The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-04 00:00:00

The decision of the House of Commons will, we feel
sure, have a good effect on 0117.
cial morality. It is
natural that men in high office, h;_owing the igno-
rance and carelessness of the world in general with
respect to their proceedings, should fancy that there
is no chance of jobs and intrigues coming to light.
They may be to a great extent in the right, but the
tone of the House last night will show them that if
once they are detected they have but little to hope
from the forbearance of Parliament.
HERALD.—The members of the House of Com-
mons have good cause to complain of Lord West-
bury. It is bad enough in any session to be compelled
to sit late on a July night, by a debate from which
no one can, with any show of decency, be absent,
but it is especially vexatious to be so kept when
every one knows that he ought to be down among
the free and independent, wooing the sweet voices
of those whom he hopes will once more be his con-
stituents. But for the objurgations which hon. mem-
bers may for this reason bestow upon him my Lord
of Westbury has one satisfaction. By the very
fact of causing such a debate as that which took
place last night, he may rest assured that he has
attained one great object of every successful lawyer's
ambition. He has made himself faMous, and will
bequeath to his heirs a name which the world will
not willingly let die. It is true the distinction will
not be of the most enviable character. It will in
some measure resemble that of the iconoclastic sol-
dier who fired the Temple. If an immortality some-
what of this kind has been Lord Wesbury's aim, he
may be congratulated on having gained it. The name
of Richard, First Baron Westbury, will assuredly be
embalmed in the pages of the Humes and Macaulays,
the Rapins and the Hallarns of a future day. But
not as a successful lawyer, nor as a great law refor-
mer, will his lordship be best known and longest re-
membered. His chief passport to immortality will be
derived from the circumstance that after 30 years of
Reformed Parliaments, in the year of grace 1865,
at the close of the session, while the writs for anew
Parliament were in preparation, while the exist-
ence of the expiring House of Commmons could be
counted by hours, and those hours could be ex-
pressed by a couple of figures, the popular branch
of the Legislature was occupied with a debate re-
flecting on the conduct and involving the character
of our highest legal dignitary. We are not about
to go through the history of the Leeds bankruptcy
scandals. Mr. Hunt introduced his motion with a
carefully prepared resume of the principal facts
brought out before the select committee. Those of
our readers who have not already mastered the sub-
ject may refresh their memory and gratify their
curiosity by consulting our Parliamentary report.
They may •there read once more how Messrs. Ayr-
ton and Harding conducted their inquiry ; how
Mr. Miller wrote recommending retirement, and
suggesting a medical certificate ; how, about the
same time, Mr. Bethell was bargaining with Mr.
Welch an negotieeing with Mr. Harding ; how the
Chancellor gave the first good thing he had to dis-
pose of to the man who had fee'd his son ; how in
February last there were fresh vacancies and fresh
jobbing ; how appointments were engrossed before
they were made, and cancelled from a dread of pub-
lic indignation ; how, whenever there was a place to
be given away, a host of jobbers and a mass of job-
bing hung round the present occupant of the Wool-
sack. Over all these facts the honourable member who
moved the resolution went with judicious calm-
ness and moderation. The Government met the
case in a way that proved the truth of the allega-
tions against their officer. As in the case of
Denmark they carefully avoided the main issue.
They strove to win a verdict of acquittal by covertly
insinuating that the Government, and not the Chan-
cellor, was on trial, and they, in effect, asked the
house not to censure the one lest they should damage
or discredit the other. This was the burden of the
Lord Advocate's tediousness, of Mr. Denman's
wearisomeness, of the shilly-shallying with which
every member on the Ministerial side approached
the discussion of the question. On the other side,
the appeal was to the broad facts, which have now
been proved over and over again. They made it
apparent that the question was much more than a
party one—that the ermine had blen sullied by him
who should have been most solicitous to keep it pure,
and the fountain of justice had suffered pollution
through the neglect of the man specially charged
with its conservation. It was felt in the house, as
it has long been felt in the country, that the conduct
of the Lord Chancellor was utterly indefensible. The
indications of this feeling were so decided that the
Government shrunk from trusting to a parliamentary
division for the Chancellor's vindication. Accordingly
they bent before the storm they could not face, and
after opposing with all their might the motion of Mr.
Hunt, they thankfully accepted the scarcely less
damaging amendment of Mr. Bouverie. The differ-
rence between the two was scarcely worth fighting for.
The motion impliedly, the amendment expressly,
acquits the Lord Chancellor of personal corruption,
but both motion and amendment distinctly affirm
that corruption has been practised, and the Chan-
cellor's proceedings have been lax and incautious to
a degree which tended to throw discredit on the
administration of the high offices of State. Severe
as is the censure these words convey, it becomes
still more cutting from the fact that it was moved
by an hon. member who prefaced it with the
avowal that though he had great confidence in the
Government, he had none at all in the Lord Chan-
cellor. The prevalence of this feeling in the house
was unmistakeably shown in the progress of the de-
bate, as a member of the select committee rose to
announce his intention of supporting Mr. Bouverie.
On the Treasury bench it was seen that a Fabian
policy was the only one that could give Lord West-
bury a chance. A little more delay, a little more
time to consider, a little more scattering of the
members, and:the scale might yet be turned. But
the house would not have it so. The motion for
adjournment, though pressel by Lord Palmerston
himself, was rejected by 177 to 163 • the failure of
the Lord Advocate's attempt at whitewashing was
as total as his speech when introducing it was
tedious,"and, thankful for small mercies, the Go-
vernment accepted the qualified condemnation of '
Mr. Bouverie as being a little less severe in terms
and damaging in effect than that of Mr. Hunt..
Thus, the Parliament's last act has been a
judicial one. By its unanimous acceptance of
a severe and well-merited censure on the Lord
Chancellor it has recorded its disapproval of the
doubtful dealing with places and pensions of which
the noble and learned lord has been more than sus-

petted, and of which he stands now less than half
acquitted. But though he has been absolved from
the gravest of the charges against him, enough has
been said in the debate and recorded in the journals
of the house to render his continued tenure of office
impossible. By making his cause their own the
Government vainly tried to carry off their dead.
They hoped that by the exercise of Government
influence, and unsparing use of the. Treasury whip,
they would succeed in getting a small majority in
their favour. In this they have been disappointed,
but not the less are they bound to accept last night's
defeat as the emphatic expression of the disapproval
with which the house regards the manner in which
Lord Westbury has dealt with his patronage, and
that in which the Government has thought proper
to excuse and endorse the proceedings of one who
is now confessed to have brought discredit on the
office he fills, the Ministry to which he belongs, and
the country which he has so unfaithfully served.

SHIPPING INTELLIGENOELThis day

41-

LONDON, July 4.—Wind this day at noon—South-
Westerly; moderate breeze, and fine weather.

SOUTHAMPTON, July 3.—Wlnd S.E.—Sailed—Atrato,
steamer, for the West Indies.

QUEENSTOWN, July 3.—Wind S.E.—Arrived—Africa,
steamer, from Boston.

PLYMOUTH, June 3.—Wind S.E.—Arrived—llenreich,
from Ichaboe. Sailed—Cap Rouge, for Quebec.
FALMOUTH, July 2.—Wind N.E.—Arrived—Trafalgar,
from Santa Cruz.
OFF SCILLY, July 3.—Wind S.S.E. - Arrived—Rora-
neys, from Liverpool for Rio do Janeiro, with the master
sick.

CLYDE, July 3.—Wind S. W.--Arrived—Florence, from
Maeeio ; Carl Johann, from Havannah ; St. George, from
Montreal.

OFF FALMOUTH, July 2.—Wind S.—Arrived—Meppel,
from Buenos Ayres for Rotterdam.
NEWPORT, July 3.—Wind W.S.W.—Arrived—Alette,
from Yarmouth for St. Thomas ; Queen of the Deep, from
Liverpool for Bombay ; Success, from Antwerp for the
East Indies.

EY MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.

GRAVESEND, Tuesday Morning.

Arrived, July 3.—Wave Queen, from Trinidad; Robert,
from Leghorn; Johannes, from Norders Schluise ; Ara-
baston, from Bathurst ; Rose, from St. Vincent ; Carl
Tottie, from Quebec; Visitor, from Tarragona; Diana, from
Nangaski ; Ocean, from Jamaica.

DEAL, Tuesday Morning.

No arrivals.

THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
—This being the fourth of July, the anniversary of
American Independence will be celebrated by the Ameri-
cans resident in London with more than usual rejoicing.
The New York liners and other American ships lying in the
London, East India, and neighbouring docks, were gaily
decked out this morning in the brightest of bunting. The
national flag was hoisted at the American Consulate, at the
corner of Fenchurch-street, and most of the large American
establishments at the east-end of the town exhibited the
stars and stripes. Amongst the Americans the day is kept
a strict holiday, and this evening there is to be a dinner at
St. James's Hall in commemoration of the event, and it will
be attended by the American Minister and Consul and other
influential Americans. The captain's of the American ships
lying in London also dine together.