The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-10 00:00:00

FROil Tilt DAILY PAPERS or YESTERDAY

GLOBE.--Aeother attempt is, it seems, to be
made, by the appointment of a fresh Commission, to
endeavour to reform that reproach to our age and na-
tion,• the Court of Chancery. The object of this
Commission is " to examine into the forms and
modes of proceeding in the Courts of Equity, with
a. view of rendering the system less cumbrous,
and the progress of a suit less tedious and ex-
pensive." The very appointment of such a commission
is matter of satisfaction. It admits the existence of a
" cumbrous" and " expensive" system of jurisprudence,
rendeting the progress of a suit " tedious," and the
amount of costs incurred by the litigants ruinous to
most—oppressive to all. " A Chancery suit has become
the object of dread and horror. Its very name is only
another form of expression for delay, carried beyond
the bounds of human endurance—for expense, which
none but the most wealthy can sustain—for a con-
stantly craving monster, by whose maw the amount of
the property in dispute, be it personal or real, is gene-
rally devoured, so that if the worn-out suitors have not
quitted life before the judgment of the Court is pro-
nounced, they have long since abandoned hope of
advantage from the decision." In most cases, the ori-
ginal parties have passed away from the anxieties
of time ere the cause becomes ripe `for judgment,
leaving to their heirs the certain regret that their
predecessors took the most effectual means to diminish
their substance, even though by so doing they antici-
pated the natural period at which they would, without
such an auxiliary, have been placed in possession of
what is left. "The Courts of Equity," says a Tory
Contemporary, who converts the appointment of the
commission into an occasion for eulogizing Sir It. Peel
as a Reformer—" The Courts of Equity are now
practically closed against all the people, except where
objects of very great value are concerned, and prao-
tically closed against the less wealthy, whatever
may be the object. If the Courts of Equity
are good for anything, it is a good confined to the
wealthy ; and these Courts are often a positiv.e. evil to
the poor, dragged within their meshes, without the
power either to defend themselves when enthralled, or
to escape from the thraldom."

We are sceptics as to any practical reform being
effected by this much-vaunted appointment of a com-
mission ; and must therefore withhold our plaudits from
the Premier, until its report, making known its plans for
reforming the Court of Chancery, be published.
STAMM RD.—The charge against Sir Robert
Peel is no longer that he postponed the exposition of
his intended financial arrangements ; that is a charge
-which cannot be maintained amid the proofs afforded by
every day's events, that any financial plan prepared in
October must have been prepared in ignorance of the
demands upon the public purse, and of the strength
of the existing sources of revenue. The shape that the
accusation now takes is somewhat different. We quote
the Morning Chronicle :

" The most criminal irfpect of their delay was its
heartless disregard of the condition of suffering mil-
lions. They evaded and postponed, and have the
desperate hope of escaping the great question by
which the nation is agitated. They leave the peo-
ple to face the horrors of the coming winter, with trade
embarrassed and declining ; with a harvest so bad that
prices are kept down by the sale of corn scarcely fit to
thicken hog's wash; with bread 40 per cent. dearer
than across the Channel ; with the prospect of famine
producing the mockery of open ports when the frost
shall have locked up those from which supplies should
come ; they perpetrate this crime, because what
intelli-
gence and desire of popular favour exist amongst them,
are overborne by the sinister interest of a rapacious and
haughty monopolist class."
Divested of that vebemeat eloquence in which it is
clothed, the charge here brought against Sir Robert
Peel and his colleagues amounts to this, and no more—
that they did not provide some remedy against the dis-
tresses threatened by the approaching winter.
Now what remedy, we ask, was it in their
power to apply ? The adoption of the rejected scheme
of the late Administration ? Why, this would have
been to augmeat greatly the distress, as far n it can be
said to arise from ti e high price of corn. The markets
are now, happily, declining ; but very lately the duty
payable on foreign corn was so much less than the
Bs. duty, which the Whig-Radical scheme would
impose, that it is calculated there are fisur millions
of quarters of foreign corn in the country. The corn
is here—much the greater part of it imported at a
duty of one shilling, and it surely matters nothing
to those who are to consume it at what time it was
imported. The consumer has it at a Continental
price, increased only by a nominal duty—has it not
only to purchase on these cheap terms, but to depress
the price of grain of home growth. As to what our
Contemporary says of the bad quality of English corn,
we cannot forget a similar complaint last year from the
same quarter, and our answer to it ; which was simply
a reference to the bills of mortality, in proof that the
corn was not unwholesome.

COURIER.—The objection to Whig Commissions
was their expensiveness, and the facilities they afforded
for jobbing ; neither of these can apply to the Commis-
sions or Commissioners emanating- from the present
Government. And in this consists the main difference
as regards the question of Commissionerships between
its conduct and that of its predecessor. We
do not mean to say, as we do not think, that the public
money is uselessly laid out in the collection and ar-
rangement of
trc
details
dislike a
the system, which and facts either
devolved
or
pertinent, but
the important duty upon paid Commissioners, mere
temporary officials, devoid of position and responsibi-
lity, and therefore affording the Legislature no suffi-
cient guarantee either for the correctness or impartiality
of their reports. But the case before us evinces a
completely different spirit. \ked
'enaernets_tohnaoves no salaried
for
commissioners—no gapings for office and its emolu-
ments
piaue.
amoßngustttbhuusengiurywbm du the nation confides--menep
of experience, judgment, and tried abilities—have
been appointed to conduct the investigation into the
respective departments named ; and upon their reports
and suggestions the most cautious need not scruple to
act. From them we anticipate many valuable improve-
ments. It is not the saving of expense, for ex-
ample, in the collection of the revenue—one of the
objects of the inquiry instituted by Sir Robert
Peel—which we so much value, as the removal
of all harassing, needless restrictions, and the substitu-
tion, for the entangled, clumsy complications which
now prevail in many of the minor departments con-
nected with the Custom-house, of one simple, uniform
system. That there may be a considerable saving of
expense, we do not deny-..although upon that point we
are not very sanguine—but that commercial operations,
and those engaged in them, will be relieved fromf
cumbersome instructions ; and that the mode °
col-
lecting the revenue by being simplified, will
to lighten its pressure, we fully
expect :el con-
fidencecomprehen-
siveness we repose in the' acuteness
a the hope that
siveness of the Commissioners inspires
ectations. These
the event will realise our fullesdt andgr greatly atl
they tention requires, and whichdth
are the kinds of amendment and
no them
sweep_
ewe
pi I!
of ulterior consequences
and approve without dreabeneficiai ;
the proposal of
they are as safe egreeix sfPloaTiurewhcaicnh stahnectnioar:
leave no bitterness,
them will excite no strife
ing revolutions, but necessary,
to the root of abuses, which
measures of reform, going
and business
w practical, well-considered
come home to the bosoms utnbterieeedrtrhyeinogriens,f
and immediate relief to many,
while they afford substantial
of all, and which,
as
id;
To simplify and cheapen the
inflict injury upon none.
revenue—to disencumber proceed-
all those forms and restrictions
ings in equity from.
tice by rendering the approach to it
which obstruct Jo ~
which diminish •value
its by de-
laying its decisions—these are the truly national and
beneficial objects proposed by the present Government,
and
for the attainment of which it has made so appro-
priate and felicitous a selection of Commissioners.

The report that a sister of Mr. G. E. Anson
was killed by a fall from her horse is incorrect.
FERRERS, A ROMANCE OF THE REIGN OF
GEORGE IL—The scene of this new work of fiction,
which exhibits the events that characterised the life of
Lawrence, Earl Ferrers, from his accession to title until
his miserable end, is partly in London during the me-
morable earthquakes, and partly at Stanton llarold,' the
family seat in Leicestershire. In incident and adven-
ture the forthcoming romance is understood to be un-
usually rich, while, among the dramatis persoa, are in-
troduced the celebrated Selina, Countess of Huntingdon,
George Whitfield, the great preacher of the Methodists,
and Lady Suffolk, the favourite of George ll.—per-
personages entirely new in historical novels. •
WATCHMEN WANT WATCHING.--4t is said
in commenting on the late fire
tthhaetTthime Times, in
of the great insurance
induced them to charge a higher rate of in-
suranceuildings in which a private watchman is
those left without any such safeguard !
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