The Sun.
London, England, 1836-06-27 00:00:00

power an intercourse beneficial to dd trade.-----;Morn-
fo2',-
,Herald:.
-. ate glad .!, ,:•!,,.! ,:..,. ~. ..•.
11, e
bability that the Selfs-deAdtiii4 08mMercial enormities.
connected with the feudal law of impfiSonni'ei:lt _e,.'4l
debt, will be brought to some prompt determination.
A notice has been; given that a Bill, for the purpose of
',O illsil'6eraildil; I. ik;ill. Pie bri-oo,lit f4ii-Ward ,forthwith into
4‘C ItalSe of LOri'ds .I;Y qilL Nil!. e.li-Wil'oi. T 1
May thus be considered as a MiniSterial measure, arm
it y.ill he lirciti'glit fOrfard, iii er the beSt auspices, as
.11
I.F4rls fill iii. Red iidilitiEt ,in iteiT6e„. as i; . "11 as finder
—,..,.. , •;,:i ;),,,i!.
the best auspices as regards an caiiy 414. z,, rer,,,P;lent
settlement of the question. The purpose of bring-
ing it first into the House of Lords, instead of car-
rvitw it up from the Commons to the Lords, is a
:rice obvlo- its iiiid sagaciatisi It will antleipaii! ii,i'.4.
olik;iiite ail iiitiiiiftte alit! prejudicial delay, by meeting
At
.6ifee Miat6,Ci clbstacies dr dhjeetioris their Lord-
Ships niay lie di-gpOSed :to . thi-Cii7 in its Ni*. lt is a
i,i'll'olC.Birie tileaSiie, *lacti is as stife of pa6A-ig ii'itti:
dill iiiipcaillient through the Lower House, as it is sure
of being impeded in its passage through their House.
Certainly the injuries which have been done to mer-
cantile and commercial transactions, by the numerous
postponements with which this excellent measure has
had the ill fortune to be encumbered, may be said to
be almost inappreciable. Neither is the philanthropic
view of the subject to be slightingly passed over,
when we reflect what numbers of British subjects—
" denied the common air, and common use of their
' own limbs"—have been waiting the hour of their
social redemption with those disappointed feelings
of " hope deferred which maketh the heart sick."
Painful, indeed, is the thraldom of large sections of
British subjects, confined in various gaols through-
out the British dominions, under circumstances of
more prolonged severity than happen to the most
hardened criminals—and that for no criminal offence.
It is, however, not the philanthropic view of the
question, but the commercial, which will array the
most irresistible arguments against the further con-
tinuance of this obnoxious law. It is the above
practicable and business-like view of the question to
which we mean to adhere, in the few brief remarks,
which the recent Ministerial notice in the House of
Lords, on the subject of the Bill about to be intro-
duced there by the Lord Chancellor, appears to claim.
Where are the persons to be found who exhibit any-
,,thing like an open expression of opinion in favour of the
present law ? We believe it would be very difficult to
indicate them. When dragged into the light by the
most searching pursuit, they will be found to exhibit
the interesting features of sheriffs' officers, bailiffs, and
pettifogging attorneys. Indeed even theSe are ashamed
of manifesting their opinions very openly, although
their bread depends on the continuance of the abuse,
and they, therefore, confine themselves to " hint a
doubt and hesitate dislike" as the practicable results
of its abrogation. They arc fearful, forsooth, for
public credit, which they are kind enough to take
under their especial patronage. Just as Goldsmith's
swearing trooper expressed his fear lest religion should be
endangered--so do the men who live by the discreditable
process of buying up doubtful debts, for the purpose of
extorting costs and fees, express their fear lest public
credit should be endangered along with their disre-
putable means of livelihood. Why, credit has been
more impaired by the law, both in public and private
channels, than can bear calculation. Vast sums of
money, equal to a fifth of the annual income, are use-
lessly wasted in law expenses. A large portion of the
population is cut off from the natural exertion of its
industry ; and society is cut off from that industry's
profitable results. Meanwhile the wives and children
of the imprisoned debtors come upon the poor-rates,
and continue still more to aggravate the pressure upon
industrious exertion. So far from credit being injured
by the reform proposed—so far from that reform being
liable to the sarcastic imputation levelled at it, that it
is for the purpose of protecting dishonest debtors
against their honest creditors—its operation will be di-
rectly the reverse—it will protect honest creditors
against dishonest debtors. What is, in fact, the present
operation of the law ? Does it tend, by the example
of malignant punishment, to prevent improvident or
unprincipled individuals from contracting debts which
they cannot discharge ? Quite the reverse. It tempts
and prompts ,the improvident to contract those debts ;
since the tradesman becomes perniciously facile in
trusting, in proportion to his confidence in the
thumb-screw placed in his hands by the present law
for extorting, through the influence of fear and pain,
a usurious charge. The charge is usurious, being na-
turally calculated according to the risk run. A
tradesman's counter, by this process, becomes a gam-
bling table ; but, unfortunately, the mischief is not
confined to the victim if he pay the usurious charge, or
to the tradesman if he does not pay. Non-payment is
infinitely more likely ; inasmuch as a man who gets into
debt with a deliberate intention of never paying at all,
or being whitewashed, does not care a single straw
whether he is charged one-third more than the market
price, or double the market price. Unfortunately
the innocent public suffer for all this usurious ab-
surdity and improvident profligacy, in which the
debtor and the creditor are equally to blame—the
one spreading the net, and the other rushing into it.
Prices in consequence are unnaturally raised ; for the
real money price will always apptoximate towards the
fictitious credit price. All these various abominations
a fictitious credit—the very worst filth of the whole
Augean stable of the law--a Bill for the abolition of
Imprisonment for Debt will sweep away. We wish
the measure, therefore, full success. That success we
cannot doubt that it must have. With the exception of
the minute and not very reputable fractions of society
to which we have referred, there" are no patrons of the
present law except some few antiquated Peers, who
either deem it their duty to resiS.t•all change, or their
province to maintain the ferocious laws of the Norman
demi-savages, who violated the fundamental Saxot
common law, when their ruthless rapacity prompted them
to invent this. We congratulate the descendants of
the Howards and Talbots, on their very respectable
alliance with pettifoggers and bailiffs. In reality these
are the only champions of the extant law. The great
majority of merchants and bankers and of the respec-
table trading middle classes, have unmistakingly pro-
nounced their opinions respecting it. They have passed
sentence upon it, and it is impossible that its extinc-
tion can be any longer delayed.—Morn. Advertiser.

A meeting of Members of the House of Lords,
at which nearly a hundred Peers were present, took
place on Saturday at Apsley House, for the purpose
of determining upon the specific course which they
should collectively and individually 'pursue in re-
ference to the message of the Commons' House of
Parliament on the Bill for the Reform of the Cor-
porations of Ireland, as amended by their Lord-
ships. The following were among the Peers com-
posing this important assembly :—Dukes—Cum-
berland, Wellington, Newcastle, Buccleuch, Beau-
fort. Marquises—Salisbury, Hertford, Ely, Down-
shire, Chohnondeley, Camden, Bute, Londonderry.
Earls—Winchilsea, Wilton, Westmorland, Leven,
Warwick, Verulam, Talbot, Rosslyn, Ripon, Powis,
Mansfield, Lonsdale, Limerick, Harrowby, K in-
noul, Glengall, Falmouth, Devon, Dartmouth, Clan-
william, Carnarvon, Brownlow, Beverley, Bathurst,
Aylesford, Abingdon. Viscounts—Beresford, Strang-
ford, Combermere. Barons—Wharncliffe, Wallace,
Heytesburv, Kenyon, Lyndhurst, Montagu, Mary-
borough, Prudhoe, Redesdale, Rolle, Skelmersdafe,
Fitzgerald, Exmouth, De Tabley, De Roos, Cowley,
Bexley, Carbery, Carrington, Colchester, Colville.
It is impossible that the proceedings and resolu-
tions of so numerous a meeting on a subject which
deeply interests the community should fail to become
the subject of immediate and general conversation in
political circles, or that on an occasion where there
was no obligation and no motive to secrecy, much of
what occurred should not transpire. Without claim-
ing the advantage of access to any higher source of in-
formation than that of the current conversation in such
society as may fairly be presumed to obtain the earliest
And most correct intelligence on such all occasion, we
may therefore venture to lay before our readers what
we upon the authority to which we have al-
luded, have been the character and results of the
meeting 01:
.Saturday at Apsley House. There was
not, we are happy' to learn, the least hesitation or re-
luctanceof any individual of the noble
on the part . to the course proposed for
assembly to give his assent, e a political meeting
its approbation. Never was Olt+, -