The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-15 00:00:00

britning nit

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1847.

So remarkable are the circumstances which are

recurring in foreign countries simultaneously with
the dissolution of our English Parliament,
,that it
cannot be unprofitable to enumerate those which

demand the most consideration as directly affecting

ourselves. -Formerly it was considered in these
islands that any thought about our continental rela-
tions was an injudicious exercise of popular curiosity,
and that those relations were best consigned to the

diplomatic skill of the Chief Secretary for the
Foreign Department and his subordinate colleagues,
while the population at large' contented themselves
with the development of their mercantile and agri-
cultural resources. That old pig-headed notion is

exploded. Neither the immaculate mechanism of the
heavens, as conceived in the Peripatetic Philosophy,
nor the beautiful hypothesis of the nebular system, as

imagined by the elder HERSCHEL, are more signally
refuted than this presumptuous adage. Neither the
Galilean telescope, as applied to the scheme of PIN

TIIAGORAS, nor the monster speculum of Lord ROSSE,
as directed to the nebula in Orion, have more effec-

tually revealed the shallowness of a dogmatic and
theoretic astronomy than the• experience of the last
quarter of a century of popular legislation has dis-
played the absurdity of the old drawing-

We could scarcely hope for a course of strict and
unbending rectitude from one whose private interests
are brought into collision with his public duties, and
who is too well aware that the faithful and conscien-

ious discharge of the latter will plunge the former
Lath irretrievable ruin. We can hardly hope that selfish

considerations will not ultimately - triumph in the
_ . .

great majority of uses, or expect unbiassed decisions
from those who are obliged to become the mere pup-
pets of a superior power. A British judge, therefore,
holds his office dum se bene gesserit, and cannot be
removed or suspended therefrom save on an address
to the Crown from both Houses of Parliament ;_ and

it is due to the eminent and learned men who have
been selected for the ermine to state that there never

has been the slightest occasion to desire that the
power of unconditional dismissal had been retained

in the Crown.

This judicial independence is, if possible, more
urgently required in our dependencies than in the
mother country. Here there are reports of numerous
decisions published, by which almost every question
that may arise is governed and regulated ; there is
an observant press recording and circulating through-
out every part of the country the legal proceedings,
and, in the event of any impropriety in the conduct
thereof, ready to expose the error, and to awaken
the public indignation against the offender,
and there are many competent and learned men who
cannot be deceived or blinded by any sophistry or

plausibility, by which an effort may be made to make
the worse appear the better reason. By these means
the most efficient control is established. The voice
of public opinion is never slighted or despised. In
the great majority of our colonies these things are
totally different. The existing laws are generally a
sort of compound between the old lex loci and
those portions of the British law that from time to

time have been added thereto, and brought into ope-
ration in the district. The complicated and motly
character of this patchwork code necessarily affords a
much wider discretion to the presiding judge than
that which exists in the parent state. He is to a
certain extent treading on new ground, and may put

for ward principles and reasons for his judgments
which could have no possible force here.
He has, therefore, a far greater opportunity, if dis-
honestly inclined, of abusing his power than is afforded
to an English judge. There are no reports of former
decisions to guide or direct him in his judgment, or
in opposition to which he must assign good and suffi-
cient reasons if disposed to overrule or set them aside.
There is no powerful journalist to expose his delin-
quencies should he go astray, and the members of the
bar practising in his court are few in number, and,
generally speaking, the anxious seekers after Go-
vernment patronage. Every reason, therefore, tends
to establish the vast importance of placing our colo-
nial judges in a proper position, and extending the
rule that has so long been beneficially acted on in
this country to our several colonies and dependencies.
Mr. LANGSLOW has certainly just grounds of
complaint, and we cannot believe that our
countrymen will regard with indifference the
manner in which he has been treated. Having
distinguished himself as a barrister on the Western
Circuit, where he had practised with every prospect of
success, he, in the year 1832, accepted the office of
Attorney-General at Malta, and thereupon relin-
quished his English connexion, and devoted himself
wholly to the public service. When he had filled that
situation six years, we are bound to believe efficiently
and well, from the fact of his having been subse-
t quently selected for promotion, the office was abo-
lished and a pension was granted to him until his
services could again be made available. In 1840 he
was appointed one of the district judges of Ceylon, in
which situation he continued to act until deprived of
his office by Lord STANLEY, on what we must consi-
der most frivolous and insufficient grounds. Against
that sentence Mr. LANGSLOW appeals, and impeaches
its justice openly and publicly. Lord STANLEY,
forsooth, complains of the failure of his temper and
want of self-control and discretion.
" Oh wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us."
We should hardly find that Noble Lord considering
such defects as sufficient to incapacitate the person
so affected from the public service ; but he is also di-
latory in the acimmist..avw.
:,there is a tribunal which constitutionally should decide
every question of that description, and to which, if
the dismissal were justified on such grounds, Mr.
LANGSLOW would be entitled to appeal; but that
would be expensive ; and in mercy to him ! Lord
STANLEY grounds his removal from office on other
grounds, so as to exclude that appeal—to prevent him
from submitting his case to the judgment of learned
and impartial men. Such a proceeding cannot pos-
sibly be justified, and Mr. LANGSLOW would clearly
be entitled to a revision of his sentence from the pre-
sent Ministry, but for what, with all respect for the
Noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies, we must
designate as a most ridiculous and absurd regulation
which he has adopted, investing his predecessors with
an official infallibility, and refusing to reconsider or
interfere with any decision at which they might have
arrived, no matter how erroneous it may be.
We trust that this rule may speedily be altered,
and that Earl GREY may not, by a strict adherence
thereto, subject himself to the charge of being the
participator in and abettor of tyranny and oppression.

We read in a letter from Constantinople in the
Augsburgh Gazette —" The French Embassy had
addressed to the Porte reclamations relative to debts
contracted by the last administration of Tripoli and
of Barbary, which debts the Porte took upon itself.
The affair has just been analysed, the debt recog-
nised by the Porte as being due to France, being
settled at 1,600,000 Turkish piastres (about
400,000 f.)"
According to the last arrivals from St. Peters-
burgh, the Emperor NicaoLas will not go into Ger-
many this year. His MAJESTY is said to have directed
his Minister of Foreign Affairs to collect in August
at St. Petersburgh all the diplomatic representatives
of Russia to the Great Powers.
A letter from Berne of the 9th says,—

" The day before yesterday M. de Bois-le-Comte went
to the President of the Diet, and read to him a somewhat
long dispatch dated 4th July, by which M. Guizot not
only fully ratified the language held by the Ambassador
in his famous discours ecrit, but even strengthened the
expression of his idea by ascribing to the great conti-
nental powers with respect to our country more hostile
intentions than a simple examination of the complica-
tions which may arise in case the majority of the SiViES
states should take collective measures against the mi-
nority. In a word, the written language of M. Guizot i
in complete opposition with the declarations that h
made in the Chamber of Deputies in the sitting in which
the interpellations took place. After having read this
dispatch to M. Ochsenbein, the Ambassador offs red, ac-
cording to usage, to leave him a copy. The President of
the Vorort at first replid by a positive refusal, but
afterwards consented to the formality, declaring, how-
ever, that as the dispatch was not addressed to him as
President, nor to the Vorort, he could not communi•
cate it officially either to the Diet or the Directory."

Madrid papers of the Bth have arrived.
The Faro of that day had been seized on account of
an article on the Palace question.
Don FRANCISCO DE PAULA was present at the
banquet given to the POPE'S Nuncio. The Ministers
had neglected to invite him, but the QUEEN caused
him to be sent for, and he was present at her
MAJESTY'S express desire.

The mission of Senor SARAGOSSA to NARVAEZ to
induce the General to place himself at the head of a new
Cabinet had failed. NARVAEZ replied that he could
not leave Paris, as he had pressing affairs to arrange
with Queen CHRISTINA.

Carlist bands have appeared in the neighbourhood
of Gerona.

MADRID BOLSA, JULY B.—The Thre© per Cents. closed
on the Bth inst. at 26i for cash ; the Five per Cents. at
lik ; and Passives at 54 cash.

Intelligence has been received from Lisbon of the
9th, and from Oporto of the 10th instant, by the
Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-ship
Madrid, which arrived at Southampton last night.
The Junta of Oporto has dissolved itself, and
SALDANIIi and his troops have entered the town,
where they are at present in garrison with the
Spanish troops under CONCHA. The castle of Foz is
garrisoned by English marines. The Duke of
TEncEtaA and his fellow-captives have arrived in
1..i3b0n. The Ministers of Lisbon, and the Engli,h,
Spanish, and French Ambassadors have, it is said,
expressed "heir disapproval of the convention entered
into with the Junta before their surrender. The fol-
lowing proclamation has been issued by SALDANHA, :
` Comrades :—lierliatjelity, through her unguanimitir