The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-25 00:00:00

LON DON, MON DAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 25. 1856.

PUBLICATIONS.

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(From the Times of this day.)

Fortune proverbially favours the bold and does
not always withdraw her smiles from the rash, and
so the House of Peers may boast that it has
triumphed for a moment over the Crown. We
have no wish to deny or dissemble the magnitude
of this victory, and as little to conceal our sense of
the means by which it has been obtained. The
[louse of Peers saw in the attempt to renew peer-
ages for life what they believed to' be an invasion
of their dignity and a curtailment of the privi-
leges of their Order ; their passions were excited,
their fears were stimulated, and no- they took the
matter into their own hands, and assumed a posi-
tion requiring an impartiality which they scarcely
pretended to possess. Nor was their claim to act
as judges in their own cause better founded in
right than it was in fairness and sincerity.. The
House of Lords, as a body deriving its existence
from a succession of individual acts of a higher
power, does not appear to have any greater right
to exercise any control over the admission of new
members into its Order than any other body simi-
larly situated. What would be said of a claim on
the part of 59 County Court judges to resist the
appointment of a sixtieth because they Considered
him disqualified according to the law under which
thersit, or of an insurrection of the Privy Council
because some member was obtruded upon it who
had not, in their opinion, the proper qualifications
for the office ? Upon 'suck a foundation is built
the new jurisdiction, which has circumscribed the
prerogative ot the Crown, and defeated a Wail-
meautattempt to remedy the monstrous d.eficieries
of the highest, tribunal of appeal.
The conclusion has been worthy of its commence-
ment. At first, denying that Lsrd Wensleydale
took by his patent any peerage at all, and speaking
of him only as Sir James Parke, in utter contempt
of his writ and patent, the Peers subsequently
saw fit to retreat from this untenable position, and
to take refuge in one which, could it be brought to
any test, would surely not be more tenable—that
her Majesty could, by her patent, make Sir James
Parke a nobleman, but could not by her writ snake
him a peer of Parliament. The writ, the law books
say, gives the seat in the House of Peers and a
peerage in fee ;* the patent limits the effect of the
writ. The peers hold, on the other hand, that the
writ is absolutely void, and the patent limits that
nullity, or rather extends it into a peerage for life.
The conclusion, then, is, that half the Queen's pre-
rogative remains—that, namely, which allows her
to confer honours ; but that the other half, which
annexed to those honours a seat in the Legislature,
is abrogated by a majority of the House of Peers,
unless the Crown condescend to comply with the
conditions which the Lords are pleased to prescribe
for its guidance. We know not whether the strug-
gle will be protracted, and the Lords compelled to
inflict the last indignity on their Sovereign by re-
fusing the bearer of her writ and patent access to
the chamber •from which he has been, only as far
as words are concerned, excluded. It matters
little how the dispute terminates ; the victory has
been gained, and we have only to consider what
will be the next step to be taken now that the ap-
pointment of peers for life has been established by
the same proceeding to be theoretically legal and
constitutional and practically impossible. The
remedy is gone, but the grievance remains. To
reform the peerage, by rendering it more easy of
access to men of shining abilities but of moderate
fortunes, is denied to us, and the house must shine
on by its own light with such aid as it may gain
from an occasional legal luminary who has, in addi-
tion to a profound knowledge of the law, the
equally indispensable talent of saving a large for-
tune. The non-legal peerscanisot administerjustice;
the legal peers are few in number-and advanced in
age. The house is closed for three months of
the legal year, and might be closed to the
suitors altogether without any loss to the suitors.
A cour of appeal, unless stronger and abler than
the Court appealed from is a heavy and cruel op-
pression, a cause of delay and expense incurred
only to give the worse reason a chance of triumph-
ing over the better. no matter, therefore, comes
to this—that there is no chance of reforming the
Judicial Tribunal of the House of Lards from
within, and the question arises whether it should
be abolished altogether. This latter remedy would,
indeed, be preferable to existing abuses, but would
be liable to grave objections. The constitution of
the Exchequ3r Chamber is by no means perfect,
the administration of equity would suffer much
from want of a Court of Appeal, and the law of
Scotland would probably be far more technical and
narrow in its principles than it is had it been left to
the exclusive interpretation of Scotch expositors.
Is there, then, no remedy, and must we
give up in sheer despair our highest tribunal
because its members will not let us reform it
by an exercise of the prerogative We think
not. We believe that ancient precedent and
modern ptacttice combine to point out a simple
and satisfactory solution of the difficulty. The
House of Lords and the Privy Council are, it
appears, only two branches from the same stock—
the ordinary or lesser Council of the King. Both
have inherited judicial powers, but, while the House
of Lords has insisted on exercising thole powers
itself, the Privy Council has delegated them, with
great advantage to the public, and without any
loss of dignity or consideration to itself, to the
Judicial Committee. Such, it appears, was anciently
the practice of the Lords, who were aided by a
Court of Assistants, which heard the arguments
and pronouncedjudgment in the name of the Sove-
reign and the Peers. This use ful tribunal gradually
fell into desuetude, and the Peers, by successive
encroachments, made themselves masters, after the
Restoration, of the appellate jurisdiction of courts
of equity, and of the right ot reviewing the deci-
sions of the Scottish Court of Session. From that
time to the present they have exercised this juris-
diction with a dissatisfaction gradually increasing
as the public has now become more enlightened,
till it has reached its culminating point in the re-
cent abortive attempt at correction by the establish-
ment of a life peerage. Now, what would be easier
than to return to the state of things which formerly
existed in the House of Lords, and has for the last
20 years prevailed in the Privy Council ? Let there
be formed by act of Parliament a Judicial Com-
mittee of the House of Lords, consisting partly of
such members of the 'House as are skilled in law,
together with such other judges as may be neces-
sary to give the Court the requisite strength, who
might bear the title of " Lord," and be members
of the House in its judicial capacity, without being
created Lords of Parliament. Something must be
done, and we can imagine nothing more likely to
extricate us from our present embarrassment with-
out injury to the Peerage than such a proposition.
It is of no use to lament past errors. Whatever
be the faults that the Peers have committed they,
are an essential part of the constitution, and it be-
comes the nation to take more care of the dignity
of their order than they seem disposed to do them-
selves, under the guidance cf rash and impetuous
counsellors.

( From the Times of this day.)

There is to be an end of the internecine warfare
between the four great railway companies. The
Great Northern, the North-Western, the Midland,
and the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln, have
agreed to refer their differences to the impartial
arbitrament of Mr. Gladstone, the late Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer. The ex-Minister some five
years ago made an award under similar circum-
stances, which, if it has not satisfied every one,
may at least, in fairness, be said to have given very
general satisfaction. This is a result at which the
public should rejoice, as well as the shareholders of
the different companies, for it can never be the
interest of the public that any one of these great
corporations should cease to prosper. No concern
in the long run can afford to do business so cheaply
w
as a thriving one. Any temporary abatement of
price dependent upon the necessity of defeating an
opposition must in the end be followed. by a cor-
responding
the
end, make
ak rise.
uTph
tehael
ra r eh
losses,old
as er s ineulslt as' replace and will
in
their operations upon a correct basis. They must,
in fact, be indemnified for every penny they have
uselessly spent during the abnormal period of mad
competition. The passengers who rejoice that
they can now run down to Leeds for 55., or to
Peterborough for 25., may feel very sure that
when the period of opposition fares is at an end
they will be compelled to reimburse to the com-
pany, in some form or other, every penny they
now appear to have saved. This is, in other
words, to say that, in the long run, the railways
must be worked at a profit, and not at a loss.
Great inconvenience may, no doubt, result to the
shareholders in the meanwhile, and many who had
placed their money in the concern as a permanent
investment will suffer great inconvenience. Sellers
will be many—buyers, save on speculation, will
be few, and altogether the great lines of communi-
cation throughout the country will be affected
with the taint of jobbery. This cannot be a whole-
some state of things, and therefore we ought all
to rejoice that good, sense hap prevailed, aad that

j the chairman and directors of the four compa-
nies have perceived in time that the interest' of
their constituents is best consulted by 'Compromise
and reciprocal concession. A scheme of a traffic
arrangement, which is, to be binding for 14 years,
is to be submitted to Mr. Gladstone, and his award
is to be final for the period named.
It was at the meeting of the proprietors of the
Great Northern line, held on Saturday at the Lon-
don Tavern, that the opening of the Railway Peace
Conferences was announced. The proposition to
which we have just referred was first made to a de-
putation from the other companies, and by them
rejected. After a little time for consideration bet-
ter counsels, however, prevailed, and the original
proposition of the Great Northern directors was
returned to them as the basis of a settlement by
the very persons who had previously re jecied it.
When the measure was laid on Saturday before the
general meeting for its approval or rejection, it
was carried by acclamation ; followed " by long
and enthusiastic cheering." Thus far, then, the
matter is in good train, and there is every reason
to believe that the three other companies are quite
as much in earnest as the Great Northern. It is
only from compromises of this kind that any
safety or stability can be looked for in our English
system of railway property. There must either
be Parliamentary control, or competition for all
practical purposes unchecked. With us the latter
system has prevailed, and, whether for good or
for evil, we must accept it with all its conse-
quences, and the good sense of the shareholdeis
must supply the place of legislative check or con-
trol. A district which is traversed by two, three,
or four competing lines must be worked, in fact,
as though the lines were but one concern. Oppo-
sition begets opposition, to the detriment of all the
competingparties, until they aro driven in the end
to do that which they might just as well have done
in the first instance—namely, accept the decision
of an impartial arbitrator, and a scheme for con-
ducting their traffic which shall offer.equal advan-
tages to all. The pity is that the same principle
has not been applied to the allotment and con-
struction of lines as to their working. A district
must be pre-occupied. The directors of lines which
appear to be remote enough from the scene of ac-
tion rush into mad contest. Branches are formed
long before the districts upon which they are thrust
are really ripe for their reception, and the trunk
lines are bled that the useless suckers may flourish.
It is most unfortunate that some form of arbitra-
tion could not be applied to these ruinous contests
for priority of occupation, as well as to the strug-
gles for the monopoly of traffic when the lines have
been once formed.

Before concluding our few remarks upon this
very important subject, we would draw attention
to the financial result from the reduction of fares
in the recent instance of the Great Northern. It
appears that during the first week of the cheap
trains 556 persons were bioked from Doncaster to
London—the total receipts being 1041. 2s. During
the week ending on Saturday last there were 775
passengers booked as before—the total receipts
being 1461. 17s. ; total for the two weeks 250/.
19s. Before the period of the competition the
same station produced as the result of its Landon
traffic about 601., the number of passengers being,
on the average, 40. Of course, on glancing at
arithmetical results of this kind, the expense of
extra trains, additional staff, wear and tear of the
line, must be taken into account ; still, on
the whole, do not the calculations seem to show
that upon a system of far cheaper fares the railway
traffic might be made much more productive to
the shareholders ? The custom of more frequent
travelling would beget the necessity for it. If such
results were obtained in a fortnight, what might
not a year produce ? If this contest tends to prove
that cheap fares are not inconsistent with good
dividends, both the public and the shareholders
will have no reason to regret it.