The Sun.
London, England, 1838-07-27 00:00:00

Lord COLCHE STE R explained.
Lord BROUGHAM and the Earl of MINTO severally explained.
Lord COLVILLE trusted the Noble and Learned Lord
opposite would make himself better acquainted with the sub-
ject he had that night so strongly observed upon, before he
again cast imputations upon officers of the navy.
Tim Bill was then read a third time.
The Revenue Departments Security Bill was read a third
time and passed.
The Court of Chancery (Ireland) Bill went through Com-
mittee.—Adjourned st Gee o'Clock.

- - -
POULETT THOMSON AND THE
TRADING COMPANIES' BILL.

(Prom the Morning Herald.)
The attention of our mercantile and monetary interests, and,
fact, the whole of our trading community, has been excited
l)the introduction of a Bill, called the " Trading Companies'
Bill," into the House of Lords, where it now awaits its second
reading. This Bill, which is sponsored by the President of
the Board of Trade, has travelled through the House of Com-
mons with railway speed, and has been introduced with the
ostensible view of amending the Act of the Ist of Victoria,
cap. 72, generally known as the " LetterS Patent Bill," which
Act was so defective and bad in its constitution that no par-
ties have availed themselves of its provisions. The professed
object of the Bill of last session, and the present Bill to amend
It, 13 to enable the Board of Trade to grant letters patent to
trading bodies, where the partners are numerous, to empower
them to sue and be sued, and also to sue each other.
This has been a great defect in the Common Law, has
created innumerable difficulties, and it is a disgrace to our
statute book and the modern spirit of legislation that it has not
been distinctly provided for long ere this. So far it would ap-
pear that some credit was due to Mr. Poulett Thomson for the
introduction of this Bill ; but it has transpired that this
plausible measure which has been introduced to Parliament
covers a mere job, or rather a scheme that will be open to
every description of jobbing, since the Bill gives most impro-
perly the power to the Board of Trade to grant letters patent
to trading bodies with either limited or unlimited responsibility
4 power which has never vet been intrusted to any head of a
department, and which, in fact, if acceded to by the House of
Lords, will be but an usurpation of the Prerogative of the
Crown and the privileges of Parliament. It is also dangerous
in another sense, since it will give to the head of a Government
department the power of interfering arbitrarily with any pro-
position to extend or improve the commerce of the ceuntry,
unless the parties applying submit to the restrictions which
may be proposed; aud it will further give to the Board of
Trask a centralising power over every department of trade,
now only barely tolerated by the French laws, but which is
not possessed even be the British Crown.
It is the duty of all gt,ol Governments rather to promote
the commerce of the communities over which they rule, than
to f..tter them with any undue fiscal measure, or laws that may
lead to jabs and the exercise of demi•oflicial patronage. It is
to the principle of this measure which wo find our mea of busi-
ness object, because it st•eks,in a roundabout and unconstitu-
tional way, to remedy the defects in the common law of part-
nership, which ought to be accomplished in a more direct and
legal mode. We hear that some of our leading law Lords
have great objections to the Bill ; it is, therefore, to be hoped
that its powers will be zigidly investigated, and that it luny not
become the law of tly, land.

DESTITUTION IN THE SHETLAND
ISLANDS.

[Copy of n letter from the Rev. Thomas Barclay, Minister of
Lerwick, Chairman of the Shetland Destitution Committee,
to Frederick Dundas, Esq., M. P.]
DEAR Slk,—Notrvithstanding the exposure which you wit-
nessed of the attempt to deceive the London Committee by means
of the fallaciousstatements respecting the Success of our herring_
fishery last year, I am informed that a similar attempt has been
made to impose upon them by false information respecting the
cod-fishing- this season.
One of their members; is is said, has been furnished with
information which repreSents the cod-fishing to have been
hitherto so successful as in the opinion of the majority of the
Committee to supersede the necessity of further supplies to
the destitute in Shetland. There is little doubt that this in-
formation proceeds from the same source as that which
Was furnished to Dr. Crumble, with the view of rrlsleading
aim and the other members, as to the results of the herring.
fishing. The latter was proved to be essentially false, inas-
much as it suppressed the most impertant facts; the former
is a direct and-unmitigated fabrication. The cod-fithing this
season, instead of xelieving the destitu!ion of these engaged
in it, threatens not; to defray the expense of outfit, &c.
It i 3 now within thres weeks of its termination. and from a
Ittaternent famished by the chief officer employed by the
rishery- Board in Shetland; it is proved that the whole cod
caught titis season does not exceed one 'half of what was
caught fait year at this date, although there are many more
native vessels, boats, and men employed this year than there
Were last year, and also a whole fleet of English smacks whichare fishing on our coasts, and curing their-fish on our shores
for a London Company. •
I have little hope that this or any other statement will alter
the determination of some of the members of the London Com-
mittee, but I think it of importance that they should be made
acquainted with the above refutation of the statements which
have been got up since I left London, for the purpose of
checking the supplies to the famishing inhabitants of these
Islands. • -
Lerwick, July 10, 1938,

r• • .

high office, which ney man of a -gierierous ambition
might well envy, and to these conternlsliqions he ( Lord
Brougham) did not deny that his mind ivas accessible.
But great wits arc said to have short „memories, and
very great wits like the Noble Earl (Minto) have surely
the shortest memories of all ; else, how came he to forget that if
his ( Lord B.'s) attacks should turn out the Government, not
he, but his Noble and Learned Friend not present ( Lynd-
hurst) would take the woolsack. That was quite clear; and
why the powers and profits of the Great Seal should
tempt him (Lord B.) to turn out his Noble and Learned
and much esteemed friend ( Lord Cottenham) for the purpose
of planting his other Noble Friend (Lyndhurst) on the wool-
sack, the Noble Earl had been too light and volatile in his
frolicksome humour to think of explaining, He (Lord
Brougham) had never before done anything to
make
the Noble Lord now absent (Lord Lyndhurst) Chan-
cellor. He had certainly never recommended him
in.-„•.any way to that high office. But he as certainly
h st recommended, and effectually recommended, the other
Noble Lord ( Lord Cottenham) to the office, and he verily
belieied- he .had never rendered a better service to the
suitors of' the Court where he presided, than by this
proceeding-for he (Lord B.) conceived that he made in
excellent Judge in Equity, and gave general satisfaction.
Why, then should he ( Lord BiMaham), having set up
the nine pin, be so anxious to knock- it down again?
All this the Noble Earl ( Minto) passed over, in the wit of
the lightsome and merry mood he was in. Possibly, indeed he was not in the secret. But this was not his only omission
as to facts and facts which he must be aware of—though
he might not be acquainted with the one he ( Lord Brougham)
had just adverted to. If his (Lord Brougham's). quarrel
with the Government had anything at all to do with the
Great Seal, why did he not oppose them in 1833 when
the Ministry was 'formed ? Why not in 1836, when
the Seal was given to its present holder? Why not in
1837 ? These Were known facts and dates, which
there was no getting over—and the retail dealers in
falsehood who defend the Government through the press,
shut their eyes to these well known things. But
till this -evening, he had never known any Minister who
deemed it becoming or discreet to take the same
line. Yet, surely the Noble Earl must know that the
quarrel, if quarrel there had been, on account of office,
and the Great Seal, was complete in May, 1835 ; and yet
how had he ( Lord Brougham) acted? If his opposition to
the Government- 'had any connexion whatever with his hot
being Chancellor, how did it happen that in the n hole Session
of 1835 he had stood by the Government, helping them
at every turn—lifting them whenever be could out of the
min—keeping their heads above water to the best of his
small means--saving, as far as his utmost exertions could,
their existence for some months, during which they were
fluttering between life and death—defending them at
a moment when the least attack must have tumbled
the n down from their slippery position ? Had he not, at the
end of a laborious session of judicial business, in which he had
presided voluntarily in the House, notoriously sacrificed his
own health, by undertaking the defence of the Govern-
ment, during the laborious month's combat on the English
Municipal Bill Had he not fought that Bill through
through all its stages, for and with the Government, whose
whole existence depended upon the measure? Then, in
1836, though absent at first for three months through illness,
brought on by his support of the Government the autumn
before, yet for the last two months of the Session he (Lord
Brougham) was quite recovered, and announced to the
Government his ability to attend Parliament, but he did
not—and why ? Because on two important Reform ques-
tions he was compelled to differ from the Ministry—
and he was informed by them that his opposition might be
fatal as they were then circumstanced. All this was pro-
bably new to the Noble Earl ( Minto). He was not in
the secret. His colleagues told him what they liked
about navy matters, and gave him their opinion about
Quadruple Treaties, setting him down somewhat bluntly
and unceremoniously—but this which happened in 1836
they had not told 12;m ; yet certain it was that he (Lord
Brougham) at their desire, had kept away in order to keep
them in their places: And yet the Noble Earl not being in
the secret, supposed. with some of the Government news-
papers, that his ( Lerd Brougham's) not being in office was
the cause of his differing with the Ministers, and made him wish
to turn them out, in order that he might again seize the Great
Seal. Those newspaper authorities, however, from which
the Noble Earl took his facts should have known, and
so should the Noble Earl, that his ( Lord Brougham's) oppo-
sition, even in 1837, was confined to entering a reluctant
protest against the Canada Bill, which had produced a civil
war, and that in all other measures he had during that Session
supported the Ministry. opposition only began, as every
man in the country knew, and as these slandereus assailant:
alone wilfully forgot. When in November last the Govern-
ment took a new line against Reform of Parliament, and other
Reforms; and when on that and on their extravag ,nt Civil
List, and their Canada Bills, and the Slave question, they had
compelled him to oppose them, if he (Lord B.) did not mean to
abandon all his most sacred and most constantly avowed
principles and feelings upon the whole policy of the state.
These things were quite notorious—they were facts,
and even had dates, which at once dispelled the
whole charges made by wilful fabrications out of doors, and at ,
length with an indiscretion to which great wits like the Noble
Earl are too subject, brought forward by a Cabinet Minister
in that House.