The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-23 00:00:00

ligence.

Our columns of Saturday contained the mport of the
ease of "WooLmER and otheri v. TOBY," which illustrates
most forcibly th' proverbial uncertainty of the law, ana
promises a goodly crop of litigation ; so that, if the
numerous schemes which came before the public in the

course of the last autumn did not prove very profitable
to the parties embarking therein, there is at least every
prospect of their doing so to the gentlemen of the long
robe. It has been the first attempt to recover, by legal
process, the deposit on shares allotted in pur►uance of
a letter of application, and seems to be in direct orpo-
sition to the principle of the case of HODGSON V. SPOTTIS-
WOODE, some:few weeks since reported in 4.ur columns.
The present case was an action by the directors of the
Direet Exeter and Plymouth Railway Company against
a gentleman to whom forty shares had been all. tied ;
it appeared that his application was made on the 13th of
October, and that the allotment was not made until the
15th of December, more than two months afterwards,
and long subsequent to the occurrence of the panic,
which nipped so many promising schemes in the bud.
Shortly after the date of the letter of allotment a new
circular is issued, calling upon the allottees to pay a sum
of three shillings per share on the amount of their re-
spective shares on which they would be indemnified from
all further liability thereon.

All the elements of the former case of HODG-
SCN V. SPOTTISWOODE, in which the allottee was
held entitled to recover back from a member
of the committee of management the entire sum paid
by her as deposit, where the scheme was not carried into
execution, existed in the present one. There had been
a change in the committee of management, two gentle.
men having retired subsequent to the application, and
I previous to the allotment the full number of the shares
trod not been allotted, no scrip was ever issued, no share
was in existence, and yet the defendant has been held
liable to pay the full amount of the deposit claimed,
2/. 12s. 6d. per share, when three shillings only was
demanded from him, and which sum he can of course on
the authority of HODGSON V. SPOTTISWOODE recover
back from the company (with costs) when paid.
We cannot believe it possible that this ver-
dict can be allowed to stand, that this litigation
in a circle can be continued. To what extent
can the doctrine be carried? If once it is at all recog-
nised, we shall have the projectors of the numerous
defunct schemes turning with new vigour upon the
various allottees ; persons, who had the shares come out
at a premium, or had the undertaking proved a prosperous
ore, would probably never have had an answer to their
applications, and whose request was complied with at
the twelfth hour, will now be compelled to share in the
amount of the expenses (in many instances most reck-
lessly) incurred. We did not at that time see allotments of
500 or 1,000 shares to the solicitor, or secretary, or others
of the earlier promoters. No, the public indeed get the full,
benefit of the scheme such as it was, and we may, per-
haps, yet see promoters of bubble schemes realising a
considerable profit to themselves and their friends out
of lines which it was never contemplated should be
carried further than the allotment of the shares. We
sincerely trust that a satisfactory conclusion may be
come to, and that the decision of the full Court, de-
liberately arrived at after solemn argument, and not
with the hurry which inevitably attends all nisi prius
decisions, will settle the law on this interesting and
important question.

As we have so repeatedly taken occasion to comment
upon the general character which the great commercial
revolution of 1846 will obtain in history, and the con-
sequent blessings which it will entail upon posterity,
any additional observations may at first sight appear
Qo spwafh—t.9.. LErnyrincwiLV•lst
kind could persuade us to utter once more those
generalised views upon the free-trade victory
entertained by ourselves, and with which our readers
must be now tolerably well acquainted. Nevertheless,
t is impossible to avoid some allusion, however momen-
tary, to the expressions employed by a Contemporary,
when analysing the present " State of Parties." Those
expressions are so terse, so happily grouped, so discri-
minating, and so suggestive of thoughts to the peruser.
Our epithets bear reference to a paper published in the
recent number of the Westnthtster Review, and, if
merely in commemoration for the twentieth or
the hundredth time of men whose mea-
sures have rendered them tor ever illustrious,
or, if simply as illustrative of much candour in a political
essayist, some especial mention of that disquisition ap-
peared to us as absolutely necessary. Never did a no-
bl•• r theme for the philosopher present itself than the an-
nihilation of all restrictions upon commerce, viewing that
annihilation (the commencement of which will date from
the opening of the present session), as generative of
principle, to quote the language used by Mr. COBDEN
on January 17, " which shall act on the moral world as
the law of gravitation in the universe; drawing men to-
gether, thrusting aside the antagonism of race, and creed
and language, and unitingus in the bonds of eternal peace
This is the most comet, us it is the most stupendous.
-ivect of free trade and its effects 'lron after genera-
tions ; and, considering the matter precisely in this
aspect, the timL, the words, and the men leading .0 its
realisation, are surely not altogether unworthy of scru-
:nay and of a repetition of scrutiny. "We have
iipened another page of human history," says the
estminster Review ; " with the new year we see
the inauguration of a change in the policy of nations-
the greatest perhaps on record ; a change differing'
from all the occurrences of the past, and, as it will he
se. nin the future, momentous in its results. At length,
bond-fide sense, we ai,aildon
and for the first titne, in
he principle of aggression and retaliation. A moral
revolution is accomplishing. In the present state of
parties we see signs of the progress of opinion, as incon-
testible and as marvellous as a direct revelation of the
Divine will. A great victory has been won ;
but when we look back upon the obstacles over-
come, old-world traditions, class-privileges, public
apathy, the impression made upon the mind is
one less of exultation than the thankfulness of devo-
tional feeling." The consequences to be deduced by
time from the operation of the Ministerial measures
are net in this paragraph over-estimated or exaggerated
to a single tittle—nu, not one jot. Not only is the pre-
sent a great " moral revolution," but it is, without
the moat shadowy question, the greatest moral revolu-
tion (strictly of human origin) which has hitherto
transpired in the records of the most remote or the
most civilised nations. As the French revolution,
par excellence, was nurtured in a loathing for bodily sub •
jtction, and matured from a sheer concupiscence of
cruelty and lust and power, so has this revolution against
a vile system of monopoly, by which incalculable evils
have been showered upon our forefathers and upon our-
selves, germinated in an instinctive reverence fur the
laws of nature, and the preJ,pts of OMNIPOTENCE ; and
by-en conducted to its pre.ent prosperous issue by a zealous
love of justice and brotherhood amongst mankind.
What MIRABEAU and FOUQUIER TINVILLE and
DANTosr, were to the former half-glorioua, but wholly
diabolical revolution, COBDEN, and BRIGHT, and
Vitaanns have been to a glorious, and a beneficent re-
volution. Nobly have they deserved of their fellow-
countrymen, and nobly will they be eulogised as worthy
instruments to a grand end, by after times. In the
panegyric upon RICHARD COBDEN, at page 226 of the
Review, and which our readers may remember, as
transcribed a few days since in our columns, we
recognise one gleam of the honour which will be coupled
with his name in future ages. And this, because
the
principles, towards the acknowledgment and aceP tation
of which his energies have been in such a
remarkablee
degree conducive, are, in the strictest sense of the word,
cosmopolitan. Of Sir ROBERT PEEL, whose name, from
circumstances partially fortuitous and partially neces-
sary, will be mainly and illustriously identified wi,h the
triumph of free-trade, our reviewer speaks, if possible,
with double emphasis and with double propriety.
" Sir ROBERT PEEL stands upon high ground. Ilia
present measures are wholly free from the imputation of
party tactics. As a Minister he gains nothing and risks

everything, by his determination to carry out a prin-

ciple. He knows that, to attain that one object, be

alienates friends and creates enemies, who may at any

moment combine with -his old opponents against him.
To see this without recognising honesty of inttn•