The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times observes that the preliminary inquiry into the

charge of conspiracy brought against the directors of
Overend, Gurney, and Co. has terminated in the only way
which was possible after such disclosures as it has elicited.
It admits that it is quite possible the directors may have
believed their embarrassments to be but temporary, and
that shareholders could not lose by joining a business like
theirs, which could, they imagined, right itself whenever
its managers chose. Be it so. Yet nothing is clearer
than that men are not justified in deceiving others because
they think these others will not lose in the end. The acts
of the directors were, there can be little doubt, fraudulent
in equity ; and the line of distinction which separates
such conduct from fraud at law must be, if any there be,
.very fine. The gravest article in the charge
is the suppression of the real character of the
£4,213,000 of bad, or at any rate very doubtful, debts
reserved as such for the old firm itself to try to collect.
But grant that the intention of these gentlemen was nut
malevolent—that they did not desire to injure any one in
the end. Nevertheless, this is nothing to tl:e point if it
appears that they did desire to deceive others, conscious'y
betraying them into taking a risk which the directors knew
the public did not mean to accept; and had n,> light to sus-
pect was even being offered to its choice. Mr. Serjeant
Ballantine himself seems unable to dispute that this
was the truth, so far as the shareholders were concerned,
and that at any rate they were deceived. We arc reluc-
tantly forced to the conclusion that a priind facie case
abundantly sufficient to justify a committal for trial
has been established against the directors as a bay, and
that they have not in the least disproved the charge of
having acted in a way from which the law cannot but
infer an intention to defraud. The proof of the absence of
moral sensibility is stronger as against some of them than
.as against others. It is strongest against those who were
partners in the old firm, and there is a difference in degree
among the rest. But all were directors alike, with equal
means of knowledge. The sooner the dangerous fallacy
is exploded that a person can accept the rank and emolu-
ments of a dirCctor, and evade by mere negligence respon-
sibility for breaches of trust committed by his brother
trustees, the better for the public interest.
The Telegraph, in alluding to the important trial of the
directors, declares that on Wednesday a scene that is
happily unusual in City experience was enacted before the
chief magistrate at Guildhall. After an inquiry which
has been protracted over weeks, and amid boisterous and
ill-timed manifestations of satisfaction on the part of the
audience, the Lord Mayor committed for trial, on the
charge of conspiring to defraud, six gentlemen whose
names had been for years familiar to City people as house-
hold words, who had gone in and out among the walks of
business the reputed possessors of ample wealth and
unblemished renown, who bad been the heads of prosperous
institutions, the supports of credit, the admired of every
shareholder, the trusted of every depositor, whose
word was never doubted, and to whose opinion less
experienced men clung with confidence of safety amid
the stormy vicissitudes that beset our commerce.
The good name of our merchant princes has been a thing
of pride to every Englishman ; it was the common posses-
sion of us all. What, then, has become of that priceless
treasure, the heritage of a noble race—that pure integrity
which once shone as a diadem on the brows of the British
trader, so that even the desert Arab would swear " by the
word of an Englishman"—when individuals who were the
very impersonations of our good faith have their probity
called in question? Was the traditional belief nothing
but a pleasant dream, or has the " quality of justice" been
unexpectedly strained. We must have more daylight
thrown on these mysteries of finance ; and were it for no
other reason than the partial accomplishment of this end
the Lord Mayor's decision is to be welcomed:

The Daily News declares that the Lord Mayor has dis-
charged a painful duty by committing the directors of
Overend, Gurney, and Company (Limited) to take tbeir
trial for conspiracy to defraud. Strong as the disposition
of the public has been to hope favourably of men who
had long been respected in high positions, the conviction
has grown within the last ten days that such a course
Was inevitable. That the defendants may be able to offer
a good defence is earnestly to be hoped ; but that their
conduct should undergo the strictest investigation
before an august tribunal is most necessary, after the
revelations made at the Mansion House. Although
the proceedings before the Lord Mayor have
extended over many days, the general result may
be briefly stated. The defence of the accused amounts to
this—that if they erred they were self-deceived ; that they
had no guilty intent ; that, however grossly they may
have blundered, they are not chargeable with a crime.
It is difficult to take a dispassionate survey of a case
involving so much suffering to these who placed reliance
on the correctness of a prospectus and the integrity of
long-trusted and honoured names. Yet all parties should
be animated with the desire that even-handed justice
should prevail, and the law Le administered without
partiality or fear. The question still unanswered
is the legal guilt of the accused. Although com-
mitted for trial, they may yet succeed in proving
that in the eye of the law they are innocent. Nothin7
is more difficult to determine than the length to which
reckless commercial men may go in the path which leads
to their own enrichment at the expense of the igncrant
and the confiding without committing a criminal offence,
It is for the ad vantage of the public that this legal boun-
dary line should be marked out with precision. When the
late directors of Overend, Gurney, and Company are
placed in the dock of the Central Criminal Court, the law
of England will likewise he II ut on its trial.
The Post, in dealing with the question of bribery,
declares that it is a mistake to think that everyone would
give an unbiassed vote if left alone, for too many are quite
indifferent to the principle of the thing. Look at the
witnesses and culprits brought with so much circumstance
before a judge in ermine. How can it be hoped that they
will not be influenced by beer, or a pound, or ten shillings,
or five shillings? They are not politicians, they are
consumers—eaters of beef and drinkers of beer ; while
even those who have political feelings possess them
only derivatively, a-.d identify them, not with the
policy of Mr. Gladstone or of Mr. Disraeli, but
with some colours of local establishment, attach-
ment to which they have inherited with the family
clock and kitchen dresser. Wherein are such
poor things good but to taste beer and drink it? And how
can any man with common sense expect that they will
form or act upon abstract political ideas ? Such petty
delinquencies as these beer-drinkings and half-crown
inducements to vote might surely be dealt with much
more efficiently at the moment of commission by a magis-
trate sitting in a police-office than by a judge of a high
court in wig and ermine. We treat these petty offences
with too much dignity and give them too much importance.
A month of hard labour would have far more effect in
repression than any deprivation of the power of voting,
whether by suspension or by absolute abrogation.
The Standard says that twice already within the last
twelve months has Lord Russell delivered himself upon
the Irish question ; and now there is a third letter upon
the same subject. It is highly characteristic of the
Whig Mentor that each of these performances differs
widely from every other, and that they are all of them
almost equally impracticable, if not equally foolish. In
the first letter Lord Russell gave many weighty reasons,
drawn from universal history and Whig policy, why the
Irish Church should not be altogether disestablished. He
was decidedly in favour of equalising the revenues of
the three religions. In his second epistle he withdrew
all these proposals, and declared that nothing short of a
total separation of the Church from the State would
satisfy the necessities of the occasion and the sentiment of
true Liberalism. And now there is a third set of proposi-
tions, differing materially from the other two, but equally
fortified by the inevitable references to universal history
and to Whig tradition. Of. these present proposals it is
enough to say that they will not satisfy the hopes which
the Government have raised among the Irish people, and
that if they do satisfy the Irish people they will certainly
not content the British Parliament. In the first place,
we have Mr. Gladstone's express pledge, on the strength
of which be won his late majority at the elections, that
under no circumstances would he consent to any • endow-
ment of the Roman Catholic Church. In the second place,
even if we can suppose Mr. Gladstone is able to get rid
of this slight obstacle, and .to discover some means of
satisfying his conscience that he has a right to do to-
morrow that which he positively pledged himself not to do
yesterday, there would still be a large section of the Liberal
party, including all the Scotch and the Dissenting mem-
bers, to be converted to this scheme of Papal endowment.
In the third place, which ought in itself to be a sufficient
objection, the Irish Roman Catholics have declared,
through their only legitimate voice, the priesthood, that
they wi 1 not accept any support from the State. In the
face of these three obstacles it seems a waste of time to
go into any further examination of a plan, one conspicuous
feature of which is, that the surplus of the Irish Fund,
after endowing the three Churches, is to go towards a
national system of drainage.

THE NATIONAL INCOME-TAX ASSOCIATION. —A t
Leamington, on Wednesday, James Martin and Edward
Crofton, two of the agents of the so-called National In
come-tax Association, were committed for trial on a
charge of obtaining several sums of money by false pre•
tences.

THE BALLOT SOCIETY.—At the weekly meeting
(1 the committee on Tuesday last, it was determined tha'
a circular then submitted be issued to the leading friend,
of tho Ballot throughout the United Kingdom, soliciting
pubscriptione to a fund of at least 81,000 for the
energetic proyputip or the Ball9t moyemegt In tat EV
sentiiil6