The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-04 00:00:00

Tfl SUN, LONDON, MONDAY _WENINO, JANUARY 4, 1869,

man's electoral freedom against the tyranny or mil-
P 3• lo 'ers The effects of the extension of the franchise
will be felt more in each succeeding election, and the
time will arrive when leaders will be of some use to
the people, who at present need the educator more
than the leader. But, thinks Mr. Goldwin Smith,
great events will take place in the ecclesiastical before
they take place in the political sphere.
NEPOTISM EXTRAORDINARY.

When the Duke of Argyll, a Scotchman, was
appointed Secretary of State, and Mr. Grant Duff,
another Scotchman, was appointed Under-Secretary
of State for India, there was joy north of the Tweed,
for it was thought our Eastern Empire would become
more than ever the Scotch paradise. But even North
Britons think that nepotism may be carried too far,
and Scotch journals, Liberal as well as Conserva-
tive, are full of indignation at the omnivorous
nepotism of the Lord Advocate. The Liberal
Dundee Advertiser cannot hold its peace any longer,
but contrasts Mr. Moncreiff with Mr. Gordon, the
Tory ex-Lord Advocate, very much to the dis-
advantage of the first :
Mr. Moncreiff has now been so long in power that be
lies come to be looked upon by himself and his friends as
a species of autocrat, with whom no oue dare intermeddle.
In Parliament the Scotch members have often bitterly felt
his supremacy, and sighed for that Secretary of State for
Scotland who is so long of corning, but who, if the Lord
Advocate is • always to have Ms own way, probably
never will come. In the Parliament House, it has long
been well known, no member of the Bar dares utter a word
of hostile criticism save at the expense of being a marked
man—that is, a man marked for exclusion from all future
preferment or promotion. The consequence is that of late
years things were known in the profession to have been
done by Mr. Moncreiff which were really wholly indefen-
Bible. Fortunately, however, no defence was needed, as
no attack was made--the feelings of vexation and indig-
nation leing confined to confidential whispers among the
brethren, or at most taking the form of " curses loud and
deep."
While Mr. Gordon was a zealous and able law reformer,
Mr. Moncreiff has been very much the reverse, being
afraid, apparently, that by too great earnestness he will
abolish several good offices which are exactly fitted
for his friends. It appears that while Mr. Gladstone
is ruthlessly abolishing sinecures like that lately held
by the late Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Moncreiff is carefully
:herishing them. He has just given to
his brother, Sir Henry Moncreiff, Bart.,
D.D., the post of " Secretary to her Majesty's solo
and only master printers in Scotland," an office
to which no duties are attached, which was, more-
over, marked for abolition, but which. 'being worth
£6OO a year, must not be lest to -the Moncreiff
family. One brother of Mr. Moncreiff having thus
been put into a nice warm place, it seems to have
occurred to him that the other brother, Mr. William
Moncreiff, would be most unfairly treated were he
left out in the cold. A comfortable little post was
therefore found or made for him too, and he became
Accountant of the Court of Session, with a salary of
£7OO a year, and a couple of clerks under him to
save trouble. That of these two subordinates one
is the son of Mr. James Moncreiff's butler, the other
the nephew of his cook, is whispered in legal circles.
In this instance the work is so badly done that it is
clear there are too many cooks. But devoted
brother as the Lord Advocate is, he is a still
more doting father. He has a son, a lad of
eighteen months' standing at the Bar, and this young
gentleman has been made Advocate-Depute over the
heads of men of twenty years' standing. The post
was worth £5OO a year. But this was only the begin-
ning of luck. This fortunate young gentleman has
been appointed to several other offices under the
Crown, being made in rapid succession Counsel for
the Board of Ordnance, for the Accountant in
Bankruptcy, for the Admiralty and the offices of
State. The offices which, under Mr. Gordon, were at
once distributed to different people, have been com-
bined along with the post of Advocate-Depute in the
person of Mr. henry J. Moncreiff. For thorough-
going nepotism an old-fashioned Whig has no eiull

years ignored the cheap Rock, until one day the
first caught its rival tripping. The Rock spoke of
thi3 Rev. T. Fowle, of Iloxton, as "a zealous and
God-fearing man," whereupon the Record comes
down like a wolf from the fold, and claws the Rock
for heresy. Is not Mr. Fowle a Broad Churchman ?
How then can he be a " God-fearing man ?" The
Rock replies that Luther was a God-fearing man,
though lie called the Epistle of St. James a " strawy
epistle," and believed in the Real Presence. Dr.
Johnson was ditto, though he prayed for the soul of
his mother (the Rock means wife). However, it
appears that the Rock mistook one Mr. Fowle for
another, and so, after two atrocious puns about birds
of a feather and foul play, goes on to rebuke the
Record for its marked absence of sympathy with a
younger brother fighting in the same cause, but
whose existence it never acknowledged until it dis-
covered a supposed piece of heresy.
THE DEFUNCT "IMPERIAL REVIEW."

The John Bull mourns the death of the Imperial
Review. It seems that the paper ought not to have
died, for it had some good writers on its staff,
among them Mr. Cecil Rallies and Lord Colchester
(both of whom were defeated together once before as
candidates for Devonport), Dr. Fraser, and the Rev.
E. Fagan. Our contemporary administers a severe
rebuke to the Conservatives for not supporting their
organs better. Perhaps it is because they are not
worth supporting. The Zohn Bull, for instance, con-
tains a letter from a coxTcwpondent complaining of
the senility of the Standard,

71IE LEGAL 7EIVDEI? ACT.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The legality of Legal-Tender, lately argued in the
Supreme Court, and the return to specie payment,
both intimately connected, are the questions now
exciting most interest in the United States. The
former brought up in the cases of HEPBURN V. GRIS-
WOLD and BRONSON V. RHODES, has been argued in
the highest Court for three days by Attorney-
General EVARTS and Mr. CURTIS on the side of
the Government; and Mr. POTTER and Mr.
TOWNSEND against the constitutionality of the
Legal-Tender Clause in the Act of Congress, passed
25th February, 1862. Mr. CURTIS condensed what
he had to say into an hour. He maintained that
Congress having the power to barrow money has
by inference the power of choosing the way in
which it should be exercised with two limitations
only : the one that the means should be appropriate
and conducive to the :end, the other that they
should not violate the express provisions of the
Constitution, or any fair deduction from any pro-
vision. Applying such a rule, he showed that the
legal tender was an appropriate manner of borrow-
ing money. In answer to the objection that to
make paper money a legal tender was a power not
conferred upon Congress, he contended that such a
power was subordinate, appropriate, and necessary
to the substantive power of borrowing. Mr. CURTIS
here stopped, leaving the question unargued whe-
ther the deduction could be drawn, considering the
principle of the United States Government, that it
can legally do those acts only which of right might
be done on appeal to the Constitution, the question
being whether that Government has the legal power
of compelling the people to accept a piece of paper as
equal in value to a specified quantity of gold. Here
the Attorney-General stepped in, and for two hours
used all his mastery of language to show that such
Legal-Tender was a power the Government could
exercise, indeed that it was a matter of little mo-
ment, in short, giving way to his punning inclina-
tion, that the people make too much of it. " This
power," he said, " necessary for emergencies,
pernicious as a constant resource—shall not be ac-
corded to the General Government as an indepen-
dent and substantive power, for this would permit
its exercise upon any motive and for its own sake.
It shall find its place in the enabling clause of the
Constitution,
which supplies authority for all legis-
lation that is necessary and proper to carry into
execution the powers in whose service the use of
this expedient is justified, for thus alone can its use
be conformed to exigencies which should furnish at
once its warrant and its measure." In answer to
the inquiry—Who is to decide the exigency ? Mr.
}WARTS quoted from M'CuLLocrl v. Maryland,
—" The sound construction of the Constitution
must allow to the national legislature that discre-
tion with respect to the means by which the powers
it confers are to be carried into execution." The
argument is said, by good authority, to have fallen
short in the advocacy of Mr. CURTIS, and to have
gone beyond the mark in that of Mr. EVARTS, but
two such lawyers greatly overmatched those on the
other side, with what effect on the bench remains
to be seen. The general opinion is that before the
hearing the majority of the judges were opposed to
the Constitutionality of the Act, and the belief re-
mains that nothing but a regard for the conse-
quences of such a decision will induce the Court to
lostpone judgment until Congress can return to
specie payments. A good authority, Messrs. HENRI.
CLEWS and Co., writing in their monthly circular,
December 15, state that the subject had caused

uneasiness :
"In the absence of an adequate supply of any other
form of currency, United States notes might still tempo-
rarily pass, with very great inconvenience, in the retail
transactions of trade at a constantly varying depreciation;
but they could be no longer available for the larger con-
tracts of commerce. The Treasury would be compelled,
by the inadequacy of its stock of gold, to continue suspen-
sion upon its note obligations, including not only 356
million dollars of notes, but also 58 million dollars of 3
per cent. Certificates, and could do nothing toward retir-
ing those obligations beyond offering to convert them into
a long bond, the market value of which would determine
the value of the notes and certificates. Under these cir-
cumstances the banks would fail to procure gold from the
Trees ry, as an adequate basis of reserve and for the pur-
poses of payments; and, being unable to satisfy either
depositors or note-holders, would be driven into suspen-
sion, and, in the case of the younger and weaker institu-
tions, into liquidation. The derangement thus produced
would be all the more serious from the fact of Congress
being unable to provide any relief through the substitution
of some other form of legal tender. Of course, the result
of such a condition of things must be utter disorganization
in every branch of trade and a complete prostration of the
business of the country ; until through a painful process
of public economy, we were enabled for a time to keep our
Pacific product of gold at home or to attract specie from
Europe, to an extent adequate to serve as the basis of a
contracted system of banking."
On the subject of a return to specie payment the
speech of Senator MonToN in favour of the bill he
lately introduced into Congress is exciting most
attention. Its first section prohibits the sale of
gold, reserving in the Treasury all surplus over the
gold interest payment ; the second is for the pay-
ment on demand in coin of United States notes
after July 1, 1870 ; the third requires the National
Banks also to redeem theirs in coin eighteen months
later (on and after January 1, 1872), and they are
ordered to reserve coin interest from July 1, 1870,
in preparation for such resumption ; the fourth
decrees that their local reserve as now shall be
maintained until January 1, 1872, when greenbacks,
&c., are to be replaced by coin as drawn, but they
may bold two-fifths of their legal reserve in United
States notes with the sanction of the Controller of the
Currency ; the fifth enforces the cancellation when
redeemed of all fractional currency, while allowing
the discretion to the Secretary to cancel as many of
the other redeemed notes as be thinks necessary to
contract the currency within proper bounds; the
sixth provides the limit of Jan. 1, 1872, when United
States notes shall cease to be legal-tender every.
where, except to the Government for taxes ; the
seventh provides for a gold loan of 10-30 Bonds to
supply the funds required for redeeming the United
States notes in coin. The Senator in his speech,
covering 90 pages of manuscript, supported the
bill. Ile argued that by carrying the resump-
tion over so lengthened a period the disturbance,
almost inseparable from so violent a change,
would be avoided ; that those who had debts
would hasten to pay them, in anticipation of a rise
in value of the currency, and that all contracts
thereafter made would be based on the knowledge
of the change. He showed by elaborate statistics
that he understated the amount of gold and silver
coin in the country at $400,000,000. The product
of the mines up to June 30, 1869, he estimated at
$750,000,000, and after that at $100,000,000, per
annum, which must be largely increased when the
Mining States and Territories would be opened by
the completion of the Pacific Railroad a few months
hence. He calculated that in two years the Trea-
sury would accumulate surplus gold to the amount
of $110,000,000 ; that immediately hoarding would
cease, and when the time for the redemption of
greenbacks was fixed the accumulated gold in
the hands of the people would be brought out
and freely employed, lie maintained that even
when banks have suspended specie payment, their
solvency and good management being unquestioned,
they have been able to resume on obtaining one

0 dollar in gold to two dollars and a half of their
circulation. As the credit of the Government is better
than that of any bank it might s tfely act on a
smaller proportion of gold, while he showed that it
would have a greater. He asserted that the bonds
would never approach par until the currency is made
good. The lat ter bears an indescribable relation to
every form both of national and private credit and
security, and lowers them with its own depreciation.
This proposition he argued ably, depicting the injury
sustained by all in the United States, more espe-
cially the poor as well as the Government itself by
this vitiated circulating medium. He opposed Mr.
M'CuLLocll's plan of repealing the Legal-Tender
Laws, on the ground that it would lessen the value
of greenbacks, which, in depreciating the earnings
of the poor, would be repudition in its worst aspect,
while his plan tended slowly, though surely, to raise
the currency in value. On the whole the bill is
approved, though it meets with many grave objec-
tions. The success of the attempt to resume specie
payments on a fixed date depends on the coin the
Government can accumulate by that day. If the
Treasury commands, free from every liability, a sur-
plus of $170,000,000, all would run smooth, but, if
not, the shutters of the Treasury would go up and
the doors close, and a general smash result. Were
the people to suspect that the Government were
boldly making the attempt without the means there
would be a run on the Treasury, but if confident of
its ability to meet the claims they are slowly if ever
made. Another objection is thus noticed by the
Philadelphia Ledger—alluding to the law passed by
Congress at the session before last to redeem thelegal
tenders in quantities not exceeding $4,000,000 per
month ; however good and well received, there was a
hue and cry against it from the expansionists the
moment it became operative. So great was their
influence, and so telling the expedients resorted to,
that—

"Contraction was stopped, and there is every reason to
believe that the same interests and influences, under the
greater incentives of Mr. Morton's bill, would combine to
a like result as soon as its inconvenience should be felt.
We look upon it as but a tub to the whale. It holds the
word of promise to the ear, with every probability that it
will be broken to the hope. The bill of Mr. Morton, by
the hope which the delay affords of defeat by subsequent
legislation, invites to panics and the greatest derangement
of the currency, to the injury of all business. The two
years and a half of postponement, if we take the past as
an evidence of the future, would not be used in prepara-
tion for the event to come, but in efforts to defeat it ; so
that should Congress even have nerve to resist repeal or
modification, neither the Treasury nor the banks would
be as well prepared than as now for resumption."

It must not, however, be forgotten that Congress is
acting in this matter under the spur of the Supreme
Court. If the Judges concur in thinking the
Legal-Tender Act unconstitutional, in view of the
enormous interests involved, they may let Congress
know that they will be compelled eventually so to
deliver judgment, and delay the decision until
the Legislature has passed some such bill as that of
Senator MORTON.

BRI7 1511 E3l IG RA7 10. V TO AIIIERIC A.

No. I.

Last Thursday week a deputation of working
men asked the advice and co-operation of his Ex-
cellency Mr. REVERDY JOHNSON as shareholders in
the Mutual Land, Emigration, and Colonization
Company wih regard to a scheme devised of a
system of emigration to ameliorate the condition of
British artisans. The picture drawn by the depu-
tation of the state of their fellow workmen in Eng-
land was such that few English papers have pub-
lished it at all, and no English paper has published
it entire. The truth is that population is overtak-
ing the means of subsistence in Great Britain, and
the natural process has been hurried by the evil
action of that most unfortunate and most vici-
ous piece of legislation, the Law of Limited Li-
ability. Perhaps the world never furnished another
such instance of thoughtful and well-meaning men
doing more harm when only striving to do
good than in devising and framing that pernicious
Act. The unhealthy activity it generated in
the direction of waste, and under the leader-
ship of the scoundrels of England, attracted into
commercial centres large numbers of workmen,
who, relying on this artificial stimulus settled
with their families on the spot to find their work
vanish with the capital which had created it,
themselves and their employers alike ruined, while
the premoters and the legal advisers walked off
with all the plunder they could pick up. We are
not surprised that these workmen in their address
to Mr. JouNsos speak of these results of English
trade in unmeasured terms of disgust and con-
tempt, and although we glance at the cause which
ha,tened the development of a state so unhealthy
wherin honest artisans starve in the midst of plenty,
for lack of work, yet, the question is, the remedy? Had
it not been that improvements in machinery tended
more and more to give the leading place in manu-
facturing industry to England, the pressure of po-
pulation against subsistence would have earlier been
so severely felt as to enforce the inauguration of a na-
tional system of emigration. The Poor Law errs,
as do the private efforts to support the destitute
citizens of the country, in tending to breed more
pauperism than they relieve, and to perpetuate it in
its most shocking aspect, for there is no more horri-
fying poverty in the world than in England. It is
the contrast which, equally with the climate, makes
English destitution appear so utterly. miserable.
Those who have parsed at midnight by the
walls of Buckingham Palace, and seen' women
and children lying curled against them for
shelter from a howling storm, are shocked when
this contrast comes thus before them in its reality.
On one side is the gorgeous edifice, itself covering
acres, and with acres more of park, pleasure
grounds, and artificial water, the whole, for years,
uninhabited, while the eternal tramp of the sentries
is still heard marching around. On the other side,
like little bundles of dirt drifted there by the eddying
wind lie these English outcasts, these waifs and
strays of society, the practical proofs of the unexag-
gerated truth of what the workmen assert. It may not
strike most Englishmen accustomed to these scenes
that there is danger in such contrast, to remove which,
if the nation were fully alive to it, no time would be
lost in applying the remedy. When our SAVIOUR
said, " Ye have always the poor with you," he gave
expression to a law of nature which nohuman agency
can counteract ; but human agency can and must
be employed in alleviating and mitigating poverty,
or the society which neglects to do so will surely be
rent asunder. When the destitute so gain in num-
bers as to include millions of able-bodied adults
they pass beyond the reach of private benevolence,
attaining to the limit even of national relief, and
the State is then in danger. That England has
about reached this limit is a truth expressed by
these workmen, and a fact with which Parliament
will have to deal. Although the deputation is hope-
less of relief from the Legislature, or of attracting
the attention of the well-to-do classes, such an evil
cannot be overlooked, or dealt with as the ostrich
acts in danger by putting its head in a hole, dread-
ing more the sight than the effect; and the Times
and other papers will gain little by not pub-
lishing the address of the deputation. Granting
the urgent necessity for a measure national in scope
permanently to benefit the labouring classes, the
question is what that permanent relief is to be, to
which there can be but one answer—emigration.
Its effects are two-fold, for when well conceived
and carried out, emigration benefits those who go
and those who remain. As regards the emigrants the
result, if problematical in four cases out of five, is
still beneficial, the failure of the fifth being due to the
incompetence of the individual for earning a liveli-
hood anywhere, or to some radical blunder in the
scheme of which that fifth man is the victim. If
then emigration be wisely and cautiously conducted
it will reduce the failures to the incompetence of
the individuals who fail, a portion of mankind to
be found everywhere, and to the end of the world,
creating that class of whom our Saviourt said the
poor shall be with you always. But, as such people
everywhere sink, if emigration failures can be nar-
rowed to these instances only, it follows that well-
conducted emigration is an unmixed good, so far
as the people who emigrate are concerned. Two
questions of vital interest are presented by this
subject ; that which concerns the nation which
sends forth the emigrants, and that which concerns
the nation which receives the emigrants. Each of
these could only be fully discussed in the space ,