The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-09 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 1853.

It is impossible to estimate too highly the im-
portance of the subject which the Honourable
Gentleman the Member for Westbury last night
introduced to the House of Commons, in a speech
of great clearness and ability. It is not merely
the enormous amount of capital invested in
Assurance Companies, or the vast power which
the command of so much money or convertible
securities, places in the hands of the managers
that invests the matter with so deep an interest.
The nature of the business transacted, the charac-
ter of their dealings, are such as to render it im-
perative on the Legislature to afford the strongest
possible guarantees against fraud or deception of
any kind. It is on their solvency and stability
that many hard-working men of the middle class
depend for th• future provision for their families,
cheerfully submitting to privations and self-nega-
tions of no ordinary description, more than satis-
fied with the knowledge that their provi-
dence will be the means of averting absolute
poverty and destitution from those dearer
even than life itself, when the father
and protector is no longer present to pro-
vide the necessaries and comforts of existence.
Such an assurance affords the strongest consola-

tion in the hour of danger. When disease is
sapping the vital powers, and life itself is trem-
bling in the balance, what are, what must be the
feelings of one who has neglected the obvious
duty, on beholding the partner of his joys and
sorrows--dearer, perhaps, for the trials they had
encountered together, and the helpless pledges of
their mutual affection at the heart-rending
thought, that, after his death, they would be left
penniless, without the means of providing a single
meal—their only hope resting on the tender mer-
cies of the Poor-law Union, of which the dying
husband and father had long been a ratepayer ?
How greatly would the bitterness of the feeling
be alleviated—how large a portion of the sting
removed—by the idea that his family would have
a suitable provision after death a provision
that had been secured by his own praise-
worthy prudence. There would, of course,
be the natural feelings of anxiety and terror at
the mighty change awaiting him, but the most
painful portion of his feelings would be com-
pletely removed.

It was well remarked by the Hon. Gentleman
the Secretary of the Treasury, that " the liabilities
and responsibilities of banks and other joint-stock
companies to individuals were of a comparatively
momentary description." The failure of a bank
may entail great loss and mach suffering for the
time being ; but hope would still remain. The
provider of the family would be spared, and so
long as his faculties remained unimpaired hope
would remain. Even in case of fire assurance,

the mischief might in time be got over ; but the
failure of a Life Assurance Company to meet its
engagements would be an irreparable evil—one
that would leave no ray of hope to lighten the
prevailing gloom. If there be any justification
for legislative interference with commercial en-
terprise—any pretext for interference with Joint-
Stock Companies—a fortiori, there is not only a
right, but an imperative necessity, for regulating
the affairs of Life Assurance Associations, anal
we would include in the category every descrip-
tion of friendly society and burial club, promising
assistance to members or their nominees in time
of sickness or death.

But while we readily and freely concede the
propriety of a stringent and searching investiga-
tion into the management and working of these im-
portant institutions, we would inculcate the absolute
necessity of the greatest caution before the passing
of any enactments that would unduly affect the oper-
ations of legitimate and bond fide companies, and
prevent that almost unrestricted competition so ex-
ceedingly beneficial to the community. Let every
reasonable precaution be taken against wilful and
deliberate fraud, provided that such precaution
does not operate as a prohibition to dealings by
the less wealthy, although not less honest, Asso-
ciations, or confer a practical monopoly on the
Leviathan establishments, so as to enable them
to charge more highly than the circumstances of
each case might warrant. Care must be taken
lest, "in shunning Scylla, we fall into Charybdis."
In avoiding one evil, we must not fall into others
of still greater magnitude.
The contemplated inquiry will also be useful,
because, while some of the shoals and quicksands
that beset the way of the intending insurer are
exposed, the numerous and important advantages
of the system itself will be exhibited in the
clearest light. We believe that the latter
will prove even the most beneficial branch
of the subject. For strange to say, not-
withstanding the alleged facilities for fraud,
we believe that few, if any, instances of serious
loss can be adduced since the bursting of the
monster bubble, the Independent and West
Middlesex Assurance Company, immortalised by.
CHARLES DICKENS as the Anglo-Bengalee, and re-
ferred to in the graphic Report of the Assistant-
Registrar of Joint-Stock Companies. It must also
be borne in mind, that the fraud in that instance
had been fully exposed long before the passing of
the Joint-Stock Companies Act (7 and 8 Vic., c. 110) ;
it was, indeed, we believe, one of the chief causes
of the introduction of the Act. The number of
abortive schemes during the last or any preceding
year, constitute no argument for new enactments
unless there was fraud in their concoction, and
that through their instrumentality parties had
been plundered of their money. Many might
have failed in carrying out meritorious projects ;
the requisite funds might not have been subscribed,
or the expenses of management been too heavy, to
leave a resonable profit to the shareholders ; but
so long as the accruing liabilities are provided for,
there can be no just cause of complaint. The
proposed investigation will, however, elicit much
valuable information, and produce the necessary
data for future legislation.

Every intelligent man must take a deep inte-
rest in the great Colonial question now before
Parliament, and must rejoice to see it advancing
so auspiciously towards the much-to-be-desired
settlement. We have little doubt, indeed, that a
considerable number who voted in the minority
on the Clergy Reserves Bill did so because un-
willing to desert their party, they inwardly rejoice
as statesmen that they were in a minority. It were
in'idious to particularise, but we must believe
that few thinking men can really wish the Canadian
and the Imperial Legislatures to maintain an
annual war. That this would inevitably be the
case is clear from all the past history of these
Reserves, and from the fact, not only admitted
but stated by Sir JonN PAKINGTON himself, that
on account of the ever-varying proportions of re-
ligious denominations in Canada, chiefly occasioned
by emigration, the proportions of the grants
assigned to each, must from time to time be re-
adjusted by the Imperial Parliament. One must
wonder that Sir JOHN did not shrink from im-
posing on our over-burdened House of Commons
such a decennial appendix to a Canadian census.
It seems to have been such a concession of the
impossibility of a final measure, that it obviously
invalidates all his reasonings from the Act of
1840, and places Sir JOHN in the position of a
Statesman clinging as long as possible to the con-
stantly diminishing grant which ho can secure
for his own Church, reckless of all the odium
which he brings upon it.

It gives us the greater pleasure to see Mr.
GLADSTONE take such a completely opposite and
truly honourable course. On this question, at
least, he rises superior to every prepossession,
and takes a position every way worthy of a
British statesman. No one can suspect him of
want of attachmant to the Episcopalian Church ;
but it is an intelligent, not a pounds-shillings-
and-pence attachment. He believes that the
goodwill of the Canadians is of infinitely more
consequence to its success amongst them, than
the retention of a paltry and disputed grant. He
boldly asserts the vast difference between our legis-
lating in this country for a few scattered villages,
three-quarters of a century ago, and our now
attempting the same thing for 2,000,000 of
people; but perhaps the opening remarks of Mr.
GLADSTONE were amongst the most important.
Had the truths he told been regarded by the
opponents of the Government measure, they would
have silenced much of their clamour. Referring
to Mr. Mims especially, and others who presumed
"to bear testimony to tho sentiments of the
Canadian people," Mr.. GLADSTONE observed,
that nothing could be more unconstitutional in
theory, and more mischievous in practice, than
to listen to the vague reports of travellers, and
the representations of individuals, instead of the
distinctly expressed opinions of the representatives
of the people. In those colonies which do not
enjoy free institutions, it is a work of the utmost
difficulty for Government to ascertain the real
opinions of the inhabitants ; but when our Parlia-
ment has itself conferred upon the people a Repre-
sentative Assembly, it is bound to take its delibe-
rate judgment as conclusive evidence of the state of
public opinion in the colony. A better view of
the position of the Home and Colonial Legislatures
to each other it is impossible to give. If steadily
maintained, the connection between the mother
country and the colonies must be both cordial and
beneficial. It is singular that the New York en-
dowments of the Episcopal Church should be cited
on behalf of maintaining the grants, since they
were made by free gifts to corporations, and alto-
gether in contrast to the statements of Sir Jourr
PAKINGTON'S American friend is the plain fact,
that in so many of the colonies (Massachusetts
and Virginia were mentioned by Mr. GLADSTONE)
state endowments were most certainly entirely
done away with, and that after long exist-
ence ; probably, too, those endowments which
were spared escaped secularisation because there
was no one attempting to override the unques-
tioned right of the colonists to do what they
would with their own. Mr. GLADSTONE apprised
his stiff Church opponents, that their only chance
of saving the property they clung to, fox Church
uses, was just to throw themselves upon the gene-
rosity of the colonists, and that the sure way to
render their secularisation certain, was to make
them the subject of an irritating intermeddling
from England. A view in which we entirely con-
cur with him. Sir W. MOLESWORTE spoke at
great length, and, it is needless to say, with the
most perfect command of the whole subject, and
in support of the best Colonial principles ; and we
doubt not that whenever he speaks on Colonial
matters, it will only make the public feel more
strongly the strange allotment which has given to
a Peelite, however able, an office which every man
of every party in the kingdom would, in a Cabinet
of Liberals, assign at once to Sir W. MOLESWORTH.
If his exhaustive speech were not conclusive of
the subject, it will strike the reader that it could
only be by reason of a foregone conclusion in the
minds of his hearers. His analysis of the Canadian
division lists completely silenced all the attempts
(mischievous had they been well-founded) to prove
that-the majority in Canada Was made up of Ro-

man Catholics. The Protestants are 54 to 30 in
the House of Assembly, and in every division the
absolute majority of Protestants in favour of what
the Government now proposes was very consider-
able. The last division, for instance, on the 14th
of September last, against the finality of the Act
of 1840, was one of 50 to 18 ! Of the majority
25 were Protestants, of the minority 18 ; while
20 of the majority were Upper Canadian Mem-
bers, of the minority but 14 were so. Of course,
it is abundantly clear that the present Govern-
ment measure has not only a vast majority in the
Canadian House of Assembly, but a large majority
both of Protestants and Upper Canadian Members
—a state of things which the good sense of this
country will never allow to be trifled with. We
trust, however, that the majority of 83 in the
Commons will be accepted, even by the Bishop of
EXETER, as decisive, especially in a money ques-
tion.

No doubt a great deal of sectarian feeling is
mixed up with the question here, and we most
cordially repeat our expressions of pleasure that
we have seen, both in the Lords and in the
Commons, the most noble superiority to
such feeling on the part of Members of
the Government known to have very strong re-
ligious predilections ; their whole bearing and
argument evincing that it is a superiority not
assumed merely for Cabinet purposes, but the
honest expression of their opinions as statesmen.
To tts nothing appears more clear than that it
is a purely local matter. If religion be not so,
what is ? If we have no right to interfere with
each other's religion here, if it would be resented
as intolerable, how much more so to interfere
with the religion of our colonies 3,000 miles
off. Whether our fellow-subjects, then, will be
Episcopalians, or Presbyterians, Independents or
Baptists, Catholics or Methodists, is surely no
concern of ours ; and equally, surely, may they
claim to support their respective creeds by
voluntaryism or by endowment, as to them seems
good. They only know which best harmonises
with their sentiments, and which is best adapted
to the secular conditions of their colony. For
one thing, so far as we, know, the voluntary sects
even in this country pay their working clergy quite
as well, on the whole, as the Establishments. Pro-
bably they would do so in Canada. But, we
repeat, how, and how much, they will pay their
ministers, is for them, not for us, to settle.

A civilian as First Lord of the Admiralty has
always been regarded by us with feelings little else
than those of indignation. It was in considera-
tion of his professional character, combined with
his admitted abilities, that we regretted so very
earnestly the displacement of the Duke of
NORTHUMBERLAND. If anything—we admit this
at once--could have lessened our distress at the
return to the old system, consequent on the
inauguration of the present Cabinet, it would
undoubtedly have been the selection of a successor
to his Grace so rarely gifted as Sir JAMES GRAHAM
—a statesman qualified both by genius and ex-
perience for almost any one of the higher offices of
Administration. But even the distinguished
merits of that Right Hon. Baronet have failed to
diminish our chagrin at the instalment at the
head of the maritime service of England of one
who has not risen to that dignity by his service
on the salt water. It has ever appeared to us
quite as absurd to subject the Royal Navy to the
governance of a civilian, as it would be to
place a civilian in supreme command at
the Horse Guards—nay, as it would be to
appoint a non-clerical personage Archbishop of
Canterbury, or to promote some other than a law-
lord to the woolsack of the Chancellor. Our sen-
timents upon this subject we have taken occasion
to express upon every available opportunity. We
have repeatedly protested against the custom of
subjecting the whole of our gallant band of sea-
captains to the authority of a non-professional
member of the Government. We have regarded
that custom, and must ever regard it, as an
insult to the maritime servic3 o;: the United
Kingdom. Its continuance implies that the
country finds it impossible to L :sleet from among
its naval officers any one capable of efficiently dis-
charging the duties of directing the affairs of that
illustrious and peculiarly national. department.
Against such an imputation as this—an imputr.-
tion derogatory to the character of the Service—
it is impossible not to lift up one's voice, again
and again, in tones of mingled protest and expostu-
lation. We cannot see for the life of us how
Sir FRANCIS BARING can be supposed to know
more about the requirements of the Royal Navy
than his Grace the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND.
We cannot understand why even Sir J. GRAHAM
with all his great powers should be deemed so
absolutely necessary just now at the Admiralty
as chief of the Lords Commissione-rs, while we
have still amongst us flag-officers of singular emi-
nence, and, beyond all, while we have still living
in the midst of uo—the NELsoN of his agc—the
",eroic and veteran Earl of DUNDONALD.
It was surprising, therefore, all these things
considered, that a naval officer should recently in
the House of Commons accede to the propriety, if
not to the justice, of admitting a civilian by pre-
ference to the command of the maritime deparL-
ment of the Adra'nistration. It was surprising
that Sir G. PECHELL should, in the course of the
discussion, upon the naval estimates avow dis-
tinctly from bis place in the Legislature, that
although he had frequently before expressed an
anxiety to behold a naval officer at the head of
the Board at Charing-cross (meaning Parliament-
street), he now found that "he had made a great
mistake in thinking that such an arrangement
would be desirable We don't wonder after
this declaration from the Honourable and Gallant
Member for Brighton, that we should have been
addressed upon the subject, as we were the other
evening, by a member of the maligned, or, at
any rate, depreciated profession. Had Sir
FRANCIS BARING been placed at the head of the
Horse Guards under Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S Admi-
nistration—had Sir JAMES GRAHAM been ap-
pointed Commander-in-Chief on the recent forma-
tion of the Earl of ABERDEEN'S Government—we
scarcely fancy there would have been any officer in
the British army with temerity enough to brave the
opinion of his brothers in arms, and, let us add, of
the principal portion of the intelligent community
likewise, by exulting in the nomination of a
civilian, however gifted, to a post which had been
occupied formerly by Lord HILL and the Duke of
WELLINGTON. An examination of the maritime
annals of England will reveal, we conceive, with
tolerable distinctness whether the affairs of the
Admiralty have been conduct :d efficiently or in-
efficiently under the guidance of professional ac'_--
ministrators. Let JAMES be our witness in this
particular. We would rest Eltisfied with the re-
sult of an exclusive reference to his luminous nar-
rative. But every writer bearing even incidentally
upon the subject treated of in his masterly
History,
would be found, on examination, to abound
facts amply corroborative. The annals of this
great country prove that the capabilities of its
maritime service were brought to their first pitch
of excellence by a Prince who had already shown
himself to be an able commander upon the ocean
in more than one brilliant and memorable engage-
ment--for King Jemms 11., as Duke of Yon; not
merely obtained for himself the glory of being one
of the earliest victors whose achievements are
emblazoned in the records of the British Navy,
but also of securing to himself the high and
enviable distinction of so fostering the energies of
that navy that he must be regarded in simple
justice as literally its First Organiser. Here
surely is a case in point. Here surely is the
instance of a successful commander on the seas,

proving himself afterwards on land an eminently

successful administrator.

Coming down to a

more recent period, there was the brave Sir JOHN

JERVIS, afterwards Earl of ST. VINCENT. We scarcely

expect that the Hon. and Gallant Representative

of Brighton will deny the merits of that renowned
officer, whether treading the Quarter Dock or pre-
siding at the Board of Admiralty. Here, again,
is the example of a professional statesman proving
. . _

himself not altogether inefficient as the chief of
the Lords Commissioners ! Yet nowadays we can

witness an officer, in the Royal Navy rising from
his place in the House of Commons, and acknow-

[edging that he had made "a great mistake" in