The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-20 00:00:00

tions relating to land. The Court of Chancery
will not sanction the purchase of an estate, howsoever
large, out of a fund held upon trust for investment in
land, if there be any portion of it copyhold.

The present LORD Cnur JUSTICE and the late Sir
ROBERT PEEL, ten years ago, denounced the copy.
hold laws as the remnant of a barbarous age. The
celebrated horses Waxy and Smolensko were seized
as heriots—a custom which arose from the mere
practice in ancient times of a present to the lord
from the copyholder on his succession to an estate,
and Sir ROBERT'S celebrated picture of " Le Chapeau
de Paille" would have been subject to seizure as his
best chattel, for a heriot on a trumpery bit of copy-
hold land, if he had not bought up the whole manor.
As an amendment of the law, the mere abrogation of
the thousands of codes overrunning the whole land,
and the consequent reduction of the law of real pro-
perty to one well-known system, usually denominated
freehold, would be the greatest and most ready of all
reforms, and be quite free from the great difficulty
in all other legislation, that of creating new questions
upon a new code. Moreover, it is hard to under-
stand how a perfect system of registration of deeds of
freehold lands can be brought into due operation,
whilst a large quantity of copyhold land, capable of
identification, lies intermixed therewith.

But the enfranchisement of copyholds is opposed
by Mr. GOUI BURN and Mr. HENLEY. They opposed
Mr. A GLIONBY'S Bill last year, and being defeated on
the general principle, they came forward in the cha-
racter of friends of the poorer copyholder, and with the
aid of some stragglers who profess enfranchisement
to their constituents, but love the importance and pa-
tronage of lordship of manors, gave the Bill a stab in
the back by an amendment that enfranchisement
should only be compulsory on lords on the applica-
tion of three-fourths of the copyholders, which they
well knew would place enfranchisement entirely at
the will of the lord.

The enfranchisement of the lands of tithes has been
one of the most successful acts of modern legislation.
The enfranchisement of copyhold lands and the con-
sequent exemplification of the law of real property,
will not be the less creditable, and seems a necessary
accompaniment to the law for the registration of
deeds.

The lords of manors, as great landowners, have had
legislation all their own way from the time of CHARLES
IL, when in the plentitude of power they cast off
their own fines and burthens to the Crown at the ex-
pense of the nation, by the grant of an hereditary
excise on the beverages of the people, the first of the
excise laws, and their refusal to extend to the copy-
holders and the community in respect of copyholds
the like enfranchisement and principle of legislation
they have exercised for their own advantage in the
case of tithes must be dangerous, and their friends
will render them great service by compelling them to
sanction the compulsory principle of enfranchisement
recommended, on the motion of the late Sir ROBERT
PEEL, by the report of a Select Committee of the
House of Commons as long back as 1838.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We hare received the Paris journals of yesterday.
It will be recollected that some time since the
Archbishop of Pants addressed a pastoral letter to
his clergy, recommending them to abstain from poli-
tical agitation. The Bishop of Chartres, M. CLAU•
SRL DR COUSSERGURS, has issued a pastoral, in which
he attacks in terms which appear to have been
culled from the vocabulary of our own PHILLPOTTS,
the pastoral of the Archbishop of PARIS. Unlike the
Archbishop of CANTERBURY, however, the Arch-
bishop of PARIS does not chose to submit to the vul-
gar insolence of his suffragan, and he has accordingly
issued the following ordonnance :
" Whereas the Bishop of Chartres, by his pastoral
letter of the 12th inst., addressed to the clergy of his
diocese, has, in contempt of all hierarchical order, at-
tacked an act of our jurisdiction, by which we traced
out to our clergy the line of conduct which they were
to follow in political affairs; and whereas he formally or-
dered that his letter should be published in our diocese
through the medium of the public journals; and whereas
if it were permitted to each bishop to meddle in the in-
ternal administration of other dioceses, and by docu-
ments published in other dioceses, to censure measures
of pure discipline, episcopal authority would be anni-
hilated, the bonds of obedience dissolved, and the go-
vernment of the Church rendered impossible; whereas,
moreover, in the same letter, the Bishop of Charms
imputes to us pernicious errors and doctrines, of which
there is no trace in our pastoral letter; whereas, this
attack directed against our jurisdictional authority, and
this forgettuluess of all respect for our dignity 44 Metro-
politan, r.s well as the scandal which results from it, will
not allow us to be silent on the subject, however we
might desire to be so on account of the great age and
the 'virtues of our suffragan; looking at all thole reasons
we refer to the Provincial Council of Paris, which will
be held this year, the pastoral letter of the 12th March,
1851, of the Bishop of Chartres."

This pastoral of the Bishop of CHARTRES is repro-
bated by every organ of public opinion except the
Univers, the writers in which avow their desire to see
the Inquisition revived and the massacre of St. Bar-
tholomew re-enacted. In speaking of this pastoral
the Press° says—
" There are two religions, as there are two lines of
politics; the one which God has made and which con-
stantly tends to elevate man, to perfect him, to ennoble
him by liberty, by labour, by instruction, and by ag-
grandisement in social life, in material as in moral order;
the other, which has been disfigured by ignorance and
by egotism, and which has for object to oppress and
stifle all noble instincts, ail legitimate aspirations, and all
generous ideas, by proscribing hope, glorifying intole-
rance, and proclaiming the eternity of servitude and
of misery. The pastoral letter of the Bishop of Char-
tres is a reply to that of the Archbishop of Paris.
The two religions are opposed to each other in this
struggle between two pontiffs. In reality it is only the
field of battle which is changed. The contest which
has just arisen in the church is also that which divides
politics into two camps: o❑ the ono side force, or
authority; on the other, right, or liberty. We sin-
cerely think that the ideas which we defend can only
gain by being thus raised above purely worldly interests
into the domain of spiritualism. The more closely poli-
tical truth approaches moral truth, the more it is visible
and powerful. We therefore eagerly open our columns
to this controversy. Our readers may remember the
Christian like manifesto of M. Sibour; let them now
read that cf M. Clausel Coussergues, and compare
them. The opinions developed in this pastoral letter are
such that neither religion nor politics, neither good sense
nor conscience, can allow to pass without reprove'. We
protest against such abominable impiety."
The Ordre, the organ of the ODILON BARROT
party, says—
"lt will be remembered that, in a recent pastoral, the
Archbishop of Paris, in developing the rules of conduct
prescribed for priests in political matters by the last
Provincial Council, reminded his flock, in the noblest
terms, of the accomplishment of certain duties, such as
respect for the laws, love of country, and charity to
the poor. Mgr. do Chartres, ono of the most zealous
representatives of that fraction of the Catholic party
of which the Univers is the organ, does not thick fit
to adopt certain opinions put forth by the Arch-
bishop in the document above alluded to. He does
not merely suggest his doubts in a confidential and
respectful manner to his ecclesiastical superior, but he
publishes a protest addressed to the clergy of the diocese
of Chartres, and entitled, Pastoral letter, containing
observations on the last pastoral letter of the Archbishop
of Paris.' If this proceeding on the part of the Bishop.
of Chartres is to be regretted, as showing the dissen-
sions existing in the church, it is still more so, on the
ground that it exhibits certain dignitaries of the Catho.
lic clergy in direct opposition to ideas which aro in strict
conformity with the spirit of Christianity."
The Moniteur, under the head of " Communicated,"
contains the following :—" The details given by the
Afessager de l' Assemblie and other journals respecting
what passed in a late sitting of the Council of State,
when the law on the responsibility of Ministers was
put on the order of the day, are altogether erroneous,
especially the language attributed to the President of
the Council of State. The truth is, that when the
Minister requested a few days'itlelay to consider the
project drawn up by the section of legislation, the
adjournment was at once voted unanimously by the
Council."

The Sixteenth Committee of Parliamentary Initia-
tive yesterday resumed the discussion on the proposi-
tion of M. ST. BEUVE for remodelling the customs
duty tariff on the free-trade principle. M. GREVY
declared that, without adopting to its full extent the pro-
position under discussion, he considered it deserving of
being taken into consideration, as there were ques-
tions involved in it which merited a favourable solu-
tion. He expressed himself opposed to the pro-
tective system as now established, which, he said,
had no other result than to paralyze manufactures
and lessen consumption, and maintained that the
agricultural interest hal everything to gain by
the application of a liberal system of custom duties.
M. LEDEUF expressed his opinion that the discussion
of the proposition would cause too much perturba-
tion among the manufacturing interests, and that it
would be more prudent to reject it. The existing
state of affairs, in his opinion, required that the
status quo should be maintained. M. 110VYN-TRAN..
cuEfte advocated the proposition being taken into
consideration, as it was important to decide whether
free-trade principles should be adopted, or whether
the system of protection should be continued, to the
manifest injury of the shipping interests, and the in-
ternational commerce of the country. The Com-
mittee, after some further discussion, decided against
taking the proposition into consideration.
The Assembly yesterday voted the second reading
of the Sugar Duties Bill by a large majority.