The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARf 15, 1846.

The protectionists hold their meetings in the' front
floors of houses in Bond-street, and if they do On'
ture in the large room of a decent county, the at-•
tendance is so small that "a cat can be seen walking
about the room," 'mewed by the presence of that
remarkably tame lion which the agriculturists
dignify by the name of British. The League
hold their meetings in theatres, in halls,
in the open air, in all those places where
men do most congregate together. Two such
meetings were held last evening—the one at Leeds, in
aid of the great League Fund, the other in Covent-
garden Theatre. This last meeting was, as usual,
crowded, and Mr. GEORGE WlLson, the indefatigable
Chairman of the League (who will to-morrow pre-
side at a great League meeting in the Free Trade
Hall, Manchester) entered into details, showing the
progress which the League has made simply by at-
tending to the registration. North and South Lan-
cashire, South Cheshire, and the West Riding of
Yorkshire, are won, and won so completely, that the
monopolists dare not venture a contest. Middlesex
is won by a majority of 1,700, and it only
remains with the free traders of London, by the pur-
chase of 40s. freeholds between this and the 31st of
January, to secure them three free trade Members for
Hertfordshire, and two free traders for East Surrey.
Let them not trust to any Minister to carry a repeal
of the corn-laws. The Minister can only carry such
a repeal by the firm, unflinching support of the people,
and to the people we would say, in the words of Mr.
MILNER Gins(); " Remember the question is still in
your hands." Yes, the question is still in the hands
of the people of England, and they must insist upon the
total, immediate, and unconditional repeal of the corn-
laws. There must be no talk of compensation; or if there
be, the compensation must be paid by the landowners to
that community which they have plundered for the
last thirty years. If the account of the landed aris-
tocracy with the people were regularly drawn out,
and the exemptions placed on one side and the bur-
dens on the other, the exemptions would be found
greatly to preponderate, as we are prepared to show.
But it is not in a pecuniary point of view that the
landed aristocracy will suffer by a repeal of the corn-
laws, as was well shown by the speakers at the League
meeting last evening. What they dread is the loss
of their usurped power of oppressing their fellow-sub-
jects; and, to quote the eloquent words of Mr. MILNER
GIBSON, " Englishmen will deserve to be branded
as slaves if they do not throw off the ignominious yoke
which a proud landed aristocracy has imposed upon
their necks."

The legal profession has been lately agitated by the
exclusion of a Queen's Counsel from the bench of the

Inner Temple by black-balling ; and all the rest of
the world may fairly be astonished at discovering that
elections to the governing body of a society which
has important public privileges and duties, are made
by the governing body itself by way of ballot, and
one black ball excludes. It appears that the Inner
Temple is singular in this mode of election to the
bench. In the other Inns of Court the majority of
the bench elect, and the ballot box is unknown.
We are friends of vote by ballot for the election of
Members of Parliament, but we should not dream of
recommending that divisions should take place in the
House of Commons by ballot. The distinction be-
tween the two cases is, that in the first you want to
get the voter's own opinion uninfluenced by others,
and, in the second, that you want to keep the Mem-
ber's votes under the influence of his constituents and
of public opinion. The election is to give effect
to his wish. The Member of Parliament
has to vote in consistency with professions made to
constituents, and so that constituents may be able to
judge whether he is worthy of re-election. The
elector is responsible only to his own conscience, and
to give effect to that responsibility publicity of voting
is not required. The Member of Parliament is respon-
sible to his constituents, and for this responsibility
publicity is absolutely necessary. And for the Benchers
of the Inner Temple to perform the duty assigned to
them by their constituent body of electing new
Benchers secretly is as outrageously absurd as it would
be for Members of Parliament to vote secretly in
divisions. They have to elect, not for the mere grati-
fication of their individual fancies and caprices, but
so as best to promote the interests of the society
which they govern, and of the legal profession.
Secret voting takes away all check. But bad as is
secret voting at all in this case, it is not only a bad,
but absolutely the worst possible, state of things, when
one capricious or malicious man may reject a candi-
date for the bench against the opinion of all his
colleagues.
We purposely abstain from entering into the per-
sonal questions connected with the recent exercise of
the extraordinary power given to any one Bencher of
the Inner Temple ; but we may mention that the
gentleman who has been excluded is a gentleman of the
highest literary accomplishments and of unimpeached
character, and that the cause of the black ball which
excluded him was, by the confession of the black-
balling party, a private quarrel, thirteen years old.
Can there be a stronger illustration of the objection-
ableness of this mode of election to the bench ?
The Inner Temple shares with three other Inns of
Couit the power of admission and rejection for the
bar. The possession of this important privilege
makes this mode of election to the bench in the
Inner Temple a proper subject for the atten-
tion of Parliament ; and if the Benchers do
not themselves get rid of the present objectionable
practice, we trust that the House of Commons, which
interfered before in defence of Mr. WHITTLE HARV ET
from the Inner Temple Benchers, will turn its atten-
tion to the recent extraordinary case of black-balling
of a Queen's Counsel.
And there are other matters in connexion
with the Inns of Court which also impera-
tively demand the attention of Parliament. The
absence of all preparatory education for those
called to the bar—the absurd and expensive
forms imposed on law students, in place of education
given to them—the use made by the societies of the
fees which they levy by virtue of their privilege of
admission to the bar—and the religious distinctions
which they keep up by privileges for admission to the
bar to members of the Church of England, who can
alone graduate at Oxford and Cambridge —are
matters calling for Parliamentary inquiry ; and we
shall be glad if the recent extraordinary incident effec-
tually directs the attention of the Legislature to the
condition of the Inns of Court.

Too much can never be said in reference to the
encouragement, the emoluments, and the considera-
tion which should be extended—and that moreover
with an unstinting hand—to every department of our
naval service; from the admiral to the non-commis-
sioned officers, and from the non-commissioned officers
downwards. Neither is it possible to insist too re-
peatedly upon that national truism—that British
security rests almost exclusively in the hands of our
is in every respect subordinate,
seamen, that the army
as a defensive power, to the Royal Navy ; and this
simply from two circumstances, first, our acknowledged
supremacy upon the ocean, but abstractedly from the
circumstances of our being an insular
,empire, Avoid-
ing those particular argument"
beenhupont topic, which
have by repetition upon repetitionthread-
bare, and abandoning all those redundant worn
and horn-