The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-16 00:00:00

rower; they are the trustees of the State, not the owners;
the fee simple of the State is vested in the people. It is
you who have cause to complain ; .it is for you to adopt
the legitimate means for reforming the evils I speak of ;
and if you ask me how that is to be done, I will tell you
it is by respectfully petitioning the Houses of Parliament
to take into consideration those existing evils, in such a
form as I taust is embodied in the petition. It is by such
means that our ancestors removed those evils, the very
existence of which, if they had not been depicted on the
page of history, they, at the present would have doubted;
it is by such a course we arrived at the second Magna
Charta of our liberties, the Reform Bill ; it is by such a
course that the foul blot of negro slavery was wiped out,
it is by such a course we made the negro free.—(Cheers.)
Mr. T. HAWKER seconded the resolution for adopting
the petition. In so doing he would ask the Chairman if,
in the henourable profession to which he belonged, there
was ever an appointment made without the person pass-
ing proper examinations, and being a regular bred sea-
man ? Why, then should it not be so in the profession
of the law ? Was there any professional man but must
go through a regular course of training to fit him for that
profession ?
Mr. RYDER immediately moved an amendment to the
effect, that the motion before the meeting was unneces-
sary and utterly uncalled for, as it would entail a heavy
expense on the boroughs to which a Stipendiary Magis-
trate might be appointed. If a paid Magistrate were to
be appointed he would be appointed by precisely the
same person as the present ones were appointed ;
therefore there was no seeurity for the appointment not
being made a political one ; in fact it was more likely to
be so, it being an office with emoluments attached to
it. In Ireland these appointments had been made politi-
cal. The petition was foreign to the call of the meeting,
which was convened to memorialise her Majesty's Go-
vernment, not a word had been said about a memorial,
but a petition to both Houses of Parliament was pro-
posed. The proper time to have called the pre-
sent meeting was when the " foul blot" was
committed by the late Government and not
now.—(Hear, hear.) He had said that it would not be
attended with any increase of-expense, but he had not
proved it by a single word. He read the 96th clause
of the Municipal Act to prove that the Government could
not legally appoint a Stipendiary Magistrate to any
borough, as the application for such an officer mast
come from the Town Council, who alone had the power
of fixing the amount of his salary ; even in case of the
death of a Magistrate, so jealous had the law been, that
no appointment could be made till a second application
had been forwarded. There were no means of paying
him but directly from the borough-rate, as there were
no possible means .of interfering with the fees of the
Magistrates' Clerk, except by a special arrangement with
him, or by his taking the office on condition of giving up
his fees and receiving a fixed salary instead. Even the
amount of the fees, if it could be obtained, would not be
sufficient for the purpose, as he must be a very. poor
barrister indeed if he did not make by his profession a
larger sum . than this or any other borough would be
likely to give. He pointed out the difference between a
permanent Magistrate and a Recorder who only sat four
times a year, and dissented from the opinion that lawyers
make the best Judges. What Mr. Little had himself
said was sufficient to prove it. He should be ashamed to
belong to a profession that could purposely make
" black appear white." He defended the appointment
of the two gentlemen who were styled the " pitch-
forked" Magistrates, as they were only thrown out of the
recommendation by party trick and party spite, and he
thought the Government had exercised a salutary power
in appointing them. He considered that Magistrates
sat as jurymen, to judge right from wrong ; and he be-
lieved any honest man, with the power of discrimination,
could tell right from wrong. The mover had alluded to a
case of his own ; but he thought it was not for him to come
there and impugn the decision of the Bench : if the
Magistrates had acted illegally, it was his duty to have
prosecuted them. Cases were as often lost from the want
of tact on the part of the advocate as from incompetence
in the Magistrates, and the fact of the Grand Jury
having found a true bill in the case, was sufficient to
exonerate the Magistrates from the charge of incompe-
tence. In that case a lawyer attended as clerk, and a
lawyer on the Bench was as likely to err, as the clerk.
Had the paid Magistrates at Bow-street and other
offices, never given wrong decisions which had been ap-
pealed against ? The motion was unnecessary and un-
called for, the charge would entail a heavy expense on
the borough, and lie hoped therefore that the meeting
would in no degree entertain it.
Mr. J. BEER seconded the amendment in a speech of
immense length. Ile remarked on the time chosen to
bring the petition fore ard, and on no one having been
found to second it but two lawyers. He corrected the
mover as to the appointment of County Magistrates,
which laid ultimately with the Lord Chancellor, and
contended that it was neither becoming nor proper
that a Stipendiary Magistrate should be appointed in
such a borough as this. He challenged a comparison
between the manner in which the public business was
conducted when the County Magistrates acted in the
borough, and the way in which it was conducted at the
present time. lle condemned the principle of political
appointments as totally bad ; but as it was impossible to
appoint. Magistrates without political feelings, all he
asked was, that political preponderance should be done
away; ought they all to be of one opinion ?—(Hear.)
He objected to.the expense, observing that in Plymouth
where the borough had large resources, they were al-
ready complaining of the expense of the Recorder's
salary of 2001. a year. If a Recorder, who only sat on
an average twelve times in a year received 2001. a
year, what would be required for a barrister who should
be required to give up all his time, and to renounce all
his fees ?—(A Voice—" 8001. a year 1") Some one
fixed it at 'Sea a aa. ar, but be had rated it considerably
below the mark ; they would never get a barrister of
any standing for any such sum. The barrister, too,
would be as ranch liable to political bias as the Ma-
gistrates. lie acquitted the Magistrates here of ever
having acted politically on the Bench, but in Ire-
land the office of Stipendiary Magistrate had been
prostituted to political purposes. He would agree to
their appointing a good Whig and a good Tory, and
paying the salaries of both.—(Laughter.) He alluded
to the return of the fees of the Magistrates' Clerk having
been refused to the order of the Town Council ; they were
therefore in the dark as to the amount, but if he could
prove that they were as much as 1,5001. or 1,6001. a year,
he would certainly get rid of one argument on the score
of expense. Ile seconded the amendment.
Mr. Axeonn stated that he was quite satisfied that
party spirit had nothing to do with the present motion.
He did not think a great knowledge of the lan-necessary
for the right administration of justice ; it might be done
by any man determined to be honest. It should be proved
that in the recommendation to Lord John Russell it was
specified who were Whigs.
Mr. FOSTER stated that it was done.
Mr. AxeoeD thought in that case the Councillors were
unworthy of the office they filled ; Lord John Russell had
only acted on the recommendation of the Council.
Mr. REES spoke against the motion.
Mr. LITTLE replied on the motion, stating that he had
very little to answer, for he would ask them whether they
had heard one honest reason why they should net give
him their votes on this occasion ? The gentlemen had
drawn their attention as much as possible to the argu-
ment of expense, in order to entrap as many votes as
they could ; they had used not the argumentum ad
hominem, but the argument addressed exclusively to their
pockets, as if they valued not their liberties or their
rights so much as they did their purses. The answer to
the objection as to the appointment of the Stipendiary
Magistrate, and the question of expense, was contained
in the petition, which he was sorry the mover of the
amendment had not seen, nor did the swonder seem to
have read it. Mr. L. then read the extracts from the
petition, praying that the Magistrates should be paid by
the State, and appointed by such of the Judges of the
superior Courts as the Legislature might think fit to
name. He should not have been silly enough to ask
them for their votes for a plan that would add to their
expenditure, but it was an important consideration that
the Magistrates were petty judges of points of law, and
ought not to be compelled to look always at the desk be-
neath them for assistance.--(Cheers.) The great ques-
tion was, were there evils or not, and could they be re-
medied?
The CHAIRMAN then put the amendment to the meet-
ing, and it was carried by an overwhelming majority.
A vote of thanks was-moved to the Chairman, second-
ed by Mr. Little and carried unanimously, and the meet-
ing broke up. ,
the
meeting, advocating an unpopular subject,
attentionbjce4
manded, throughouth his address, M r
of Little
t the
Orn
meeting, and was repeatedly cheered even by those who
Toted against him.