The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-14 00:00:00

such adventiNts,' having each, perhaps 301ita1'y
hundred pounds to begin with 4." This is a feature of
the present law Whiat loudly calls for change. But
the th it& pthpoNition of Mr. Clay is one which seems
t.O have met with some resistance : it is, pill
holder in a joint-stock ban- nah!c just for
the same sum which h t:!.4.Mtiiillies, and no more. This
is said to ifs.. the liability, and so it is ; for
tr' hosash t\\b number of shares and amount of kounda--eor-
lin, undertaken be actually
,vtlief,n-pt total
publicly ascertained.A VAI),, ai, on the face of it,
- -110,
sufficient to .516pkioik.'t.6 business of an extensive bank,
yet this voill 'n‘‘.4 Mcnre the public against loss. For
instaffcet the public see a list of twenty names, some
mon of large capital, some of small ; it may happen
that the smallest capitalists may hold the largest por-
t:on of the shares, which thty Ynav have bought with
borrowed money; to that they have no actual pro-
perty except the excess of the profit of the bank above
the interest nhich they have tn pay to their private •
creditors. On the etiffr hand, some millionaires
may, as a partiM lhvestment, have embarked some
of their money in purchasing shot-7, of • a joint-
stock bank. The public rah the list, and seeing
great names of largtAinded or many-acred men, im-
plicitly confidd their property to what they know must
be safe keeping. And the keeping is safe, while the
landlords and fundlords are wholly liable, because,
for their own sakes, these leviathans will take care
that the bank is well administered. Once let them be
pronounced only partially liable,- and they will scarcely
remember the existence of the bank, except when they
occasionally receive some interest for their investment;
and being engaged in enterprises of far greater import-
ance, would suffer an establishment which affects their
prospects but in a trivial degree to fall into decay or
ruin, with as much indifference as they hear of the
break-down of an old carriage or an old cow-house.
No, it is to the wealthy shareholder that the public,
looks for security ; destroy, or, which is the same
thing, limit his liability, and the bank becomes
a delusion. This is the sound law of the ques-
tion, as expounded by the first lawyer of the clay; and
it is sound law because it is the only law on such
a matter which is at once intelligible, just, and safe.
We have not time, at present, to enter more at large
upon the question, which is to be placed in the hands
of a committee. But its importance is beyond dispute.
It will be observed that Mr. Daniel O'Connell, who
is not merely demagogue, but brewer, banker, and os-
tensibly 6r secretly embarked in 20 other callings, took
a part as much distinguished by bitterness as by igno-
rance against the motion of Mr. Clay. And certainly,
if there were no reason for attributing to the views of
the latter gentleman a tendency to improve the solidity
and security of banks, to exclude from their manage-
ment a set of desperate gamblers, and to. exact on be-
half of the public as a condition that their conduct
should be upright, and their funds substantial, the
sneering and indecent disapprobation bestowed upon
the Member for the Tower Hamlets, by the agitatitg
brewer, banker, &c., would have much inclined us to
anticipate fruits from the proposal of •Mr. Clay de-
cidedly, except in the one instance of limited liability,
favimrable to sound banking, and fatal to that which
was unsound.— Times.

A short conversation took place last night in the
House of Lords on the subject of the Irish Corpora-
tion Bill, which can scarcely fail to attract the atten-
tion of the public. That conversation related to the
position in which the measure now stands in Parlia-
ment and before the country. The Bill as it exists in
its present shape on the table of the House of Lords
is, as we think, a far better measure than that which
their Lordships received from the House of Commons.
It has no doubt undergone considerable alterations,
and alterations, too, which, it cannot be denied, mate-
rially affect its principle. Without such alterations it
could not have been divested of what was pernicious
in its original character. But it is still calculated
to effect much of its original purpose. It will still
abolish the Corporations of Ireland, and put an end
to those abuses and defects in municipal government
in that country upon which Ministers and their
partisans have delighted to dwell, and which no
considerable number of the opponents of Ministers
have
.thought it their duty to deny or defend. The
alterations of the measure, it may also be observed,
considerable as they unquestionably are, have not yet
been sufficient to induce his Majesty's Ministers ex-
plicitly to abandon it. No member of the Ministry
has yet said, although several days have elapsed since
the House of Lords resolved upon the changes they
would effect in the measure, that the Government had
determined to abandon it. During this interval the
Bill has been, as it were, suspended, like Mahomet's
coffin, between earth and heaven ; occupying a middle
state of existence ; living precariously on the confines,
but not yet entirely expelled from, the Parliamentary
Paradise of Ministerial favOur. The position of the
Bill is`perceived to be singular, but it is also perceived
to be so only in common with that of the authors of
the Bill. The latter are also in a middle state.
They cannot make up their minds whether the Irish
Corporation Bill is still to be regarded as a Minis-
terial measure, because they cannot exactly know
from day to day whether they may still regard them-
selves as Ministers of the Crown. They have evi-
dently been watching for the signal which they ex-
pected from without, and to which they had resolved
to yield implicit obedience. But the signal is unfor-
tunately withheld, and they know not what to do. It
is perfectly clear that the Premier and the other Mi-
nisters of the Crown who have seats :n the House of
Lords are not opposed upon principle to the measure
relating to the Irish Corporations, as that measure
has been amended in their Lordships' House, in pur-
suance of the instructions given to the Committee on
the motion of Lord Fitzgerald. This, we say, is per-
fectly indisputable ; for had the Ministers of the
Crown been opposed upon principle to the measure as
amended it would have been their natural course and
their obvious duty to say, in express terms, that they
abandoned the further prosecution of the measure. This
they have carefully refrained from saying. So far, in-
deed, from saying this, or anything like it, we find a
Minister of the Crown last night making arrangements
for the further progress of the Bill, and intimating even.
that he had paid an attevion to its printing more
vigilant than we incline to think the present Ministers
generally bestow upon this process in relation to Bills
which they regard as unequivocally their own. What
the House of Lords would do with the Irish Cor-
poration Biil, Ministers coula pretty confidently
guess from the period of Lord Francis Egerton's
motion to amend it in the I-louse of Commons.
The whole intervening time has been theirs, to de-
termine what course they would pursue in circum-
stances which they could not but anticipate, so far as
that course was dependent upon the merits of the
amendments. What might be the character of the exact
force of the pressure from without, what degree of po-
pular excitement in Great Britain or in Ireland the Ra-
dical and Popish confederates of Ministers might be
able to get up, on the occasion of the Lords' amend-
ments of the Bill, were facts, however, which could
not be anticipated with the same correctness. The
latter, however, were the important points in Minis-
terial estimation. ' But for the uncertainty which pre-
vailed with respect to these, 'Ministers might have
been prepared at once to take their ground, and it is
perfectly clear from all that has passed would at once
have taken their ground, in favour of the Bill as
amended. Whatever Ministers may be goaded or
impelled to do hereafter, the facts as they now stand
amount to a full demonstration that they think
the Bill as it is is a good Bill, and that they
are only deterred from embracing it cordially,
and supporting it effectually, by fear of the
displeasure of some of their Parliamentary
or by an apprehension that the diligent and stre-
nuous efforts which are making to . excite a popular
effervescence on the subject may be in some degree
successful: We wish we could inspire•the Ministers
of, the Crown with some portion of that moral courage
in which they seem on the present occasion so pitiably
deficient. They are manifestly terrifying themselves
with a mere bugbear. If they could but make up
their minds to act for once a manly and conscientious
part, they have nothing to fear. There is no symp-
tom of popular effervescence on the subject, notwith-
standing the strenuous exertions which are daily mak-
ing to excite it. And as it is evident that no popular
ferment can be aroused in opposition to the wise and
patriotic conduct of the Lords, it follows, as a matter