pe,tilential shores of Africa. Alas l all this time
the people of England are in a situation to give full
employment to ail the benevolence and active hu-
manity which distinguish the " collective wisdom "
of the nation. We should have thought the first
and imperative duty of Parliament when they were,
after too much delay, called together, was to inquire
into, arid relieve, the distresses of the country. No
—it could not be; for it was discovered within the
wails of Pediment that the distress was only par-
tial, and confined to some district!, though every
boti',- outside those walls imagined that it was
.eneral. This is the first great discovery which
has resulted from the assembling of the " Great
Counea." What others will follow it is not easy
to anticipate, Mr. Ilugle and Mr. Hobhonse, with
other equally celebrated advocates of the popular
cause, have assisted Ministers in making this dise
eovery, and, no doubt, tho public will evince their
grateful sense of the patriotic sagacity which they
have displayed. We presume the hovels of their
civil triumphs will not ha the less flourishing for
putting forth their spring verdure under the genial
influence of Ministerial sunshine, Certainly the
Duke of Wellington owes much to the twenty-
seven " champions of liberty," who, by rallyieg
round his banners in the hour of need, hued
;Jim from one of the most sudden and signal de-
feats which the wilful obstinacy of a Minister
ever provoked. Perhaps, however, it would have
been both more manly and more dignified in
his Grace net to have risked such a crisis at
the outset of the Parliamentary campaign, espe-
cially as it could have been avoided altogether by
making the King's Speech time vehicle of truth--
truth as to the distresses of the country and the eef-
ferings of the people—truth, which is the best sub-
stitute for eloquence, or its most enduring ornament.
But all true English feeling has not perished from
the House of Commons. There is vet within its
walls, we trust, what will preserve the vitality of its
Representation. As an instance refreshing to the