The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EV-ENING, MARCH 24, 1865.

whelmed by the terrors of GRANT, SHERMAN, or
BUTLER. Mr. DISRAELI very pointedly observed that
Mr. LOWE argued in the same spirit as the Whigs of
50 years ago, who opposed the Peninsula, war on the
ground that no one could stand before NAPOLEON.
The right hon. gentleman justly said that the high-
spirited population of Canada would most likely,
under the pressure of excitement and patriotism,
bring into the field 200,000 fighting men, which a
proper system of fortification would render equiva-
lent to 300,000. The crude and extravagant
theories of the right hon. member for Calne were
easily confronted by the leader of the Opposition.
Does the right hon. gentleman mean to say, asked
Mr. DISRAELI, that an extensive frontier cannot be
defended, because if so, he contradicts all the esta-
blished rules of military science. The words
of the member for Bucks, regarding the future
of Canada, expressed finely the sentiments
of this country. " The provinces of British
North America," he said, " have the means of
sustaining not only millions but tens of millions,
and why should we doom them to absorption by
another State. Canada has her own future. It has
all the elements which make a nation. It has at

this moment a strong development of nationality
and a feeling of attachment to us of which we ought
to be proud, and it is our duty to consider whether
we will not cherish the connection, whether we are
bound by honour and interest to do so, and that
aided by us the provinces have the means of
establishing their independence of any foreign foe.
And," concluded the right hon. gentleman, " with
the full conviction on our part that these provinces
can ultimately become an independent country, we
shall find in that circumstance not a source of
mortification but a source of pride."
Not less worthy of an English statesman were
the words of Lord PALMERSTON, who may
safely be trusted on an occasion like the present
to represent the honour and dignity of the country.
With his usual good sense he drew up an apt illus-

tration from the war now raging in America, and
pointed out how the Confederates had for years
protected important positions which even yet re-
sisted all the power brought against them. " Look
at Richmond," exclaimed the noble lord," is Rich-
mond taken ? What are its defences ? Why
chiefly earthworks, with a force behind them."
The mere occupation of a country is no conquest so
long as its fortresses remain unreduced. If Canada
has an extended frontier, so have other countries,
so have we ourselves, and we might as well say we
could not defend our coasts without lining the whole
of them with defensive works. As for the fancied
security which Canada would derive from inde-
pendence, are there no motives, asked Lord
PALMERSTON, that would lead a stronger neigh-
bour to pick a quarrel with a smaller State ?
But as Lord PALMERSTON justly said, "This is
not a Canadian question ; it is not a local question :
it is an Imperial question. It is a question which
affects the position and character, the honour,
the interests of this great country," and it is
in this spirit that the House of Commons
have dealt with it. The colonists will see that in
relying on the protection of the mother country they
have leant on no broken reed, but that the sympa-
thies, the resources, and the material assistance of
the first country in the world will be promptly
proffered in their cause.

As time progresses it is evident that the Prussians
are becoming more and more involved in doubts
and difficulties. 'The Minister of War has made a
speech in which he clearly showed that affairs were
approaching a crisis ; he said that if the Committee
succeeded in carrying their propositions there would
be a proof given that the Chamber intended to
extend its own power, and not to respect the rights
of the Crown, which would inevitably be circum-
scribed by the adoption of such a course. This is
coming to plain speaking at all events, and it shows
how correct has been the opinion of those who have
all along declared that the policy of Herr BISMARCK
must before long occasion another domestic crisis,
now that the foreign tumult has partially subsided.
But the Minister of War went further and
made some astounding revelations, which must
have amazed his hearers, and will doubtless cause
much surprise to all who read them. He said that
they had been advised to resign, but that they re-
mained in power from a sense of duty, and not
from any ambitious motives. How very conve-
nient is the aspect which duty sometimes assumes
in the eyes of some people, and how aptly its dic-
tates concur with the ideas of the Ministers them-
selves. The Minister says that they do not stop in
from " ambition," and certainly they are not gaining
much credit from their tenure of power ; but they, of
course, will please themselves, and put in duty and
such like reasons to suit their purposes. As for
dissolution, the Chambers are told that there will be
no good gained from that step, but at the same
time a hint is given of such a step being taken if
any contumacy is exhibited. Therefore they are
exhorted to co-operate with the Government. It is
really a farce to call the Chambers together at all,
for the members are not allowed to give any opinion
that weighs at all with the authorities, and if they
venture to assert their rights and claim their privi-
leges, they are forthwith told that the " question at
issue is no longer one of rights but of existence, and
they must make their choice." This is a melan-
choly state of things to witness in a country from
which so much was once expected, and which pro-
mised to set an example of constitutionalism to the
other nations of Europe which were devoid of that
blessing.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAM.)

SPAIN.
MADRID, MARCH 23.

The Noticias of to-clay says :—" We are autho-
rised to contradict the rumours of a coup d'e'tat
being contemplated, the Government wishing, on
the contrary, to observe the constitution."

The Yelverton Oath Case•

(From the Scotsman.)

If the recent decision of the majority of the
Judges of the First Division in the deplorable
Yelverton Case had proceeded only upon legal
grounds and involved only legal results, it might
have been equally presumptuous and useless to
make it a subject of popular or non-professional
discussion. But it is a striking pecitharity in this
decision that confessedly it not enforces but rather
suspends or withholds the law on grounds only of
reason or " discretion"—and as reason and discre-
tion are not the exclusive gifts or province of
lawyers, other people are in a manner free to express
either concurrence or doubt. Nor ought it to be
lost sight of that judgment, if it establishes some
questions of legal rights and status, rather raises
than settles some social and moral questions, which
are less for judicial than popular judgment.
Whether such a law be wise or unwise, a law
there is, under which it was, to say the least,
competent for the Judges to refer the Yelverton
case to Major Yelverton's oath, at the stage of the
case at which they were prayed so to do. That
there is such a law, and that that law makes no
exception as to cases of disputed marriage, are facts
on which all the Judges were agreed. The ground
on which a majority of them refused Mrs.
Longworth Yelverton's prayer to have this law
applied to her alleged husband, was substantially
that the eliciting of the truth under oath might be
injurious to a third party. The decision of the
majority proceeded, indeed, partly on the ground
that in all cases where there is a third or non-
primary party, that party might be injured by either
truth or falsehood being stated on the oath of one
of the principal parties ; but they also declared that
they had in view " the peculiar circumstances of the
present case," and in the present case no injury
could have been inflicted upon the third party ex-
cept by a reluctant speaking of the truth. This, in
the popular view, is what renders the decision hard
to understand and harder to approve—that, in a
case between two parties, one of them has hypo-
thetically to suffer injustice or ruin lest the other,
by speaking the truth upon oath, should do harm to
some one else.
It is easy to see, with the majority of their Lord-
ships, that in cases of disputed marriage, the ex-
istence of a second claimant to the position of
wife, is a fact of great importance, and that a
man, by swearing to untruths favourable to
claimant No. 1, might prejudice or destroy the
claim of No. 2. But then it seems equally easy
to see, though only Lord Deas saw it, that, as the
law has been laid down, or laid aside, by the
majority, the same kind of man might, by
the very act of marrying No. 2, prevent proof
of his marriage with No. 1. " Whenever," said
Lord Curriehill, •' a profligate husband wished to get
rid of his wife, he might be able by an easy artifice,
and with the aid of an equally unscrupulous female
accomplice, to effect such an atrocity"— the female
accomplice asserting that there was a previous mar-
riage, and the profligate husband admitting that
assertion when put upon oath. Of course, such a
case might arise, and, whenever there was the
appearance of such a case, the Court would, equally
of course, exercise the " judicial discretion " which
it is admitted to possess. But to provide for that
hypothetical case by putting in the same category
all cases where there is a competition between
alleged wives, would have, among other inconvenient
effects, the effect of always prejudicing the case of
the first wife. A profligate husband might, no
doubt, as the majority of the judges say, seek to
get quit of a real wife, by admitting the existence
of a prior marriage ; but it would be quite as easy,
and under this judgment a great deal easier, for a
profligate husband to get rid of his real wife by
taking a similar course as to a subsequent marriage.
All that a man would require to do to save himself
from having to give answers which would prove
his marriage with the woman who was his first
and so necessarily his real wife, would be to per-
petrate a marriage with a second woman. As
Lord Deas remarked, in his most masterly argu-
ment, " a man would have power, by committing a
crime, to deprive the woman of the proof which the
law recognises to be the proof of her marriage." By
committing bigamy, he would at once deliver himself
from his wife, and marry himself to another woman
—bigamy being thus treated as a virtue, and bring-
ing more than its own reward. This is one of the
results that may flow from such an application, or
rather non-application, of the law as has been made
in this case, and it is a result quite as likely to occur
as the opposite result, against which the decision is
meant to guard.
But " the peculiar circumstances of the present
case," which their lordships stated ought to form the
ruling consideration, are admittedly quite different
from, indeed directly opposite to, those circum-
stances to provide for the hypothetical occurrence
of which the Court framed its judgment. The de-
cision proceeded upon the fear that a man placed in
the position in which it was proposed to place Major
Yelverton would have practically the power of
choosing which of two women should be his wife,
and, by swearing falsely, might choose the one that
was not rightfully his wife. Therefore, the Court,

in the interest of Mrs. Forbes Yelverton, would
not allow the oath to be put to Major Yelverton at
the instance of Mrs. Longworth Yelverton. But,
in the particular case the only injury that could be
done to Mrs. Forbes Yelverton would have arisen in
the event of Major Yelverton speaking the truth
contrary to his own desires, interests, and previous
statements. He may be regarded as having all
along had a choice of wives, for he could have
chosen Mrs. Longworth Yelverton and rejected
Mrs. Forbes Yelverton, if not by abstaining from
litigation against the former, at least by refraining
from assertions and denials which he alone could
make. For six years he has struggled strenuously
against the claims of Mrs. Longworth Yelverton,
which is practically struggling in favour of the
claims of Mrs. Forbes Yelverton ; and here he is,
still resisting the proposal to state on oath whether
or not he married the former, on the ground that he
might thereby prejudice the latter—the Lord
President himself arguing that Major Yelverton was
justified in resisting the reference to oath because
he was " interested in the status of Mrs. Forbes."
Yet the judges decide that Major Yelverton ought
not to be sworn, on the ground that he may be in
collusion with Mrs. Longworth Yelverton and in a
conspiracy against the other. Surely it is plain as
day that, if Major Yelverton swore anything
tending to validate the first and invalidate the
second marriage, it could only be because, when
under constraint of an oath, he told the truth.
And what the lay or non-legal public will not
understand is why a court of justice should fear
or keep out the truth, and why one woman,
however innocent and injured, should be protected
from the consequences of truth, at the price of in-
flicting on another woman the injurious conse-

quences of the untruth. Of course, nobody knows
what Major Yelverton would have sworn, though
anybody may draw inferences from the fact of his
strenuous resistance in getting an opportunity of
supporting his own case by his own oath ; but what
is known is—that the reason for the Court refusing
to make him be sworn was that he might perhaps
injure the lady for whom he fights, and benefit the
lady against whom he fights, by telling the truth.
Of course, this decision must, in a legal view and
as to legal results, be held as pretty nearly fatal to
the claims of Mrs. Longworth Yelverton. But it
thus becomes only the more necessary that heed
should be paid to the truth that, we shall not say in
kindness or in pity, but in justice, the position of
that lady requires to be regarded otherwise than
legally, and to be considered by others than
lawyers. Under the circumstances of this case,
legal failure does not imply social or moral
condemnation. Miss Longworth, or Mrs. Long-
worth Yelverton, has, in the opinion of a ma-
jority of the Scotch Judges, and of all but a
majority of the English Judges, proved her
marriage with Major Yelverton. If the Scotch
Judges and those English Judges standing highest
for learning and acumen, are herein mistaken, what
wonder that she should have been mistaken ?
' Though a majority of the English Judges have an-
nulled the decision of the Scotch Judges upon the
main question, that woman cannot be held as mo-

rally condemned who had failed only by one or two
votes in being declared even legally triumphant.
The accidental presence or absence of one man in
the House of Lords on a certain day might have
brought the case to an opposite result—to the re-
sult to which it was brought by the Judges in Scot-
land. Should such accidents, though necessarily
making the difference between legal success and
failure, be allowed to make the difference between
honour and dishonour ? And what have we been
seeing now ? The woman has said to the man she
claims as husband—" I leave it to yourself—swear
that we were not married, and all is ended." And
he will not swear. He may have good reasons—
better reasons than those which most readily sug-
gest themselves ; but his refusal is to her, though a
legal defeat, something of a moral victory and
testimony.