The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-24 00:00:00

UNIVERSITY INTELLIGENCE.

OXFORD, JAN. 23. —This day a congregation was holden
for granting degrees, &c., when the following gentlemen
were admitted as

MASTERS OF ARTS.— Rev. J. Rowlandson, of Queen's
College; Rev. R. Blakiston, ditto ; Edward Sleap,
Brazcnnose ditto ; E. Cooper Woollcombe, Balliol ditto;
J C Bentley, St. John's ditto; and as
BACHELOR OF ARTS.—Samuel Andrew, of Lincoln Col.

Her Majesty the Queen Dowager has intimated
her intention of patronising and honouring with her presence
the Ancient Concerts, during the present season, at the Han-
over-square Rooms.
His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex is ex-
pected to arrive at Kensington Palace from Kimmel Park, the
seat of Lard Dinorben, on Thursday, the 6th of February.
The Earl of Derby gave his first family dinner
party yesterday, in Grosvenor-square. His Lordship is in the
enjoyment of good health.
Lady Beresford's soirees, in Cavendish-square,
will not commence so early as usual this season, owing to the
demise of the late Hon. Henry Philip Hope, brother-in-law to
tl • Viscountess.

The Marquis of Anglesey will commence his
dinner parties at Uxbridge House early in the ensuing month.
Mr. D'lsraeli, iVI.P., will give a series of political
dinners to the leading Members of the Conservative party, at
his mansion at Grosvenor-gate, on alternate Sundays through-
out the sessf on.

The Lord Bishop of Ely and family have ar•
rived in Dover-street.

The Countess of Bridgewater will leave , Ash-
ridge Cagle for Grosvenor-square about the last week in Fe-
-1 bruary.
The Earl and Countess Grosvenor will leave
e )mb House for town early in February.
lie Earl and Countess of Mount Edgeumbe
Jte ilanly have left the Pulteney Hotel, Bath, for their seat,
wEdgcumbe.
oust Leveson, M.P., has left Devonshire
-ry • r Northampton, where his Lordship will remain severa I
unt with the Earl of Chesterfield's crack pack.
. .
).
„ "P"
I tittalin Webster :las arrived at the Foreign-
(, h despatches from Lord Beaulieu, our Ambassador at
re 51414

LONDON :
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1840.

The House of Lords were last night officially informed
that Lord CROFTON has been elected as representative
Peer of Ireland in the room of the Earl of KINGSTON,
deceased.

In reply to the Marquis of LONDONDERRY, Viscount
MELBOURNE stated that he had no objection to lay the
Convention of Bergara before their Lordships.
In reply to Viscount STRANGYORD, Viscount MEL-
BOURNE said he was not aware of the arrival of an agent
from Monte Video, in Paris, offering to place that city
under the protection of the French Government.
The Earl of RIPON made a long statement in moving
for some returns of the finances and of the political re-
lations of the country. The Noble Earl pointed out the
fact that for three years the expenditure had exceeded
the revenue. He supposed that by the end of Apil it
would be this year a million above the revenue. Since
1830 the expenditure had augmented 3,200,000/.,
and he saw no probability of its decreasing. On
the contrary, the Noble Earl from the state of
the country, and from the naval and military pre-
parations of other countries, and from our relations
with China, expected an increase of the expen-
diture, while our quarrel with that country, cutting
off a large branch of trade and a productive source of
revenue, would diminish the national resources. He
admitted the natural elasticity of the national powers,
but, on the whole, drew a very unfavourable, and we are
afraid, not very incorrect picture of the national re-
sources and prospects. As one great source of our ex-
penditure, the Noble Earl referred to the immensity
of our foreign possesions, for which, as they gratify the
national ambition, the nation can have no objection to

pay.
Viscount MELBOURNE replied to the Noble Earl,
and admitting the propriety of his motives, expressed
opinions at variance with the Noble Earl in respect to
the resources and prospects of the country. He re-
lies more on them. The returns moved for by the Earl
of RIPON were, as a matter of course, laid on the table.
Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition from two
persons confined in Chester Castle, who had been sen-
tenced to twelve months' imprisonment, for using in-
flammatory language at a public meeting. The Noble
Lord stated that an informality, as he was informed,
took place at the trial of these persons, who were not
present when the witnesses were examined, and were
not, therefore, able to cross-examine them. The
prisoners were also made to conduct the defence in a
peculiar and unusual manner.
The Marquis of NoRwANBY thought the Magistrates
justified in their proceedings, but promised to make
further inquiries.
On the motion of Lord BROUGHAM, the Copvhold
Enfranchisement Bill was referred to a Select Com-
mittee, which was appointed.
The Commons did not collect in sufficient numbers to
make a House, and adjourned till this day. They are
tired of privilege.

It is our business to draw as much instruction
as possible from the wrangling in the House of
Commons, which, like a street squabble, is in-
comprehensible to most of those engaged in it,
while spectators look on it amazed and bewildered.
Performing this duty, we showed on Monday that
the mass of stupid and absurd fictions which the
Judges call the libel law, lies at the bottom of all
the easonable objections .which the House of
Commons can possibly make to being respon-
sible to law for the due exercise of its ne-

cessary privilege of publishing whatever it deems
useful to the public. For many years that mass
of stupid and absurd fictions has been unani-
mously condemned, and at length the House of
Commons is made to feel, by the disgraceful con-
flict in which it is involved, the folly, and for it, the
moral guilt of allowing that stupid and absurd
mass of fictions to remain the law of the land.
Were the Libel Law made what it ought to be, the
House of Commons could not have any objection
to its publications being submitted to a Court of
Law.
But besides this objection, the House of Com-
mons also objects to submitting its privileges to be
tried by the House of Lords, which must be the
case should it allow them to be questioned in a
Court of Law ; because an appeal will always be
to that House, brought by either party, from any
decision of the Inferior Courts. It was said by
Mr. Sergeant JACK SON on Wednesday, in reply
to the objection, that the appeal does not lie to the
House of Lords as a branch of the Legislature,
but as the highest Court of Appeal in the em-
pire. The House of Lords is both a Court of
Law and a branch of the Legislature, being a rival
of the House of Commons ; and experience by no
means warrants the House of Commons in sup-
posing that any question brought before the House
of Lords as a Court, in which the other House
may be concerned, will be decided without any mix-
ture of partizan and aristocratic motives. Such a
circumstance suggests to us, that the House of
Commons has been guilty of another neglect, from
which it is now itself destined to suffer.
The monstrous anomaly of constituting one
branch of the Legislature the highest Court of
Appeal, both making and administering the law,
while it has no regular Judge except the LORD
CHANCELLOR, and no bar of its own, has long
been complained of by suitors, and by the public
generally. At the very best it is only an appeal
from the LORD CHANCELLOR sitting in Chan-
cery to the LORD CHANCELLOR sitting on the
Woolsack. It may, however, be an appeal from a
wise and intelligent Judge to a few booby partizans
who happen to be Peers. Such a tribunal exists,
we believe, in no other country of Europe, and is
of itself a disgrace to our so-called paternal Legis-
lature. Ir may, however, now be expected, since
the House of Commons feels the evil itself, that it
will deem it high time to give the nation a proper
Court of ultimate appeal.
The House of Commons has no excuse for
not effecting this reform. With the power of the
purse, it can accomplish whatever be right, and it
ought to make the House of Peers resign an
anomalous office, which it is unfit to exercise, but
probably keeps as a means of annoyance. If the
privilege dispute, otherwise one of the least
possible importance, should serve to direct public
attention, and the attention of the House of Com-
mons, to the incongruities of the libel law, and of
having the House of Peers as the ultimate Court
of Appeal, it may be the means of conferring two
lasting benefits on the nation.

The Bank of England resolved yesterday, great])
to the satisfaction of all commercial men, to re
duce the rate of interest from 6 to 5 per cent
This is a beneficial change ; on which we con
aor tula.xe our friends in all the commercial am
manufacturing districts.

At the same time, we must say that we sec
nothing in the circumstances of trade which war-
rant the conduct of the Bank in having formerly
raised the rate of interest to 6 per cent. It mat'
have answered the purposes of the Bank, but cer•
tainly it injured, to an immense extent, the manu-
facturing classes. Money, of itself, makes no
money ; it is only when employed in industrial
pursuits that a profit on it is obtained. The interest
of money, therefore, must bear a close relation
to the profit obtained in business. The con-
duct of the Bank, so far as the community
is concerned, is defensible, if profits have ranged
high during the time interest has been fixed by- it
at 6 per cent., and be now falling when the interest
has been lowered to 5 per cent. The direct reverse
is, we believe, the case ; enterprise is now getting
lively, profit is likely to increase, and, conse-
quently, the conduct of the Bank has been the
direct reverse of beneficial to the nation.

If it be said that its conduct was no guide to
others, and that the interest it demanded, if higher
than the market rate, would only make its custom-
ers go to another shop, it ought to be remembered
that what it really lends is not money but credit,
and that it has received from the Legislature a mo-
nopoly, to a certain extent, of the representative of
credit. It can and does manufacture that at its
pleasure ; and what is really meant by its lowering
the rate of interest, as what was meant by raising
it, is, that it augments or diminishes at pleasure its
manufacture of the representatives of credit, and
lends them out at a lower or a higher premium.
It makes them scarce or abundant as suits its 'im-
poses, utterly disregardless of the good of the pub-
lic, which the Legislature at least is constituted to
accomplish ; and which it, too, utterly disregards, as
long as it gives a monopoly of the representatives of
commercial credit into the hands of one yeedy set
of capitalists.
We condemn the Bank not now for lowering,
but for formerly raising the rate of interest, by
which it has contributed, with other monopolists
and plunderers, to injure and impede the trade of
the empire. A Morning Contemporary, which con-
founds credit with money, blames the Bank by an-
ticipation for now making in9ney plentiful. But
whatever may be the case with money at this
peiiod, credit should be comparatively plentiful,
because in the spring a number of enterprizes
are commenced which will hereafter add to the
sum of the national wealth. We cannot blame
the Bank for no longer doing what it can to stifle
trade ; but our Contemporary, who is intimately
acquainted with money transactions, has probably
peeped into futurity, and is already certain of the
mischief which he predicts.

Mr. WALTER was yesterda3 completely de-
feated in Southwark, a happy harbinger of the
other defeats, in and out of the House of Com-
mons, which await the boasting, deceiving, de-
luding Tories. Their man has withdrawn from
Penrhyn ; Edinburgh they dare not contest ; at
Birmingham nothing can give them the least chance
but dissensions amongst the Reformers; and if they
succeed at Newark, it will be by means of which
honest men should be ashamed. At Southwark
they have put forward a crack man ; they have
used the only popular topic which they can press
into their service; Mr. WALTER is a great Anti-
Poor-law man ;he has been most zealously sup-
ported by the Times, and Mr. W ALTEIt
and the Times, if they be not identical, as
one of the speakers said on the day of no-
mination, have both been gloriously defeated.
The men of Southwark have proved that the
Tories have calumniated them, and that they have
not fallen from that liberal faith which has long
been their pride and glory. Though we have not
' gone out of our way to attack Mr. WALTER or
contribute to his defeat, we rejoice at it amazingly,
as will the whole empire, because it gives a noble
lesson to apostasy, perfidy, and cant. Honour--•
great and lasting honour, to the men of Southwark,
for the heavy blow and great discouragement they
have given to the most violent faction that ever
I sought to coerce, degrade, and ruin a great nation.

terdAanyotshtee bod
y, the Corporation
intoincrease
th of London,
ef.raywhi yes
chs
arisen between the House of Commons and the
Courts of Law. The Courts of Aldermen and of
Common Council have taken up the matter, and it
seems to be expected that it will also be referred to
a Common Hall. One of the speakers hoped that
the Corporation would address her MAJESTY to
dissolve the Parliament. The privilege party found,
it is true, a sturdy champion in Mr. Alderman
WHITE, but many of the Liberals spoke most
strongly against it. We cannot ourselves join the
worthy Corporation in professing an unbounded
reverence for the law and the Judges, includiAg
their own Recorder, and their municipal institutions,.
but we re,sret that the Liberal party in the House
of Commons should have affronted so many of their
friends out of doors in the pursuit of such a trifling
and unworthy object.
'
The Court of Queens Bench, yesterday, granted
a writ of habeas to bring up the Sheriffs, so that
the conflict between the Judges and the House of
Commons is approaching. fhe latter seemed in-
clined to shun the fight ; they contented them
selves with attacking subordinates ; the Judges
show that they are not to be stopped by the orders

jq h. mar
4s•,c< - tak.
• -

Zl),e