The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-07 00:00:00

Vienna, which would care to control the publica-
tion of " facts." What such rulers object to is the
expression of opinions ; and very strange it may
possibly seem that the first objection of this kind
in England should have proceeded from a politician
avowing views of extreme liberalism. In reality,
however, this intolerance is nothing but an ordinary
symptom of democratic excess—a symptom which,
if free course were given to the malady, would be
seen not only in this, but in every department of
politics. Fortunately, the danger is not great in
this country that such a consummation will ever
arrive ; nor is Mr. Cobden indeed taking the right
steps to promote it. He is indefatigable in his
efforts, and plausible in his talk ; but among so
sensible a people as Englishmen he will gain no
converts to his doctrines by disclosing his anxiety
tosuppress all teachers but himself.

(From the Morning Herald.)

Wo do not think it necessary to adjudicate upon
the respective merits of the Quarterly reviewer
and M. Disraeli.

The late brilliant leader of the House of Com-
mons was relieved from any responsibility with re-
spect to the best abstract policy to be pursued—
first by his own promise, and secondly by the ex-
pressed wish of the country. It is enough to know
that if the present Chancellor of the Exchequer did
not defeat the late ministry factiously—that is, for
the sake of the defeat—he did so for the sake of a
principle which is false in the abstract, unjust in
practice, and obnoxious to all parties—that of the
present income-tax. Laying aside, therefore, the dis-
cussion of budgets, we jo'n issue with the leading
journal (so-called from being led ?) on the sub-
ject of the navigation laws. We are amused at
the confidence with which so great a cause is
reposed on the evidence of the consistent Mr.
W. S. Lindsay, and we are prepared to con-
tend that the present prosperity of the ship-
ping interest is in no way the result of the re-
peal of the navigation laws, for that repeal opened
up no new markets, and the advance in the value of
shipping has been greater during the last six months
than during the whole of the preceding two years
and a half. He who will take the trouble to cast
his eye down the entering-out notices for London,
Liverpool, and even Dundee, and there behold the
evidence of a trade to Australia larger than we pos-
sess to any other part of the world, and which has
sprung up suddenly like the prophet's gourd, will
have no difficulty in accounting for the sudden
change in the prospects of the shipowners.
If the same person will then reflect that the voy-
age to Australia is three times as long as that to
the United States, and that at least 100,000 to
200,000 tons of shipping are lying in the various
Australian ports without crews to remove them, he
will have some idea of the displacement of tonnage
which has resulted from the discovery of gold in our
own colonies. This discovery, acting on a gold cur-
rency, restored confidence, suspended the opera-
tion of the Bank Charter Act, and created as active
and immediate demand for labourers and for manu-
facturers.

How the Times is to prove that we have more
men than we used to have, we are at a loss to con-
ceive ; and we confess that we look with some ap-
prehension to the ultimate effect of the present
mania, which, assisted by foreign shipping, is aid-
ing the operations of emigration ; and owing to
the scarcity of small Li:tish vessels (which the
most sanguine were afraid to build in the face of
foreign competition) is giving over much of our le-
gitimate and ordinary trade to foreign vessels. The
effect of the export of gold to the Danube, &c., for
grain is very likely, in conjunction with an unfa-
vourable harvest, to produce a sudden reaction,
especially as much of the gold produced in the colo-
nies will find investment on the spot.
Mr. W. S. Lindsay being paraded as the cham-
pion of Mr. Labouchere's measure, it is necessary
to remind our readers of his sudden conver-
sion from declared hostility to a firm belief in
its merits. It is remarkable that the sudden
change which we refer to took place at a time when
the shipping interest was undoubtedly depressed,
and his conduct requires some further explanation
than it has yet received. He might, with his re-
markable foresight, have become in a mysterious
manner informed of the revelations to be made at
the antipodes ; but that his modesty should have
led him to keep his knowledge a profound secret re-
quires more faith than we have at command. It
is well known that he is an eminent shipbroker as
well as owner, though he makes a greater parade
of the latter than of the former profession, and
that it is usual with men in that description of
business to take small shares in expensive ves-
sels, with a view to acting as agents and ships'
husbands. It is, therefore, natural to suppose
that persons so situated would be more sanguine
under a depression of the shipping interest than
those whose incomes are entirely derived from the
profits of the voyage. Be this as it may, the re-
peal of the navigation laws, irrespective of the com-
mercial question, was a pernicious measure, and, in
conjunction with the Merchant Seamen's Act, de-
, mands the prompt attention of the Legislature.

(Front the Morning Post.)

The increasing ,unpopularity of the Courts of
Bankruptcy is notorious. Each succeeding Gazette
bears testimony to it. As for the district courts,
they will soon have a holiday the whole year round.
So far from being all work and no play with their
rustic honours, it will be soon all play and no work.
Nor are matters in Basinghall-street much more
promising. Punch's lively representation of the
judges playing at shuttlecock may, so far as leisure
is concerned, be speedily realised there. But the
interests of commissioners, and of official assignees
and messengers, are far from being identical.
" What's sport to you is death to us." The com-

missioners, secure of their quarter's salary, may
smile at the diminishing bankruptcy column of the
Gazette. In their eyes it may be growing " beau-
tifully less ;" but with offiCal assignees, messen-
gers, and those subordinates who live upon the
wrecks of ruined traders, and who are paid by per
tentage—whose perquisites, like those who strip
the slain on the battle field, are in proportion to the
bavoc—with these functionaries things are assum-
ing a serious aspect.

In turning over the pages of one of those pon-
derous blue -books in which so many useful facts are
entombed, we happened to light upon a piece of
evidence given by Mr. Miller, the gentleman who
drew up the Bankruptcy Consolidation Act, and
whose testimony may be relied upon. Having
been asked by the chairman of the Commons' Com-
mittee on Bankruptcy, if official assignees would
not prefer a fixed salary, with some additional per
tentage, to the existing mode of remuneration, he
replied, "No ; they have been questioned on the
subject, and all refused; they preferred the present
lottery system." That, no doubt, was the case in
1848 ; but that was just after the panic, which was
as beneficial to official assignees as an epidemic to
physicians. They would now, probably, in the
hackneyed language of the poet, exclaim, " Tem-
pera mutantur nos et mutamur in illis!" By way
of making things better for them, their charges have,
by the New Rules and Orders, been aggravated.
The public complained of the monstrous expenses
of bankruptcy, and their complaints were met by
an increased scale of fees. The authoi:ties else-
where acted very differently. Look at the new
scale of fees in the common law courts, and see the
reductions which have taken place in Chancery.
But bankruptcies decline ; therefore, let the credi-
tors under those which come in be more heavily
mulcted—about as good policy as the landlord who
would raise the rents of his farms because his

tenants were leaving them.
" My lords," said the late Lord Chancellor, in
his speech on law reform on the 16th of November
last, " I have been anxiously inquiring what can
be the reason why the business in the Court of
Bankruptcy has fallen off, especially when I find
that the fees received in respect of business
in that court are insufficient to meet the ex-
pense r." The unfortunate creditors who find
the assets of their debtor absorbed by official
assignees, messengers, brokers, accountants, de-
cayed or decaying commissioners, &c., &c.,
could answer the question with great force at d
simplicity. They complain of a scanty dividend,
and they are comforted with the assurance that the
bankrupt's books were very voluminous, that
was necessary to raise a " supplemental ledger,"
and that the accountant's charge alone was 601. or
801.
Let us not be understood as
saying
n
against official assignees personay.Theeye wordare
ll a
respectable, clever, painstaking, and at present,
we believe, a very ill-paid body. The truth is,
We_ have
.the present system is radically bad.
fre-
quently pointed out its gross anomalies, and the
grievous injustice it inflicts ; the only remedy is its
e a
entire remodelling, or its complete destruction, and
the transfer of its jurisdiction to a tribunal whose
constitution is more in accordance with the require-
ments of a commercial nation—a tribunal whose
machinery would be less complicated and expen-
sive, which would deserve and obtain the confi-
dence of the mercantile public.
We are glad to perceive that Lord Brougham's
bill for
rtahned the t
abolition of the District Courts of Bank-
ruptcy,ransfer of their jurisdiction to the
county courts,
stands upon the order-bOok of the
Lords ; and still more pleased to be able
to announce that it is the intention of the veteran
law reformer to persevere with it. In reply
byto in-
quiries addressed that noble and learned lord
to Mr. Arthur James Janes, one of the county
court judges, that gentleman, in a letter published
in the last number of the Law Review, states his
reasons why it, is expedient to transfer to the