The Sun.
London, England, 1833-09-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Among the intimations which we have re-
ceived from several respectable correspondents,
who write us to express their satisfaction at the
descriptive accounts which we have lately given
of the character, provisions, and tendency of the
East India and Factory Bills, we find it men-
tioned with regret that several of the other im-
portant permanent measures of the session are
almost as imperfectly known to the general body
of the public, and stand equally in need of
abridgment and commentary, as the former. We
are ourselves fully sensible of the deficiency of
information adverted to, and have already as-
cribed it to its true cause—the excessive multi-
plicity of the labours of the session, the exces-
sive number of unnecessary speeches at its com-
mencement, and the rapidity with which its
necessary business was transacted at its close.
Among those important measures which, for this
reason, are but imperfectly known, a conspicuous
place must be assigned to the Bill for securing
" the better administration of justice in his
Majesty's Privy Council." The cases for-
merly brought before this high tribunal
were appeals from his Majesty's Courts of
Admiralty in causes of prize, and appeals from
the various courts of judicature in the East
Indies, and in the plantations, colonies, and other
dominions of his Majesty abroad. To these were
added, by the 2d and 3d of his Majesty, the
cases which were formerly submitted to the High
Court of Delegates, both in ecclesiastical and
maritime concerns. But while this latter new
business was transferred to the Privy Council,
its constitutio❑ and rules remained the same,and
its efficiency was not increased. The Bill of last
session has entirely altered the former state of
things, and cannot fail to exercise a most exten-
sive and salutary effect on the administration of
justice in cases where justice was either practi-
cally denied by delay, or in which it was liable
to be perverted by inattention or ignorance. It
confers a new constitution on the tribunal, it se-
cures to it more efficient officers, and directs, in
some cases, its proceedings. Instead of allow
ing appeals to be decided by any member of
the Council who may indiscriminately be pre-

sent, or rather by one or two judges sworn
into the Council, who choose to attend, it
enacts that " a judicial committee" of the
Council shall be formed for hearing and re-
pcnting all cases referred to this tribunal. This
committee is to consist of the President of the
Privy Council for the time being, of the Lord
High Chancellor of England for the time being,
ayd such of his Majesty's Privy Councillors as
shall hold the offices of Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal, Lord Chief Justice of the King's
Bench, Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Jus-
tice of the Common Pleas, Lord Chief Baron
of the Exchequer, Judge of the Prerogative
Court, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty,
aCllhief Judge
l)relion of the Co
sholders ofttrt
iiteseinomßeeakupt
snwriioscy,
shall be
n
members of the Council. To these it shall he
fTrofromlawful for his Majesty to add any two other
road, as well as from
Councillors.
appeals
Courts abroad, referred
his Majesty's Courts of Admiralty at home, and
all other kinds of appeals from any sentence,
o this
rule, or order of any court or judicial officer
persons, Committee
areng
Vice-Admiralty t o Pbry the
which could formerly by law, by statute, or
custom, be brought before the Privy Council.
Formerly, not only could persons unacquaint..
ed with the law of the cases to be decided
occupy a place at the Council Board, and give
judgment on difficult and intricate ques-
tions of appeal, but they might come in
after the cause had been heard, and join
in a report or recommendation of which they
neither knew the facts nor the principles. No
number of councillors was, besides, required to
attend, so that such recommendations might
proceed from a portion of the Council by no
means entitled to reverence either for its legal
abilities, or for its extended responsibility. By
the recent Act, " the judicial committee"
cannot consist of less than four while it exer-
cises its functions, and no report or recommen-
dations towards a judgment can be made from it
to his Majesty, unless a majority of the Mem-
bers of the Committee present at the hearing
shall concur in the decision. Formerly, how-
ever desirable it might be to have the frequent
attendance of such judges on active duty as
were Members of the Privy Council, no provi-
sion was made for securing their assistance.
They might, after partly hearing a cause, plead
as a valid excuse for not continuing their at-
tendance to its conclusion, that they were en-
gaged in discharging important judicial
functions in their own Courts, and that
their place could not be supplied, or their
presence dispensed with. The 6th clause
of the bill provides for such a contingency by
enacting, that in case his Majesty shall require
the attendance of any of the three chief Judges
of the supreme courts, who shall be Privy
Councillors, such arrangements shall be made
by the other Judges of their respective courts as
shall enable them for the time to dispense with
their attendance without impeding the public
service. For the purposes of this Act his
Majesty is empowered to appoint one of the
Barons of the Exchequer to sit in equity for
the Chief Baron, when the latter is called to at-
tend as a member of "the judicial committee"
of the Privy Council. Formerly the Privy
Council, in appeal cases, was restricted to
pleadings on written evidence. " The ju,
dicial committee " may now order witnesses to
attend,—may examine them on oath, and either
decide on such new evidence or remit the cause
for a rehearing before the Court from whose de-
cision the appeal was made. They may even
direct an issue to be tried by a jury in the courts
of common law, on any question of fact which
they may judge proper to submit to such a tri,
bunal. The decrees are to he enrolled which
may be made by his Majesty in council,
judicialpointed
fcoormt mh
ei t
pt et
r.
posAes roegfistthrearAiest,towhboe
mapay-
iu consequence of the recommendation of the
be instructed to take written depositions on oath,
• to whom matters of account may be referred,
(to be examined and reported on) as matters
are referred by the Court of Chancery to a
Master of the Court, and to whom other simi-
lar duties may be afterwards assigned by his.
Majesty. This judicial committee is to have the
same power of compelling appearances, and
punishing contempts as any of the supreme
Courts of Westminster Hall, and his Majesty in
Council will have the same power of enforcing
its judgments, decrees, and orders as they pos-
ses. But one of the most essential provisions
of the Bill, as regards appeals from an immense
portion of our forieioiasnhadlolnhrainvieo inise,ldsttiiile
o,c
remains
to be described. His Majesty is empowered by
its 30th clause to appoint two Members of the.
Privy Council, w
f Ju Ige in the East Indies, or in any of his

minions beyond seas, to occupy a place in the
judicial committee—in other words, two of the
most able of the retired Judges, acquainted with
the administration of the laws in our East India
empire, or in our more important colonies, are
to be added to the working part of the Privy
Council, and are to be responsible for their con-
stant attendance on its meetings and their assidu-
ous discharge of its duties. It is to secure that
responsibility perhaps, rather than with any de-
sign of increasing the patronage of the Crown,
or the retired allowances of the Judges, that the
sum of 4001. is to be allowed them, as an indem-
nity for the expense which they may incur by
remaining in town, and attending the Board.
That the chief benefit of this arrangement is ex-
pected to be reaped by our fellow-subjects of the
East Indies is evident from an anterior clause of
the Act (the 22d), which empowers his Majesty
to direct the East India Company to expedite
appeals for a hearing from the Sudder Dewanny
Adawlut Courts, or the Company's supreme
native courts at the three presidencies—from
the frightful state of arrear in which East India
appeals have long remained—and from the sug-
gestion of the present plan by Sir A. Johnston,
the late Chief Justice of Ceylon, which we find
in his evidence before the Committee of the
House of Commons on the East India Charter
question. This active Judge, we observe, toge-
ther with another retired Indian Judge, has been
lately sworn into the Privy Council, preparatory
to the commencement of their new duties as
members of the judicial committee. When
we consider the disgraceful delays which have
hitherto occurred in the transaction of business
before the Privy Council—when we consider the
scandalous manner in which the rights and pri-
vileges of our fellow-subjects abroad have long
been trifled with or neglected,—when we con-
sider that there are several undecided appeals
from the East Indies of more than forty years'l
standing, and that latterly the natives have
chosen to submit to wrong rather than to make
a vain attempt in this country to obtain redress,
—the great benefit of the new arrangement,
with its additional resources of expedition and
knowledge, cannot fail to be acknowledged.
The prodigious extent of our colonial posses-
sions, with their increasing wealth and compli-
cated interests, rendered it impossible that the
Privy Council, as formerly constituted, could do
them justice. It was a tribunal fitted for the times
in which onr dominion was limited to the British
islands, and not adapted for settling appeal cases
from 19 colonies, and an Oriental empire of
nearly 100,000,000 of souls. But it would have
been still less fitted for its high duties in the times
which are before us. By the new India Bill
our fellow-subjects in the East have acquired
new privileges, and our fellow-countrymen new
facilities of intercourse and communication ; with
the former, knowledge, by means of the press,
is rapidly diffusing itself over all our eastern pos-
sessions. The consequence must be, that the
conduct of judges, both native and European,
will be more narrowly watched, and, if objec-
tionable, more boldly exposed, than before. In
such a state of things, it ought to he our object
to show the natives that if they are wronged at
home, they can look to this country, the seat of
empire, for prompt and efficient redress,—that
their tribunals cannot treat them unjustly with
impunity, and that no judge sent from England,
or brought up among themselves, is protected
from the vigilant suspicion or raised above the
supreme authority of the King in Council, when
they venture on a decision which warrants an
appeal, however much they may despise the voice
of their own community.— Times.
We alluded on Saturday to the effects pro-
duced
by improved communications on agricul-
ture. The time is rapidly approaching when the
price of food of every description throughout the
empire will be nearly the same. One of the
consequences of thus opening the markets of
London and other great cities, to cheap supplies
of food from remote situations, is that capital is
withdrawn from the cultivation of inferior lands
in one quarter, while more capital is employed
in the cultivation of superior lands in another
quarter, till the level is found. In the mean
time, however, great inconvenience is felt in all
the districts in which it is not beneficial to con-
tinue to employ the same amount of capital from
the inability to dispose of the unemployed
population. Throughout the home counties,
there is, almost everywhere, a larger population
than can be beneficially employed at the present
prices. In Ireland the equilibrium would be
restored in a very summary manner. The excess
would be expelled from their possessions, and
left to beg their way to England, or to die in the
nearest ditch. But in England the population
must be maintained, and they are maintained
well, whatever betide the farmers. In many
parishes of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, a sort of
confiscation may be said to have already taken
place of the ownership of the soil for the benefit
of the poor. As far as physical comfort is
concerned, we find the most intelligent farmers
of opinion, that the labourers of the home coun-
ties never were so well off as at the present mo-
ment. During the war, they say the labourers
were often reduced to little more thanbread; now
they everywhere consume a great deal of bacon.
The Irish bacon, which has greatly improved
of late years, and may now often be mistaken
for English, has forced its way into almost every
village of the home counties. We were lately
in a large agricultural parish about thirty miles
from London, and had an opportunity of perus-
ing some accounts drawn from the overseers'
books, and from the books of intelligent farmers.
We found that the money received by the la-
bourers from employers and from the overseers,
amounted to upwards of 681. per family per
annum. This, we will venture to say, is consi-
derably more than double the sum received per
family by the agricultural labourers in any part
of Scotland, though during the war, when prices
were high, the agricultural families of the south-
east of Scotland, who are all paid in produce,
actually received as much, if not more (making
food the standard), than the labourers of the
south of England. But this state of things
cannot last long. The torch of the incendiary
still haunts the imagination of the farmer. 1-1 e
knows that his property is entirely at the mercy
of the labourers, and so long as he has any pro-
petty remaining, lie bears up as well as he can
under his difficulties. But one and all of the
farmers complain of the growing demoralisation of
the labourers; and we have heard strong testimony
borne to the truth of Mr. Cobbett's statement
in the House of Commons, that the young
generation is much worse than the parents.
People who are unacquainted with rural mat-
ters often express a wish that the farmers would
return to the good old practice of boarding and
lodging the young men ; but they forget that
the habits which prevailed when the young men
lived in the house of the farmer cannot be re-
stored. In fact, the young men of the present
day cannot brook the restraint which lodging

with the farmer implies, and soon contrive to
behave in such a way that the farmer is obliged
to get rid of them. They prefer an independent
life. But it does not require much discernment
to foresee that the very extent of the demorali-
zation will work its own cure, though by a very
painful process to the owners of property. The
labourers, through the Poor Laws, have a lien
on the property of the respective parishes.
Where cultivation ceases to become possible
under the burden of the rates to maintain a large
surplus population, it will be necessary to aban-
don the land to the labourers altogether. Some-
thing like a minute Flemish cultivation will then
take place. The poor cannot have more than
the land, and when each man has a small por-
tion, he will acquire the careful and frugal habits
of the same class of people in every country.
Stealing and profligacy are produced by great
inequality of property. Poor people do not steal
from each other ; but the moment a rich man
plants himself in the midst of poor people, the
pillaging him is always looked on by them as a
very venial act. A soft of feeling is generated
that no man ought to be in straits while any
other man has abundance. It will be found, we
believe, that large farms soon destroy the
morals of the agricultural labourers. The
effects may not be seen in one generation,
because the habits of a former generation which
grew up under other circumstances are not at
once changed. in time, however, all sympathy
between the employer and labourer ceases, and
things have already come to this pass in many
parts of the South of England. Wherever the
condition of the farmer is little removed from
that of the labourer, there is much sympathy
between the two classes, and we hear few com-
plaints of increase of crime. The Liverpool
Mercury of Friday last, in noticing some stric-
tures on the conduct of the Irish labourers by
the Liverpool Standard, remarks—

" As for the charge of dishonesty, which the Editor of
the Standard reserves as a climax to his calumny, our
conviction iR, that there are no men in the world who,
similarly situated, would evince more exemplary honesty
than these poor men do. They visit this country in
thousands, but we very seldom hear of any of them being
committed for any serious offence. They have, however,
bad strong temptation to commit crime, as we recollect
some of them being starved to death, in whose stomachs
nothing was found on examination except a little grass !
Would the Editor of the Standard hare been as forbearing
as these wretched men if he were put out to grass ?
" We have made many inquiries respecting the conduct
of these men at large farm houses, where they assemble
in great numbers for the purpose of getting in the harvest,
and where they sleep in the barns and out-houses, affording,
great facilities for committing depredations without detec-
tion, upon the poultry, &c. ; but we have uniformly found
that their conduct has been free from any reproach—and
we have heard the same thing from hundreds of persons,
having been particularly interested in the result of the
inquiry."
We have often made inquiries into the con-
duct of the Irish labourers in the country parts
of England, and the answer we have received
from farmers quite agrees with the above re-
marks. It is the universal opinion of farmers
that the Irish do not steal. The English la-
bourers think them great fools, when they see
they have come over before the harvest is ready,
submitting to destitution rather than convert
some of the property around them to their use.
We have spoken to farmers who have had scores
of Irish labourers for two and three weeks on
on their grounds before work was ready for
them, and they have said that they did not be-
lieve they were even robbed by these poor people
to the value of a penny. One farmer told us
that if he had a dozen unemployed English la-
bourers on his grounds for a week, they would
have cleared him out. The fact is, that the
Irish being all poor, are trained to look on steal-
ing as an evil. In this country the labourer who
robs another labourer is considered in like manner
as guilty of something like sacrilege. We have
been accused of writing for a rural police. We
know not whether it is possible by any police to
prevent depredations in a country like England,
where there is so much property exposed and
accessible. In this respect there is a mighty dif-
ference between town and country. By means
of lighting streets and a good system of watch-
ing, town depredations must become more and
more difficult. We have no doubt that there
is not at present anything like the same amount
of open depredation in the metropolis that there
was thirty years ago. We admit there is more
fraud of every description; but the appropriation
of the goods of others by means of swindling
and credit, does not produce by any means the
same mischievous consequences to society that
are produced by open depredation. There is,
therefore a strong tendency to improvement in
all that regards security of property in towns ;
while the unprotected nature of property in the
country may be said to leave it entirely at the
mercy of all who are disposed to take it. When
once the labourers come to look lightly on theft,
discovery and punishment are matters of great
difficulty.—Morning Chronicle.

That there is a great deal of public property
in almost every part of the kingdom which has,
for ages, been diverted to private purposes, and
much which, though avowedly devoted to the
uses for which it was designed, yet is so applied
in a manner by no means commensurate to its
capability, are facts which no one who has
looked into the history and practices of colleges,
corporations, hospitals, schools, or alms'-houses,
can entertain any doubt about. Much of this
abuse has already been brought to light, Ind
some part of the evil cured, by the dilatory
labours of the Charity Commissioners, but who,
like most overpaid servants, have worked but
little in proportion to their cost. But it ought
ever to be borne in mind that a limit was put to
their inquiries in the first instance, which greatly
crippled and curtailed their usefulness—that of
excluding public schools, the universities, and,
we believe, all Corporations, from the reach of
their investigation. The Commission which has
just issued for inquiring into the state of these
latter, besides giving rise to much municipal im-
provement, will, we have little doubt, bring to
light a great deal of abuse in the way of misap-
plication of funds, of which even some of those
who are most interested in the matter have little
or no conception ; and it is not, we feel per-
suaded, at all an extravagant conjecture, that if all
the means provided by our ancestors for those pur-
poses were brought into existence and duly ap-
plied, they would be found adequate to provide
an almost gratuitous education for one-half the
rising generation, and relief in poverty and old
age for thousands who are now pining in want,
or are thrown unnecessarily upon the poor rates
for a scanty and precarious support. An even-
ing contemporary which, with all its acknow-
ledged ability, is too apt to assume the alarmist,
a(le,eto,tadn,dnt
eeatriosisds,ausactltailhidkaeittrxiilgtaetbn thisbadcel ikact
tastouePfrsoewe aeo
propertyr
Noble
u oml
bsilslefrisiieolnd oisv elri
likely to
r om its
sn
Irelandrightful
has, " by a sort of bargain with the Corporationt,
possession of "
of which his Lordship is a member," obtained
1,200 acres of the bestob land in
and n
the county of Meath," the Duke of Bedford

should'itherefore look about him, for that such
an example must lead, of course, " to a resump-
tion of all Crown grants not made upon avalu-.
able consideration." Now this is a species of
non sequitur which we were not at all prepared
to meet with from the astute mind of our con-
temporary, who, upon reflection, must be aware
that the instances which he adduces bear noana-
logy to each other, and that trustees combining
to deprive those for whom they are in trust of
their property, has no reference whatever to the
original title under which that property IS
held. We look upon this, therefore, as one of
the unhappy hallucinations of the anti-reform
mania with which our otherwise enlightened
Contemporary is unhappily afflicted, and which
takes from him that clear sightedness with which
he generally views most objects that come under
his notice. Except in cases where public pro-
perty has been diverted to private purposes, the
holders of it can have nothing to fear. " The
wretch," however, who, in the language of
Shakspcare—
" Hath within him undivulged crimes
Unwhipt of justice,"
has every thing to fear from the inquiries which
are now going on. That they may be searching
and effectual we earnestly hope ; and in our esti-
mation the framers of the Corporation Commis-
sion are entitled to much credit for having in its
outset avoided the two mistakes on which the
Charity Commission commenced and has pro-
ceeded—that of making the remuneration too
large and tempting, and its period unlimited.
The Corporation Commissioners are expressly
limited, in the first instance, to a period of six
months, and their remuneration, we hear, to a
sum of 2001. each.—Morning Herald..
Accounts from different parts of the country
complain loudly of the manner in which the
Corporation Commissioners have commenced
the execution of their task. We gave on Sa-
turday, from the Leicester Herald, a repre-
sentation of the proceedings of the Commis-
sioners in that town ; and we this day insert a
curious statement of the Northampton Herald
as to the new style of judicial inquiry, of
which the first example has been presented to
the astonished inhabitants of NorthaniFtoti, on
the visitation of these Commissioners. The
Northampton paper concludes its statement
with the remark that commissions are glorious
methods of bribing hungry lawyers. This is
unquestionably true ; and it might have been
added that they are methods to which no
Administration in England ever had recourse
so unsparingly as the present. Whether the
sarcasm of our provincial cotemporary is ap-
plicable to the commissioners generally, to
whom his Majesty's Government has com-
mitted the duty of inquiring into the affairs
of corporations, we cannot say ; but if they
be not hungry lawyers, or bribed lawyers, it
is very certain that such of their number as imi-
tate the examples said to have been presented
at Northampton and Leicester are very ignorant
and very foolish lawyers. Now that this Com-
mission has been instituted, it is desirable for
all parties—for the Government, for the Corpo-
rations, for the enemies of the Corporations, or
those, we should rather say, who wish to force
themselves into a share of their property and
power, for the public at large, and more espe-
cially for the Commissioners themselves—that
something like a character of authority should
appertain to their Reports. And upon this
ground, if there were no other, we should
earnestly exhort these Commissioners to endea-
vour to impart something like a character of
judicial gravity and impartiality to the investiga-
tions upon which their Reports are to be
founded. The system of inviting or encouraging,
hearsay evidence or vague declamation—of inti-
mating from the Commissioners' chair what kind
of answer is desired from a witness, not unwilling
to oblige—the system, in short, which invests
the inquisitors with the marks and attributes of
partisans, is one which, if persevered in, must
make the Reports whenever they may be pre-
sented mere pieces of waste paper, and convert
the whole proceeding into an expensive and
vexatious mockery.—Morning Post.