The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-10 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, iIIAY 10. 1870.

According to announcement THE SUN resumes its
position to-day among the London journals a 3
Morning Newspaper. A quarter of a century has
very nearly elapsed since it appeared thus
day by day both morning and evening. It
so appeared within our own recollection and
experience. But it reappears now as a morn-
ing publication, under very altered circum-
stances. Published henceforth at One Penny, it
addresses a wider public, its issue being thereby
rendered compatible with the largest circulation.
Published as its earliest edition is, moreover, at 8
o'clock a.m., it is enabled to present its readers with
four hours' later intelligence than any other of the
morning papers. Besides which, the extraordinary ex-
pansion recently of that wonderful telegraphic system
which has sprung into existence, since the former
career of THE SUN as a morning newspaper, enables
us, in common with our contemporaries, to hold
communication now with the ends of
the earth, obtaining information with the
utmost rapidity from the leading capitals of the four
Continents, as well as from all parts of the United
Kingdom. It will be sufficient if we here repeat,
in the words of the closing announcement in
our prospectus, that the principles upon which THE
SUN has hitherto been conducted for a long series of
years will be consistently maintained, the Editorial
management remaining in the same hands as
hitherto.

A most remarkable communication has, within the
last few hours, been addressed to the Lord High
Chancellor by the most brilliant Judge upon the
Bench, the very one whom so many members of the
legal profession especially were disappointed not
to see raised to the woolsack on the
formation of the present Government. The subject
upon which Lord HATHERLEY has been addressed by
the Lord Chief Justice of England, relates to those
daring and comprehensive measures for the remodel-
ling of the Judicial System of England introduced
by the Chancellor with a view to the carrying into
effect of the scheme sketched out by the now historical
Judicature Commission. Against that scheme, it
is true, the venerable Lord ST. LEONARDS has prto-
nounced very emphatically, speaking of it with
undisguised scorn as one involving less fusion than
confusion. Naturally enough, as being of a younger
and more adventurous school, Sir ALEXANDER
COCKBURN avows, in regard to the very project
thus reprobated by the aged ex-Chancellor
ST. LEONARDS, an opinion quite as clearly pro-
nounced, but altogether different. Precisely in the
same spirit as Lord CAMPBELL'S Act of 1840,
for according to the Common Law Courts
something like equitable jurisdiction, wee sup-
ported by the Lord Chief Justice of England, sad
opposel by Lord ST. LEONARDS—so does the latter
now set his face against the scheme submitted to the
Legislature by Lord HATHERLEY, a scheme of which
Sir ALEXANDER COCKBURN avows himself to be one
of the most strenuous supporters. What the Lord
Chief Justice wants, however, is the Bill as originally
produced, in its integrity, not the Bill as it has since
been modified, and as he conceives anything but satis-
factorily modified. Restore it to its original terms, he
says to Lord HATHERLEY, and you have my best wishes
for its success. As the measure now stands it has
certainly been modified anything but advantageously.
One objection, especially, raised by the Lord Chief
Justice, to a very conspicuous modification in the
Bill, commands at once, we will confess, our very
heartiest concurrence. It arises out of tbe amend-
ment, according to which the QUEEN in Council is
proposed to be aided by a committee composed of
the Lord High Chancellor and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer (!), together with such members of the
Council as they may together deem it advisable to
consult with a view to the framing of the
rules, the arranging of the orders, and the
general distribution of business Reasonably
enough, as we conceive, the Lord Chief Justice
denounces any such an arrangement as directly sub-
versive of judicial independence, and as calculated
perniciously to place Her MAJESTY'S Judges under
the control of Government.

The objection raised by the Lord Chief Justice to
the subordination of the authority of the Court of
Queen's Bench to the authority of the Court of
Chancery, appears to us, we are almost tempted to
say, little less than frivolous. Amalgamate or fuse
the judicature of the country, and a specious objec-
tion of that kind might always be ob-
truded with a show, but with nothing more
than the merest show of reason. As a matter
of course, the Lord Chancellor, here as elsewhere,
takes precedence of all the other judicial authorities,
the blending together or the knitting together, as
now proposed, of law and equity, rendering this pre-
eminence of the Chancellor only a trifle
more conspicuously apparent. As to the au-
thority of the Lord Chief Justice of England
being swallowed up by that of the Lord High Chancel-
lor, Sir ALEXANDER COCKBURN, as it seems to us, if;
alarming himself altogether superfluously. Our one
regret is that, in the arrangement of the mea-
sure now before the Legislature, as originally
proposed by Lord HATHERLEY, and as subsequently
modified, here and there we cannot but concur with
the Lord Chief Justice in thinking most mistakenly,
in obedience to urgent pressure from with-
out—our one particular regret is that an
authority of such eminence as Sir ALEX-
ANDER COCKBURN has not been directly,
and earnestly, and systematically consulted. Con-
strained by the fervour of his convictions to obtrude
his opinions on this matter upon the conaider4-
tion of the Lord Chancellor and, through tLe Lord
Chancellor, upon the Councils of the Legislature,
we cannot but hope that the views avowed thus,
with admirable perspicuity and, in several instances,
with irresistible force of reasoning, will have,
both with the Government and with Parliament, that
full weight and authority which they ought from
the first to have commanded.

THE returns of the polling at the Plebiscite in
France are merely matters of curiosity. Everybody
has foreseen the inevitable result; the Administration
would never have tried the experiment unless
they were certain of a large majority; and a
few hundred thousand on this side or
the other of the great waves of universal
suffrage can make little difference. The progress of
a vote of the French nation, whether it be a vote
upon a constitution, or the election of a representa-