The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-05 00:00:00

,',..'''' ttiontart -kat t it.

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1851

Different countries, of course, indicate the amount
of their prosperity in a manner very diversified, ac-
cordingly as their inhabitants may be engaged in
labours of an agricultural or manufacturing character.
There is one index, however, which is invariably
capable of application, no matter how strange soever
the diversities of enterprise betrayed by the people of
Christendom, as a means of intimating the extent of
their respective development in civilization. Our al-
lusion must be at once comprehensible to those who
are gifted with even a moderate share of discernment.
It has reference to the roads intersecting the surface
of the earth, those channels of intercommunication
in proportion to the number and excellence of which
are the conveniences or luxuries of a community.
Science has, of late years, multiplied these lines of
intercourse in a way, such as our forefathers, saga-
cious men though they were in many particulars,
would infallibly have regarded as little less than
miraculous. This, moreover, not merely through
those mercantile aqueducts which may be said
to irrigate our inland towns with a merchan-
dise hitherto restricted to places situated on
the river bank, or the sea shore—THE CANALS—but
by that marvellous network of iron, threaded by the
fiery dragons of philosophy—THE RAILWAYS—that
wondrous system which is covering with a metallic
web the surface both of the new world and the old,
and accelerating the social pulse, so to speak, with
every throb of its steam-engines. It is to this extra-
ordinary multiplication of highways throughout the
world that the advancement of the present age is
principally attributable, affording as this circumstance
has done, such a very surprising impetus to the
energies of mankind, and binding together, as it has,
in such close proximity interests previously scattered
abroad in confusion. Hence, we repeat, the gigantic
improvements effected more or less among the most
strikingly contrasted populations.
Remarkable as these things are throughout the
whole of the principal territories of Europe, they are,
above all, and beyond all, especially remarkable
in regard to the islands of Great Britain.
A glance at a map of the eastern
hemisphere will evidence the force of our observa-
tion upon this head with sufficient distinctness.
While France, for example, is solely furnished with
trunk railways, while Germany has even these in
many parts only in a fragmentary condition, while
Lombardy has merely one restricted and broken line
crossing the northern part of the peninsula from
Novara towards the Adriatic, while Tuscany pos-
sesses merely an insignificant branch con-
necting Florence with the Mediterranean, the
iron roads of England have been con-
structed over various shires with extravagant
profusion, whether considered in regard to the wealth
or the energies necessary to their collective com-
pletion. Justified though we may be in exulting
over these evidences of a national intelligence
superior, in our regard, and, in this instance, to the
most distinguished among the contemporary ;races of
Christendom, there are reasons, nevertheless, why we
should abstain from such tokens of vainglory, if it
be only out of a very shame at the abuses which
even to this moment await removal. Conspicuous
above all the evils that might be enumerated
is one which we shall content ourselves with speci-
fying, as perhaps the most serious and disgraceful
obstacle yet remaining in the way of international
traffic. Anyone who has travelled across Channel
will comprehend on the instant that this obstacle is
none other than the system of Custom-house regu-
lations. Added to which, anyone not entirely
blinded by the prejudices engendered by agricultural
monopoly will perceive that those regulations furnish
additional and unanswerable arguments in favour of
Free-trade principles. However enthusiastic the
" Farmer's Friend" may be in behalf of the sophisms
of the Country Party, let him find himself hustled
about for half an hour among the Custom-house
officials, his wardrobe " toweled" about as indiffe-
rently as though it were the property of a pickpocket,
his portmanteau searched as rigorously as the box of
a servant suspected of larceny or embezzlement--
and we warrant him he will emerge from that
übiquitous temple of persecution somewhat flushed
and irritated in body, with a secret misgiving that
all is not exactly as it should be in regard to the
theme of his panegyrics and the object of his vene
ration.

Hitherto our Legislature has acted in reference to
such world-wide abuses with a daring and magnani-
mity which to the more timorous class of observers
have appeared nothing less than Quixotic. Aware
that a certain degree of reciprocity is absolutely es-
sential to render any such gigantic innovations as
those here intimated effectual, England has, never-
theless, conceived it to be advizable rather to jeopardize
something by temerity than to peril everything by a
course of indifference and procrastination. Her Go-
vernment has preferred to offer an example to sur-
rounding nations by a series of comprehensive re-

forms, rather than consent to participate with them in
the odium of an inflexible pertinacity in the mainte-

nance of error. Hence the courageous abandonment
of the corn-laws, even while the doctrines of mono-
poly remained incorporated with the fiscal code of the
other powers of Christendom. Hence, again, the
financial intrepidity displayed in other directions, as,
for example, in regard to the laws relating to inter-
national copyright, laws which cannot by possibility
prove efficacious until the coincident opinions of
the Parliaments of other countries have
enabled their influence to become reciprocal.
Quixotic, we have said, these movements
on the part of the British Legislation have
appeared to the more timorous section of the multitude
in the United Kingdom, and as Quixotic they have
been alternately derided and vilified. Very different,
indeed, are the sentiments with which these proceed-
ings have been regarded by the more liberal, and not
less patriotic, scrutineers of the reforms introduced

by the e Imperial Parliament. Conscious that England,
from her wealth and her industrial energies, is pecu-
liarly qualified to act as the pioneer of improvement
throughout Christendom, they have watched with

eager satisfaction, rather than with feelings of
anxiety, the boldness with which her statesmen have
directed her counsels along this broad and beneficient
path way of experiment. Applied to such vast and
comprehensive departments of the Administration the

system here intimated has proved up to the
present moment anything rather than disastrous.
It has conferred advantages upon the commu-
nity, which without its interposition must have
remained altogether inaccessible. It has con-
tracted the evil produced by insufficent har-
vests, and by the consequent scarcity of home-
_

grown provisions. It has compensated the artisan for

diminished employment, by placing the necessaries
of existence more directly within his reach. It has

mitigated the horrors wising out of a destructive

epidemic, by cheapening the means of nutrition.

From all which considerations it must be manifest
that good rather than ill has resulted from the opera-
tion of a scheme until now so egregiously misrepre-
sented by its opponents. What has been thus hap-
pily effected, therefore, in regard to larger and more
elaborated divisions of the public service, we would
now see carried out in reference to the system of
Custom-house regulations. We would have no snore
sops thrown to the Cerberi of that inexorable insti-
tution. We Would more willingly see them stran-
gled by that many-banded BRIAUEUS the Legislature,
rendiripis the record of their robberies by this menus

as much annals of the crimes gone by as the history
of CLAUDE DUVAL or the biography of RICHARD
TURPIN.

Although so little was accomplished during the
past session of Parliament, it cannot be looked upon
as a legislative blank, without some redeeming fea-
ture to rescue the year 1851 from general animad-
version. A measure of no ordinary importance, in-
troducing a much 'winked legal reform, which had
long been discussed, and in favour of which the voice
of public opinion had been unequivocally uplifted, was
carried through its various stages, and became the law
of the land. The Law of Evidence:Bill narrowly escaped
the shoals and quicksands, by means whereof so many
of its companions were wrecked before arriving in
harbour. It was only at the last moment that it
passed the House of Commons, the amendments of
the Upper House having been unconditionally ac-
cepted. The slightest delay or hesitation would have
been fatal to the measure. The demand even of a
conference would have rendered the labour that had
been expended comparatively valueless, and it would
have shared the fate of the Patent Laws Amendment
Bill, the County Courts Extension Bill, and others,
that were rejected at the eleventh hour, not from any
inherent defects, but because due consideration cuuld
not be given to the alterations that had, been intro-
duced in the other branch of the Legislature.
Although the Bill was thus carried at the eleventh
hour, it could not be said that it was rashly approved
of, or sanctioned without ample time for deliberation
on its principles and details. The admission of the
testimony of parties had been one of the favourite
doctrines of the illustrious BENTHAM, a man whose
extraordinary merits are at length recognised and
appreciated principally through the labours of his
most distinguished disciple—on whom his mantle de-
scended with double power—HENRY Lord BROUGHAM,
the greatest law reformer of the present, or perhaps
we may say of any age. When we consider the facts
of the case it will only appear strange that a matter
so obvious should have been so long delayed, when it
was already recognised in all proceedings in courts
of equity, and also on all disputed motions relating
to the equitable jurisdictions of the common law courts.
It is true that it was admitted in the most ques-
tionable form—where the remedy, " a viva voce cross-
examination," which might have corrected any pos-
sible danger, was excluded—but it was admitted ; and
notwithstanding the manifest objection that existed
we have never heard any sufficient grounds put for-
ward for an alteration in the practice.
In Chancery every defendant must put in his
answer on oath, and must reply to every interroga-
tory respecting the subject-matter of the suit which
his opponent may please to exhibit. He can also
obtain the testimony of the plaintiff, by filing a cross bill
whenever the magnitude of the subject in dispute
renders it advisable to incur the heavy expenses of such a
proceeding. A bill of discovery may also be filed, to
which an answer on oath must be returned, which will
be admissable in any proceedings in a court of
common law. Here, then, we find that the evidence
of the parties might have been obtained in a documen-
tary form long before the enactments now under
notice were brought on the tapir. But the advantage
conld only be obtained at a heavy outlay and with
very considerable loss of time. These impedi-
ments acted as practical prohibitions in all cases
where the suitors were not exceedingly wealthy, and
enabled to submit to delays and expenses that would
be ruinous under ordinary circumstances, and if the
new Act only remedied that acknowledged evil, and
afforded the requisite facilities for setting the existing
machinery in motion, it would be an improve-

meat that would command universal approval.
But it does far more : it not only admits the evi-
dence of the parties themselves, but gives it in the
most unexceptionable form, and subjects it to the
most stringent tests. If an ordinary witness shrinks
from the ordeal of a cross-examination, where there
is nothing but the skill of a practised and experienced
advocate, uninstructed as to the exact circumstances,
to lead him into contradictions, how much more
formidable must it be to a party in the cause where
all the details of the transaction have been explained
to the opposing counsel by his client ! He must nar-
rate the most minute circumstances, give explana-
tions at the moment, that would perplex and puzzle
the most acute perverter of the truth. However

debased and demoralized may be the mind of the
witness, however anxious he may be to convey
a false impression to the judge or jury, he will
hesitate before he encounters so serious a risk,
in which the chances of detection and exposure are
so numerous. In place of acting as an incentive to
perjury (as some timid, and perhaps interested parties
have asserted), we believe that it will afford the best
safeguard and guarantee against the infamous prao-
tine, and that it will more than realize the most
sanguine anticipations that have been entertained
by its advocates and supporters as to its practical ope-
ration.

We rejoice to find that the speech of its distin-
guished author, Lord BROUGHAM, on proposing the
second reading of the Bill in the House of Lords, has
just been published,* together with a preface pointing
out the various stages of public feeling in reference
to the subject; and also a copy of the Act as it
eventually passed the Legislature. It may be con-
sidered a " painting of the rose" to say anything in
favour of an oration of the greatest living law reformer,
on a subject to which he has devoted so much time,
attention, and almost unceasing labour. We shall,
therefore, only state that it is in every respect worthy
of its author, that it will add an additional wreath
to the crown which Lord BROUGHAM will

wear, we trust, for many, many years, and
which will carry down his name to future
generations as one of the benefactors of mankind,
who succeeded in removing some of the most flag-
rant and prominent abuses that disgraced the law of
his nativo land, and iu introducing a system that
ensured equal and impartial justice to all, without