The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TnrEs.--The attorneys have received a gratify-
ing proof of the close regard which is given to their
interests in the House of Commons. Their cham-
pions have gained one of those victories over the
Chancellor of the Exchequer which are made doubly
sweet by the gallantry and obstinacy of the enemy.
After one of his most emphatic speeches, Mr. Glad-
stone was informed last night by a majority of 146
to 143 votes that it is the opinion of the house that
the annual duty payable by attorneys, solicitors, and
proctors in England and Ireland, and by writers to
the Signet and others in Scotland, should be abo-
lished. It is a question, we fancy, in which the
public will not take much interest. They will cer-
tainly not feel any profound commiseration for the
wrongs inflicted on lawyers : nor, on the other hand,
will they sympathise with the protestations made by
Mr. Gladstone against the principle of dictating the
details of future Budgets by abstract resolutions of
the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's reason-
ing would deprive the house of all originative power
upon financial matters. He thinks that no member
ought to bring forward a proposal with respect to
the revenue of the country except when the house
has the Ministerial Budget before it, for then, as he
declares, it can either adopt the plans of the Minister
if he deem them the best, or substitute any other for
them. It must be evident, however, to any one who
knows the course of public business that this would
amount to a practical abdication by the house of its
financial control.lThere is nothing, indeed, in which
authority must be so closely conceded to official
persons as finance. Whether it be a nation, :or a
company, or a club, or a charitable association, the
management of its money affairs must be entrusted
to a few. The only way in which the public opinion
of the country with respect to taxation can be ex-
pressed without giving grievous shocks to the ma-
chinery of Government is by • such resolutions
as Mr. Gladstone denounces, for they indicate
the sense of the House of Commons, and act as
an instruction to the Cabinet in its future delibe-
rations. Mr. Gladstone may . desire to resist the
interference of the house in his financial pro-
jects, and to maintain his own independence and
originality ; but he cannot expect that the country
should put such implicit faith in even his practised
ability as to refrain from expressing its disapproval
of obnoxious taxes. Though, however, we can see
no reason why Mr. Denman should not move his
resolution for the relief of the attorneys, or the
House vote it by a majority, yet, as far as the public
is likely to form an opinion on such a very small
matter, it will, we think, be on the merits of the
question in favour of the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer's arguments. At present attorneys pay £9 a
year in town, and £6 in the country, while engaged
in the practice of their profession. This duty their
friends in the House of Commons denounce as an
unjust and intolerable impost. It will, perhaps, be
indecorous to give any heed to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer's suggestion, that the approach of a
General Election may have had some effect in
sharpening the perception of hon. members as to the
sufferings of the lawyers. Undoubtedly the Divi-
sion List will be eagerly scanned to-day by several
thousand influential gentlemen in town and country,
many of whom have no little power in determining
who shall be our legislators for the next few years.
But we will be content to believe that the 146 really
thought in their hearts that to mulct the poor
attorney of six or nine pounds annually was an in-
justice that demanded remonstrance even at the
busy close of a Parliament. If the Government,
indeed, had shorn the lawyers till they were as bare
as their own parchments, their friends could not
have been more in t arnest in demanding the aboli-
tion of the Certificate Duty, which "presses with
the utmost severity" upon them. How they arc led
to this conclusion it is not easy to see. In the first
I place, the taxation of trades is part of the financial
system of England. As Mr. Gladstone justly
asked, why should an auctioneer or a pawnbroker
—the latter of whom lives on the contributions
of the poorest class—be left to pay his annual im-
post while the attorney is freed from his? Then
there is the duty on licences for the sale of jirits
and on refreshment-rooms, and that paid by brewers
and distillers, by postmasters, by dealers in game,
in tea, and tobacco, making up altogether nearly
£2,000,000 a year. As Mr. Gladstone stated, the
amount paid, exclusively on the licences on the sale
of spirits, is not less than £600,000 annually. While
this large revenue is collected by taxing trades, why
should so lucrative a calling as that of an attorney
be exempted without some general change in the
system of taxation? Should a greater economy in
expenditure enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer
to dispense with a part of his resources, it may be
that these attorneys' and auctioneers' and pawn-
brokers' duties might be properly diminished or
abolished. But to relieve the first-named class with-
out respect to the others is certainly not demanded
by justice. There is no more prosperous body of
men in the country than the attorneys and solicitors.
Numbers of them make large incomes, very few fail
to obtain a competence. With the immense progress
of the country their progress in well-being has more
than kept pace. They transact the most important
business between man and man, and are well remu-
nerated for it. There is not one in a hundred to whom
the payment of these few pounds yearly is a hard-
ship. Indeed, the duty may be looked upon simply
as an outlay which any man entering the profession
takes into account, and with respect to which he
makes his calculations. Nor can we believe that the
effect is injurious to the public. The attorney is not
a mere private person, selling his advice or assist-
ance in competition with the rest of the world. He
is a duly recognised functionary, an officer of the
highest courts in the country, and his profession en-
joys a monopoly in the conduct of his branch of all
legal business. The most respectable members of
the profession are said to approve the maintenance
of large fees on admission to practice, on the ground
that they insure the rejection of an inferior body of
persons. Without entirely assenting to this view of
the matter, we must admit that it is of advantage
that the profession should not be filled with very
needy men, and if the payment of the duty has any
effect in sifting the profession, the result may be
rather beneficial than otherwise. But, whatever de-
cision Parliament may come to on the subject of
taxing employments, the various businesses so taxed
ought at least to be considered together. There are
many worse imposts falling upon limited classes of
men than the attorneys' certificate duty, and those
who pay it may certainly continue to bear the bur-
den till the national finance can bear a more com-
prehensive measure.
P OST. —Whatever might be the feelings entertained
by her Majesty's Government, there was virtually
but one answer which would be given by the First
Lord of the Treasury to the question put by Mr.
Darby Griffith last evening in the House of Com-
mons. The English nation have made no secret of
the light in which they regarded the great contest
which has for upwards of four years raged on the
American continent ; and now that that contest has
to all appearance come to a close, no diversity of
opinion can exist in respect to the course which
should be pursued by the conquerors. There may
have been, and doubtless was, a considerable, though
not an influential, section of the English people
which sincerely believe that the North was fighting
with no other aim than the extinction of slavery, and
the South with no nobler object than its perpetua-
tion. But even those who adopted this view did not
fail to recognise and to bear ample testimony to the
gallantry and the heroism with which the Southern
population struggled for the preservation of what
they considered to be their rights, against odds so
great as to make that gallantry and heroism appear
to some but little different from madness. This is
not the fitting time for drawing invidious distinc-
tions; but when the history of the great American
civil war comes to be written, justice will be done
to the chivalry with which, from first to last, the
Confederates waged the unequal fight. Never was
a war bloodier proportionately to its duration than
that which has now terminated—few have been sig-
nalised by deeds of such terrible atrocity ; but in
none has it ever happened that the vanquished were
entitled on more just or more ample grounds to sue
for unconditional mercy. It is a curious, but an in-
controvertible, fact that on no occasion, from the com-
mencement of the war to its close, have the bitterest
enemies of the South ventured to charge one of its
generals with an unsoldierlike act. A similar obser-
vation may be made in respect to the Confederate
Government. Of the ability with which Mr. Davis
and his Ministers husbanded the resources of the
Confederacy, at the same time that they were en-
abled to offer a successful resistance to the aggres-
sion of the North, the events of the past four years
bear ample testimony. But their sole merit does
not consist merely in having been successful admi-
nistrators. The Confederate Government evinced on
all occasions a spirit of moderation which, perhaps
more than anything else, gained for them the sym-
pathy of strangers on this side of the Atlantic
ocean. They fought out the bitter fight which was
forced upon them, as became men who were "equal
to either fortune ;" and it is not surprising, there-
fore, that now, when they have been compelled to
bow their heads before inevitable destiny, their pos-
sible fate should awaken the anxious solicitude of
those who have been the spectators of their past
struggles. The announcement that Mr. Johnson
had not only excluded the President of the Confe-
derate States from the provisions of an amnesty
which it was believed would have been extended to
all who took part in what the North regarded as an
act of rebellion, but had set a price upon his head,
accordingly excited the astonishment and the in-
dignation of Europe. It was difficult to believe that
the Government of the United States could seri-
ously contemplate the idea of sentencing to a felon's

death a man who was the recognised head of six
millions of people ; and assuming such a contin-
gency possible, it was equally difficult to believe that
the world would witness the consummation of so
great a crime without entering its protest against so
gross a violation of those principles of justice and
humanity which are supposed to govern the actions
of civilised States. It was therefore not unreasonable
that a member of the English House of Commons
should ask her Majesty's Government if it was their
intention to notice officially the proposed conduct of
the Government of the. United States, and to employ
such influence as they possessed to induce the
latter to abandon what would seem to be their ob-
vious design. But, however intelligible and how-
ever generous might be the sentiments which prompted
such a question, there could be but one reply. Ca-
bmets cannot permit themselves to be swayed by
sympathies, and must regulate their conduct by
the stern rules of international law. The Govern-
ment of the United States are sovereign within their
own dominions, and are entitled to administer their
laws with rigour if they feel so inclined. If they
think proper to deal out the full measure of the law
to an individual whom they look upon as an " arch
and the chief originator of a movement which
brought in its train a great civil war, they are legally
entitled to do so, and it is not for the Government
of any other State to say them nay. However
shocking such a course of proceeding may be to the
English or any other people, they have no right to
dictate to the American Government an act of cle-
mency which the latter appear unwilling to exer-
cise. And thus it was that Lord Palmerston had no
choice but to tell the House of Commons that it was
not the intention of her Majesty's Government to
interfere. We entirely dismiss from consideration
the flimsy pretext advanced by President Johnson
for the course which he intends to pursue. It isim-
possible to prove a negative, and we will not there-
fore attempt to demonstrate that Mr. Davis was not
privy to Mr. Lincoln's assassination. But we iyili
venture to say that there never was an accusation
advanced which was so grossly improbable. When
Mr. Lincoln was slain the war was virtually at an
end, and Mr. Davis a fugitive, without the hope of
re-establishing the Government of which he had
been the chief. It is inconceivable that he could
have been actuated by motives of paltry revenge-
Under these circumstances one is tempted to inquire
cui bono so atrocious a crime. Mr. Davis knew that
Mr. Lincoln would be suceeded by Mr. Johnson, or,
in other words, that a man who was inclined to ad
generously and humanely would be replaced by the
representative of a party whose sole ideas of conflict
were identified with confiscation and extermination.
But when the circumstances under which Mr. Di!"
coin was murdered and the character of his assassin
are taken into consideration, the notion that the.
Chief Magistrate of the Southern Confederacy could
have become an accessory to the crime becomes
simply absurd. It is to be hoped that, on reflection:
Mr. Johnson and his advisers will become ashamen
of the subterfuge they have adopted to compass the
death of a great political opponent, of whom, In
honest truth, the American nation ought to be real
proud. At all events the English Government have
exercised a wise discretion in declining to interfere;
if for no other reason than to avoid the danger e'
awakening the jealousy of the American Govern"
ment, and thus mayhap ensuring the evil which 04
hoped to avert.