The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The subject of Crown property, itt extent and
management, and the necessity of inquiring intc
both, was brought before the House of Commons or
Tuesday last, in a speech of various and curious
learning, by Mr. D. W. Harvey—a Member who
though apparently unpopular and slightly supported,
yet fixes the attention, if he cannot gain the
suffrages, of the House of Commons. It is impos
sible, with the least appearance of gravity, or witl,
my respect for truth, to deny that the whole modem
history of Woods and Forests, and Crown Lands, in
this country, is that of a system of individual job.
Bing—of barefaced fraud upon the King and peoplt ,
the most foul, rapacious, and
,iniquitous, of which
are have ever heard or read. We do not say much
about those times when there was no law to con-
tr Irene the Sovereign's pleasure,or the sordid schemes
of his Ministers, but it really does appear quite mon-
strous that, after successive Acts of Parliament had
passed prescribing the minimum of rent (relatively to
the full value) at which Crown farms should be let,
on terminable leases—viz., one-third before the
reign of George 111., and one-eighth at the accession
of his said Majesty, stating also that under the forme'
regulation two-thirds of the valued rack rent, and
under the latter seven-eighths, should be paid over
in the shape of tine by the tenant—it does seem
a matter of even perplexing enormity, that in most
cases the rents reserved, and the fines exacted, were
nearly nominal, in comparison with the value of the
property, and that the cost of keeping and attending
to the lands of the Crown bore a proportion quite
ridiculous for its magnitude to their alleged produce;
Sherwood Forest, for example, a sheet of land com-
prising upwards of 90,000 acres, not paying the ex-
p nses of its management ! We do not mean to
follow the extraordinary details of Mr. D. W. Har-
vey's speech, many of which reflected little honour
upon the by-gone administration of the Woods and
Forests ; but we must say, in answer to some
gentlemen who talk about the impossibility of inter-
fering with the possessions of the Crown, that there
is no part of our national policy more clear and un-
questionable, than that which enjoins the people cf
a free country to leave no power in the hands of the
Crown exempt from the inquiry, if not the superin-
tendence, of Parliament, much less a pecuniary fund
to the amount of several hundred thousand pounds
a year, which is of all powers the most effectual and
formidable that can be wielded by a King or his ad-
visers. We may and do confide in the constitutional in-
tegrity of the present Sovereign and his Government;
but the question is not individual or temporary,—it
is national and permanent. We long ago recom-
mended the expedient of a report every year on the
subject of the woods and forests, and of the expense
occasioned by them to the people, or the benefits of
which they fail, through wasteful practices, to be
productive. Sure we are that annual reports, com-
bined with annual estimates of every penny required
or proposed for outlay within the ensuing year,
would long ago have checked that course of mingled
barbarism and prodigality which has cost the nation
so many hundreds of thousand pounds beyond the
original announcements to the public, in the article
of Palaces alone. We are pleased to find that Lord
Lowther is a friend to this proposal of frequent
inquiring and reporting ; and though aware of some
things which might have been executed by his
Lordship with more graciousness to the community
and at a less sacrifice of the public money, we con-
fess that, as regards his connexion with the Board
of Woods and Forests, lie appears to be, upon the
whole, a most diligent, exact, and active man of
business.— Times.

Lord Lowther was right in throwing overboard
all the Peers and Commoners of the days preceed-
ing our own, when defending the management of
the Crown Lands. In England we have always
the best of Kings and the purest of Parliaments
while the Kings are alive and the Parliaments are
in existence ; but as we need only to confine our
eulogies to living Kings and existing Parliaments,
we may venture to take a little fredom with the
characters of the others. Lord Lowther admitted
that " it was impossible for them now to remedy
the prodigality of Charles 11., or that of William
111., who was profuse in rewarding his officers who
had assisted him in ascending the Throne. Neither
could he attempt to justify the conduct of Pulteney,
or others of his day. They were guilty of gross
jobs which would not now be admitted." Mr. I
Whittle Harvey had stated, " that it was in the
power of the Ministers of the Crown, in managiag
Crown Revenues, to bring round them half the
Members of this House, and a very considerable
portion of the other. Noblemen and Members of
Parliament did not like to stand in the relation of
middlemen. They moved upon large views, and I
aimed at great objects, nor would they stand in an
intermediate relation, without some compensation
which would assuage the risings of pride. He had
a right therefore to infer, from the number of
tenants, and from the nature of the tenants of the
Crown, that very solid advantages were derived
from these transactions. In 1786 he found, out of
408 tenants of the Crown, 200 were titled persons.
He saw among them the names of Sir T. Clsrges,
the Duke of Sr. Alban's, the Earl Bathurst, Lord
Viscount Bacon, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl
of Litchfield, and Titchfields, Bellevues, Ravens-
fords,
and other noble names, as thick as the Peer-'
age could make them." This was in 1784; by
which time a great improvement had taken place in
the principles of the glorious class, as Sir Francis
Burdett terms them ; for they had been content-
ing
themselves for some time with fraudulent ap-
propriations of the public property of their own
country ; whereas, down to the lievolution at least,
both Whigs and Tories werein the pay of Louis
the Fourteenth, and contrived to sell their Parlia-
mentary interest to the Grand Monarque. Louis,
who had seen not a little villainy in the course of
his long and eventful life, seems to have been dis-
posed to award the palm to the English Aristocracy,'
for, according to a letter to the Monarch who had
abdicated his Throne, in Somers's Tract:, vol. xi.,
p. 94, when James was communicating to him the
hopes with which he was buoyed up, in consequence
of the invitations received by him from England, he
tells him—" As you have experience to know your
subjects, so I know them by their character,
and do believe them to be a people of no faith,
no honour, and no honesty, whom no promise can
oblige, nor oath can bind. And, as for their Clergy,
I look upon them as much worse than the com-
monalty, having not only by teaching and preaching
taught the people to forswear themselves, but shown
ill examples in themselves by doing the same, &c."
But this character applies only to the Aristocracy of
former days. Yet why should Members of Perlis-
merit in the present day, who are so pure compared
with their predecessors, be so reluctant to rake their
appearance- in a debate which could not possibly
touch them ? Their fathers, grandfathers, and great
grandfathers had all the disgrace of earning by
Crooked ways the property which enables them to
exist in honourable independence. Their withers
are unwrung. We consider a debate of the
nature of that of Tuesday night as beyond
measure edifying. It shows how much the best of
men are improved by being well watched. It is, for
instance, agreed on all hands, that a Minister does
not now, as in the time of our Great Deliverer of
Immortal Memory, and down to a late period was
done, give for a vote in Parliament a quid pro
quo. " The Act of 1794," says Mr. Huskisson,
"deprived the Crown of the great patronage and in-
fluence it possessed, by having the power to grant
leases to the amount of 400,000/. The Crown
gave up this power, and that measure, more than
any other which had been passed since the accession'
of the House of Brunswick, had diminished the in-
fluence of the Crown." No, the virtue of our
times would be quite shocked at the gross bribery
practised by Sir Robert Walpole. But does vice
lose half its evil by losing all it grossness ? The
great men of that day were like people at an ill-
supplied public dinner; they grasped with avidity,
and without decorum, at what was within their
reach, because there was comparatively little to

livide among them, The Crown Land were then
one of the principal streams of corruption. The re-
venue raised from the people was a mere trifle.
Even in the period of war, in King William's time,
'he whole expenditure of the country, at home and
'broad, did not exceed the per eentage on the col-
I !ction of the present public revenue—and did not,
According to Gregory King, amount to one-third
part of the rent of land of England. England, at
the time of the Revolution, was comparatively the
lowest taxed of the great countries of Eurcpe. But
!t is not necessary now for Mr. Peel, like Sir Ro-
bert Walpole, to put a majority of placemen in the
House of Commons. The enormous expenditure
of this country, partly appearing in the public ac-
counts, partly appearing in the accounts of the dif-
ferent assemblies of the Colonies, with the in-
creased value of a number of employments
paid by fees, and, in reality, sinecures, enable
a Minister to go to work with more de-
corum now. Sons, brothers, cousins, natural chil-
;leen, are all provided fur in a handsome way,
so that the indecent spectacle of Noblemen and
Gentlemen of high name fastening like so many vul-
tures on the Crown Lands, can be spared. It is
Admitted on all hands that the management of Lord
Lowther Las been meritorious, so that he can have
no motive for wishing to prevent the most ample
inquiry. We protest against the doctrine laid down
by Mr. Huskisson—" That the Hon. Members who
had spoken on the other side seemed to regard this
property as quite at their disposal; but that was
not the case. By the Act of the year 1786, the
manner in which the Crown Lands could be dis-
p)sed of was regulated, and when they were sold,
the proceeds were ordered to be invested in a par-
ticular manner. The Parliament had no right to
dispose of the hereditary revenues of the. Crown,
without its consent; and the Parliament and the
Crown were not at liberty to dispose of it beyoiid
the life of his present Majesty." Put when it is
wished to do a base and corrupt thing, is not an
Act of Parliament always obtained with ease ? And
why are we to presume that an Act of Parliament
cannot be obtained for settling the Land Revenues
in a manner the most advantageous for the nation ?
The Monarch is for the nation, and not the nation
for the Monarch. It is libelling the King to sup-
pose that he would not consent to any arrangement
which should have for object the good of the nation.
Surely, if Parliament can cashier a King and change
a Dynasty, it can settle anew the Lan(' Revenue of
the Crown or the public. Besides, if the King
should stand upon his rights, the Civil List affords
a lever to the Parliament.—Morn. Chronicle.

The industry and research which the elaborate
and intelligent statements of Mr. D. W. Harvey,
relative to the Crown Lands, evinced, although un-
availing as to any practical purpose in the House of
Commons, will not be thrown away as far as public
opinion is concerned. On the public mind he may
feel assured such a statement will make a deep and
permanent impression—an impression that will one
day, perhaps, have its influence in rectifying abuses
that appear at present to be too strong for the suc-
cessful application of a constitutional remedy. If
he did not make out a case—an urgent—an impera-
tive case for inquiry, we know not what collection
of facts, or what force of evidence, would be con-
sidered sufficient for that purpose. It is true Lord
Lowther found only a subject for a sneer in the re-
mote period of time at which the Hon. Member
commenced his narrative of the mismanagement and
profligate devastation of the landed estates of the
Crown. Lord Lowther does not travel into the
Saxon Heptarchy, either to mend roads or to ascer-
tain the state of jobbing at that time—sufficient for
all his purposes are the concerns of the present
day ; but nevertheless it was quite right that Mr.
Harvey should give the House an account of the
original state of the demesne lands of the Crown,
and trace historically their different values under
different reigns, that the public might see what had
been gained or lost to the nation by the sort of
control to which they had been subjected. Was it
of no use, also, to show that those lands which
were, in the beginning, settled on the Crown for
support and maintenance of the regal splendour
and dignity, bad, by a sort of established teetge,
been plundered for a series of ages by Court
minions, and jobbed and made away by corrupt Mi-
nisters to their political tools and creatures by the
most shameful sort of traffic by which the Crown
and people were ever impoverished and betrayed.
Of course the pure eyes of Lord Lowther could not
bear to glance over such scenes of sordid iniquity—
he could not bear to look back to times when Peers
and distinguished Commoners laid hands upon the
Crown property, and parcelled it out among them-
selves much upon the plan of Rob Roy's code of
morality, the only difference being that they pre-
ferred sly fraud to open force. His Lordship can
only look at modern times, when the discerning
judgment and immaculate integrity which preside
over this great trust makes it gratifying and delect-
able to a patriotic and loyal mind to look into the
accounts of the stewardship. It having, however,
been proved, from indisputable records, that the
most gross and flagrant abuses with respect to
Crown property had taken place in former days, and
acts of mismanagement, either betraying great want
of principle, or great incapacity, having been shown
to exist at a period not far distant, surely all this
was sufficient to make unprejudiced people suspect
that what occurred before might happen again at
some future time, unless such a reformation was
made in the system by which this sort of property
was managed, as would protect it, either against the
dishonesty or incapacity of those who might here-
after be appointed to the office which the present
Commissioners discharge. However unsullied may
be the integrity of the present Commissioners of
that part of the property which is called the woods
and forests, they have not escaped the charge
of gross improvidence in many instances. It is only
necessary, indeed, to look at the annual receipts, and
the costs of collection, with the extravagant expen-
diture under its several heads, to be satisfied that
' there is great mismanagement somewhere. Mr.
Harvey having stated his case—replete as it was
with facts which proved that the Crown lands that
ought to relieve the people from the burden of the
Civil List, if rightly administered, were by some
fatality, prevented, and likely to be long prevented,
from being available to that purpose, only asked the
House to inquire into the matter—but in van. lie
moved that a Select Committee he appointed to
take into consideration the present state and ma-
nagement of the land revenue of the Crown and to
report upon the most efficient means of rendering it
available to the exigencies of the country. When
the Civil List was first settled upon Queen Anne—
being then 700,0001. a year, in lieu of land i evenue
of the Crown, the preamble of the Statute, as
quoted by Mr. Harvey, set forth that its object was
" to defray part of the expenses of Government,
and lessen the burdens on the subject, by means of
the preservation and improvement of the Crown
lands." The object of Mr. Harvey's motion was
the preservation and improvement of those very
Crown lands; and it was calculated to lessen the
burdens of the people, without stripping either
Church or State of their property, but this motion
the representatives of the people refused!—Morrz-
lag Herald.
We have not hitherto invited any particular at-
tention to the extraoruinary Bill already passed the
Lords, and now riding; quarantine in the Lower
House of Parliament. We allude to a Bill the pro-
fessed object of which is to annul the marriage of
Lord and Lady Ellenborough—enable his Lordship
to degrade his present beautiful wife—to cast her
upon the world dishonoured and unprotected—and
likewise enable him to take another to his arms, in
place of her whose only fault as concerns him ap-
pears to have been—her " not loving wisely, but
too well." This is a painful as well as a delicate
subject, but we owe it in duty to the sacred bond
of marriage, the laws of the land, and the equal
administration of these laws, to say, that the mode
in which this Divorce Bill has been conducted is
far from being creditable to the senators of the sta.

tion. The ground of divorce is an allegation of
adultery—by whom ?—by the husband, in the ab-
sence of his wire, who is either a collusive party to
the suit, or she is an oppressed and deeply injured
woman. In either of these cases this is not a Bill
to receive the sanction of Parliament. Before a
husband can demand or should obtain a divorce
from his wife it ought to be clearly established,
not merely the criminality of the latter, but the
entire innocence of all previous cognoscence of or
participation in this criminality on the part of the
hrmer. The plaintiff in this case, above all others,
should come into court with clean hands. He
should be called on to show that he had faithfully
executed his part of the conditions of the conjugal
bond—that he had loved, and cherished, and pro-
tected his wife according to his vow—that he had
yielded to her his best affections, treated her with
tender care, and neither left her to brood ever the
sarrows of neglect, nor drove her to the desperate
alternative of love—the vengeance of infidelity and
the horrors of seduction. Lord Ellenborough, be-
fore he can call upon the Parliament of England for
a release from his engagements, and a license to woo,
and wed, and sacrifice another victim, must purge
himself of every impure motive, and all charges if
concurrent guilt. But has he done this ? In no
part of the evidence does it appear that Lord Ellen-
borough ever sought either the company or the
affections of his wife. It does not appear that
he was entirely innocent of those guilty professions
of affection for her which led to her alienation and
ruin. For nearly a whole year was this neglected
and defenceless woman in the practice of visiting
the deputy of her wedded lord, a young unmar-
ried man, at his own private or rather publics
lo lgings; and these visits were performed in open
day, were notorious to the neighbourhood, the
ihject of constant remark, under circumstances
too plain to be misunderstood. And, yet, during
the whole course of this passion and these guilty in-
dulgences, Lord Ellenborough is never once seen in
the company of his wife—is a perfect stranger to
the facts—is happy in his ignorance, or more happy
in the society of those whose meretricious charms
were deemed more captivating. Good God! is it
for such a man that the band of marriage is required
to be cancelled—the law suspended—and privileges
unknown to the laws of England conferred, and this
upon ex-parle evidence—in the absence of the de-
fendant, and without it being deemed requisite to -
cross-examine the witnesses for the interested party I'
We trust the Commons of Great Britain—those of
them at least who have wives and daughters, and
who deem the marriage contract entitled to observe
ante on both sides—we trust these honourable law-
givers will pause before they thus rashly become
iaw•breakers. They are bound, in the first place,
to inquire into the conduct of the petitioning
party, in order to ascertain not only the purity
of that conduct, but also whether this alleged
adultery be not collusive, be not merely the'
result of a reciprocal arrangement to separate
and change partners. In the second place, they
are bound to inquire whether the accused
lady has made proper and legal appearance
in the suit. In the third place, they are
bound to inquire, by the most diligent and
searching examination of the witnesses, whether
the imputed criminality be proved. Now, what has
been proved ? One man swears that he saw Prince
Swarizenburgh lacing the lady's stays. No attend-
ant on the parties, though each we have no doubt
had as many eyes as Argus—eyes that could pierce.
a double-panelled door—has proved more than or
even so much as this. The evidence of the waiter
at Brighton goes for nothing. His midnight scene
is curious, but that is all, for he could net prove the
identity of Lady Ellenborough. The whole case
rests on the evidence of the governess, and this, .to
say the least of it, is extraordinary, and even suspi-
cious. This antiquated virgin, long estranged front
the family, whose bread even in the lifetime of his
Lordship's first wife she had eaten, and as gratefully
perhaps as most female antiques do, is suddenly
called from some lone village in the country, and
deToputed to
this
person, we
and
,tyhethe
the accused
ac unhappymmed
divulged
all her hidden and secret sins. She disclosed to this
she lather confessor her whole course of life, and,.
among other things, she admitted that the infant of
which she was then enciente was,defitclo, though not
de jure (mind that, my Lord !) the child of Prince
Swartzenourgh ! Can this be true? Is it likely ?
Is it within the range of probability that a highly.
accomplished lady, of great judgment, and sen-
sitive feelings, would make such a confession to
such a virago—to one sent to watch her, and whose
every word she would, as a matter of course, con-
vey to her employer ? We say it is improbable in
the extreme. Clad she asserted that it was the
Prince's child from the neglect of her husband—
or her husband's child in spite of his neglect and ill-
treatment—this might have been said in spleen, and
in order to annoy the prying creature whom she
despised. But the whole story is improbable, and
we commend it to the strict scrutiny of the Com-
mons. But, admitting, merely for the sake of the
proposition, that Lady Ellenborough did make this
confession, would such a fact not prove to demon-
stration that she did so collusively in order to facili-
tate the divorce ? Take it which ever way we
please there is difficulty in coming to any sound
conclusion without better and more direct evidence.
But the truth of this alleged pregnancy might easily
be obtained. Her Ladyship is approachable, and the
fact might be confirmed. Why, then, is this not
attempted ? It is within our own knowledge that a
short time ago a paragraph appeared in all the
papers stating that her Ladyship, since her retirement
to the Continent, had given birth to a child—the
infant alluded to by the governess. But this report
was contradicted on the authority of the family of
Lord Ellenborough, if not by his own directions I
All this is curious, and, we say again, demands rigid
investigation.—Morning Journal.