The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-18 00:00:00

skilled agency of the shorthand-writers in the
gallery—certain are we that Lord CRANWORTH
would hesitate now after this reconsideration of
the Lord Chancellor's speech to assert once more
that it was in any way incomprehensible. Sel-
dom has a subject so intrinsically difficult by reason
of its unavoidable complication been explained
with a more. delightful clearness or a more re-
freshing simplicity. Dealing as the laws of pro-
perty relating t o land necessarily do with so many
and such subtle abstractions, it becomes matter
for absolute astonishment that the Lord Chancellor
could divest it so completely of its distracting
technicalities, and so explain his scheme for the
simplication of our code in this particular of vital
importance, that any one, even the unprofessional
reader (perhaps not " hearer," because of those
very echoes that so puzzled the keen senses of
Lord CRANWORTH), that any one, we say, even the
unprofessional reader, can follow him, comprehend-
ing him, throughout.
The object aimed at by the Government Bill, as
explained yesterday by the Lord Chancellor, is—re-
member this to begin with—threefold. The measure
proposes to give a good statutory, indefeasible title
to the owners of landed property. It undertakes to
provide the means by which that title may be
clearly, as rapidly as possible, and in the fullest
sense of the word, authoritatively, ascer-
tained. Finally, it undertakes to define the
means by which its more facile transference
may be effeeted. Of the principle of the Bill, even
Lord CRANWORTH acknowledged yesterday that
he unquestionably approved. It was merely in
regard to the details of the measure that he con-
ceived it to be faulty. And of course it would be
precisely in the revision and correction of those
details, wherever it might be deemed advisable, that
the labours of the Select Committee about to scru-
tinise it, would be, among other kindred labours,
occupied. Nay, Lord ST. LEONARDS himself, the
venerable and profound author of the Great Text
Book of the whole law relating to " Vendors and
Purchasers," even that noble lord and learned ex-
Chancellor avowed last evening from his place in
the front rank of the Opposition, that he deemed
the principle of Lord WESTBURY'S Bill to be per-
fectly just and reasonable. Whatever doubts he
had, and some of them were very grave doubts, in
relation to the Government scheme for dealing
with the whole question of the transfer of land,
were restricted to the probability of the working of
its machinery. Nor can it be wondered at for an
instant that doubts of that grave character should
be entertained by a jurisconsult so intensely alive as
Lord LEONARDS must be to the difficulties threaten-
ing to impede any scheme of innovation into a
labyrinth of such extraordinary bewilderment—
that doubts of this kind should be entertained by
him at this early stage of the proceedings when the
Government proposition has only just been sub-
mitted to the consideration of Parliament. It were
ludicrous, of course, to expect that even Lord
WESTBURY would venture to arrogate to his pro-
position the attribute of perfection. The utmost
any law reformer in the Legislature, even
the present occupant of the woolsack, could
in reason, hope to aspire .to in this par-
ticular would be an approximation to that,
perfection all are aiming at in the shape of a law
reform of this peculiar description.

What appears to us especially entitled to consi-
deration in the measure yesterday brought before
the Upper House of Parliament by the Lord Chan-
cellor is the fact that it is designed to be not man-
datory, but, as Lord ST. LEONARD'S instantly
expressed it, simply permissive. It is in drawing
the line there—drawing it delicately but firmly
through all the maze of difficulties which the sub-
jects of Titles and Transference and so forth are each
separately and all of them collectively involved—it
is i❑ that point of view beyond all others that we
cannot but recognize even now at this early period
in the discussion of the Government measure, the
tact and discrimination we have all of us so con-
fidently expected to see evidenced by the Lord
Chancellor. It is here that already we can perceives
as it were, at a glance, that in cherishing these same
confident anticipations in his regard we have not
been doomed to disappointment. The more easy
definition of a Title, the more facile Transference of
landed property—are boons, not by any means
only theoretically attainable. Hampered though
property of this kind still is in this country by
all the old bewildering difficulties inherited by us
through the lapse of centuries, from the remote
ages when feudality as a system, as the one
sole system was predominant, we have had a
tolerably ample and protracted experience of what
may be done in the way of getting rid of all
these needless obstructions—in our colonial posses-
sions in all parts of the world. Nay the advantages
that can so very readily be secured in this way, has,
within the last few years, been brought much nearer
home (than our colonies, than the nearest of our colo-
nies) to the national recognition. There is the work-
ing, during the last decade or two, upon the other side
of St. George's Channel, of the now famous, and, as
everyone has long since come to recognise it,benefi-
cent Encumbered Estates Act in Ireland. There,
in Ireland, since that humane and benignant act came
into operation, fully one-third of the entire area of
the Green Isles has passed from one set of proprietors
to another set of proprietors. And if any doubts
as to the validity and security of the system thereby
inaugurated, for the registration of titles to estates,
should still perchance be entertained by any
captious critic of Lord WESTBURY'S measure de-
signed to the same end—enough will surely have
been said when we have remarked that one mis-
take, and one mistake alone, has marred the other.
wise prevailing accuracy of the Registration
Books in Ireland under the working of the
Encumbered Estates Act.

Lord ST. LEONARDS, we observe, expresses
his anxiety lest the scheme of the noble and
learned lord on the woolsack may, perchance,
degenerate into what he calls a registration of
assurances. Yet he himself is the very one to ac-
knowledge—and in connection with his avowed so-
licitude but just now mentioned, he ought certainly
to bear his own candid admission to this effect in
remembrance—that under Lord WESTBURY'S Bill
the registration will be optional—that no one I
will be compelled to register his property unless
he himself so pleases—that, as already intimated,
in two words, the Bill, as a Bill authorising regis-
tration In tnls way, is not mandatory, but simply
permissive. Besides which, the registry of titles
now proposed by Lord WESTBURY a tO be opened,
is, by a most judicious forethought of the Chancel-
lor's, to be divided into two distinct parts—
one part giving titles that are guaranteed, and the
other part titles that, though in process of being
guaranteed, are not yet guaranteed. An arrange-
ment of this rational kind in regard to the registry
of titles under the proposed act would secure, among
`otherles obvious advantages, these very obvious
advantages--first of all, a good title ; secondly, a
record easily to be turned to, a distinct and reliable
rfoercmoradtoiofnelicited previousin-
through ghinvestigations,those iaopypelsytiinggattiohnes
to
in-
' the simplification of any dealings that might arise
subsequently, Finally, and
crown all the provi-
sions of an universally applicable method
more
dbryo
which all dealings of ii 11: alaplie
kind might be
readily entered into, and land at once more easily,

more rapidly, and more securely transferred. The
only serious matter of bewilderment to ourselves in
regard to Lord WESTBURY'S proposed measure,
now that he has"thrown upon the every crevice and
cranny of that measure the light of his clear intel-
ligence, through the medium of his singularly lucid
explanation—the one only serious matter for bewil-
derment to ourselves in regard to it may be ex-
pressed at once by the unaffected wonder with
which we take note of the Lord Chancellor's
' exposition of his scheme when he avows that,
unlike Sir HUGH CAIRNS' Bill of a session or two
back, the bill now submitted to the Legislature
by the Government proposes no new courts for
the working of the enactment ! If this really and
truly be possible, of course so much the better.
But how it can by any chance be possible is at
the present moment utterly beyond our comprehen-
sion. However, this and all other problematic
parts of the question may now be left confidingly,
and we will say even hopefully, to the calm judg-
ment of the Law Lords in Select Committee.

The most generous view of Mr. BRIGHT'S speech
last night is, that on such questions he is hardly
responsible. There have been other members of the
Society of Friends in the House before, but they
were distinguished amongst their fellow members as
much by their plain speech, almost the taciturnity,
of their body, as Mr. BRIGHT is distinguished by
unusual powers of oratory. Other Quakers in Par-
liament have doubtless felt very much as Mr.
BRIGHT feels, but they had neither the boldness,
nor the powers of speech to utter their non-resist-
ance sentiments. Mr. BRIGHT has both. He pro-
bably hardly knows what it is to doubt his own con-
clusions, and he certainly does not lack the power
to put them forth with the most effective illustra-
tion. Like the rest of his body, however, we should
think that on questions of war and peace, his views
were as fixed a part of him as the cut of his coat or
the shape of his hat. All that had been settled for
every quaker from the days of GEORGE FOX. Mr.
BRIGHT inherited his dress and his notions, on this
subject, together. He persuades himself that he de-
scends to the low ground of worldly politicians, and
that while he has transcendental grounds for his
convictions, his arguments are taken from common,
and earthly sources. This is his illusion. He in-
herits the amiable Quaker crotchet, and uncon-
sciously it stimulates his genius to search in every
quarter for appropriate aliment.
We venture these remarks as the best apology
we can offer for the singular aberration of one of
our most popular orators. He found himself, last
night, that not only Lord PALMERSTON, but one
who, like himself, is an advanced Liberal and advo-
cate of economy, Mr. BAXTER, differed from him
entirely. Indeed, it has not been our lot to meet
with the individual who did not thoroughly ap-
prove the policy which Mr. BRIGHT reprobates.
We all knew that the preparations for war—to pre-
vent war—with America, would be heavily felt in
our Income-tax this year, yet we all felt, that if not
a cheap, it was the least costly policy. The hazard
of war, and prolonged angry negotiations, would,
in their effect on commerce alone, have cost vastly
more than the one or two millions which it has cost
us to show that we were in earnest. If any injurious
feeling of bitterness and hostility remain in the
North—which, with Mr. BAXTER, we do not be-
lieve—the blame of it must lie with the party who
committed the inexcusable outrage, and who did
cause the news of the outrage and the announce-
ment of spontaneous redress to come over together.
Looking back coolly, now, on the whole affair,
who can doubt that the purpose of the American
Government was the meanest conceivable. It
was the low-bred determination to squeeze out of
this intolerable wrong as much advantage to them.
selves, and wrong to us, as we would put up with.
We know that it ended with the surrender of the
prisoners ; but it ought, as Lord DERBY, with the
feelings of an English gentleman, pointed out, to
have begun with that. The disgrace of Bull's Run
was, in our judgment, not to be compared with the
infamy of detaining the prisoners from the Trent.
A panic has seized, before now, better troops than
those of M`DOWELL. But the illegal detention of
the prisoners was a deliberate act. A hot-brained
device of an officer placed stolen goods in the pos-
session of the Washington Cabinet; and the Cabinet,
knowing them to be stolen, and knowing to whom
they belonged, instead of returning them to their
owners, kept them for their own profit. They only
gave them up when they received a very civil demand
for them, backed by a police force which they dare
not encounter.

How Mr. BRIGHT could be so foolish—for he is
not ordinarily that—as to talk in the face of the
notorious facts of the case, of his being certain from
the beginning that, as the law was against the Ame-
ricans, so they would be certain to obey it—does
indeed surprise us. He talks of them as a law-
loving people. We think them just the reverse—
they are a physical force and political fraud-loving
people. They will take where they can, let Texas
and Mexico, let the wronged negroes and Indians
bear -witness; and they will glory in frauds for the
sake of territory, like that practised by Mr. WEB-
STER on Lord ASHBITRTON, to deprive us of what is
now Maine, but which, on the authority of BEN-
JAMIN FRANKLIN, belonged to New Brunswick.
Whatever can be obtained by political bullying
and sharping they will have. We are
sorry to write thus of them, but it is
because they have first written it themselves in
numberless acts. And even among themselves,
lawless violence and intimidation drives the better
class of men from public life ; and, were Mr.
BRIGHT a native American, and did he differ from
the vast majority of his countrymen as much as he
now does from Englishmen, he would assuredly be
in danger of Judge LYNCH, and would be com-
pelled to keep his oratory to himself.

Few Englishmen can doubt that but for our pre-
parations for the defence of Canada, and the noble
spirit of the Canadians themselves—and, but for the
certainty that the blockade of the South would be
exchanged for a blockade of the North, and the
complete and instant triumph of Secession—that
but for this Mr. SEWARD would never have parted
with his ill-gotten prisoners. The American
press all said they should never be parted
with; the arch-pirate was feted and praised by
governors and judges for his defiance of law and
England-1t was lauded as heroism that the cap-
tain of a frigate should defy not so much the gun-
less packet-ship as the law of nations, seeing the
defiance was against Britishers. The Naval Board
and Congress itself praised the pirate; and the
PRESIDENT, not daring to praise the violation of
law, held his tongue while he kept the men in his
dungeons! As bad as anything, Mr. SEWARD
wrote over to Mr. ADAMS here, told him that the
American Government had not ordered the act, and
yet said not one word of restitution ! ! That infa
mous despatch was proof sufficient that they meant,
if England would stand it, to keep the men, and
fully justified our Government in pushing on their
preparations.
We have indeed a heavy bill to pay for American
fraud and violence. Mr. BRIGHT professes to feel
for the tax•payers of Britain ; if so, instead of ex-
tenuating American crimes against the law of
should denounce the mingled audacity
tio ns