The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TEL PUBLIC JOURNALS,

he Times observes that it is startling enough in all
conscience, considering the magnitt de of the interests at
stake, to find that the great Overeau and Gurney case is
in danger of coming to an untimely end, or, what would
be still worse, of being so conducted that its trial will
degenerate into an unmeaning farce. But, strange to say,
even the possible collapse of the case itself, extraordinary
as it would doubtless be, becomes of secondary impor-
tance, so far as the general public are concerned, when
compared with the circumstances which threaten to occa-
sion it. If, in consequence of these, the Overend and Gur-
ney case fall to the ground, it will not improbably con-
stitute almost as important au epoch the history of
British jurisprudence as it has already constituted in the
history of British commerce, and we are not without hope
that even the possibility of collapse, with which it is now
threatened, may do more than v:holc volumes of essays
and speeches hate hitherto done to make that great flaw

in our crltni:lnt system, the want, of rt. public. prosecutor,

generally f,•!1.-. The Overend and Gin.r.ey eat-:e is at prf:
sent in this es::trn.ordirlavy pmition diet•clors, having.
been con:tnitte.l Ly the chief magistrate of the city-, rind a

true Lill having i!ef2n found agamst them by the grand

their trial in the Court of Queen's
the prosecutor either cannot or
not emp!oy counsel, the Lord Chief Justice declares ti.at
he shall not p pear except by counsel, and the Lord
Mayor vii tually declares that if he does not appear

jury, are alvaiLl!

Bench.

But I‘.

he -shall forfeit._ 1:5,000. It is not too much to
say that it would be a national disgrace to
]et a trial involving interests of such inegnitude to a

community eminently commerelal fall to the ground
directly for want of funds, and indirectly through the
deficiency of our legal system ; and if it is obvious that the
conduct of the case by the Treasury is the only immediate
solution of the difficulty, we trust it is no less obvious
that the permanent remedy lies in the appointment of a

- - -
public prosecutor. Such a scandalous and calamitous
miscarriage of justice as that with which we are now
threatened, and which, if the Homo Secretary should

persist in his refusal to supply funds, we may not even
now escape, could never have been possible but for our
system of private prosecution ; and since it is the national
habit to make reform depend upon the accidental obtrusion
of some glaring anomaly, we shall be throwing away an
admirable opportunity if we allow even a possibility that
such a scandal should occur again.
" Why is it that there is so much pauperism in this
country ?" is a query of Mr. Bright's which the Post
answered spme few months ago. The answer may be
summed up in half-a-dozen words. It is because of the
activity of trade. Tracing back to its earliest sources the
progress of pauperism, it noted that with the development
of commerce there was a concurrent development of un-
avoidable poverty. Investigating, too, the more recent

cases of sudden and marked accessions of the disease, it
found that they happened contemporaneously with unmis-
takable convulsions in the world of trade. The conclu-
sion, then, seemed obvious and irresistible. The
price we paid for commercial greatness was an
aggravation of pauperism. In an equitable re-
arrangement of the system of local taxation, the
mercantile community should by some means or
other be called upon to contribute much snore liberally
than they do to the maintenance of the poor. It is wrong
that the bumble occupier should be overpressed past en-
durance on account of poverty which he has done nothing
to create, while the wealthy trader does not even pay an
equal share. It is not right that landowners and the
possessors of real property should mainly support that por-
tion of the poor resulting from the operations of their
prosperous commercial fellow-countrymen. The com-
merce of the country has vitality enough to hear its share
of the national burdens. The gains of trade have been,
and still will be, enormous. Let trade, then, contribute
more liberally than it does to the relief of that pauperism
which is one of its inevitable results. 'ibis should be a
marked feature in any future plan of reform.
The Standard thinks that whether Mr. Goschen's bill
will effectually relieve the poorer class of occupiers or not,
it is certainly proof against the intemperate criticisms of
Mr. Vernon Harcourt. Mr. Harcourt complained that
the bill was a " new Reform Bill," but apparently his
real objection to it is that it is not a new measure of
reform. With quite a superfluous vaunt that he was
" not afraid of residential manhood suffrage," the member
for Oxford seemed to find fault with the bill because it
did not embody residential manhood suffrage. But leaving
residential manhood suffrage in the hands of the Liberal
party of the future, it must be admitted that Mr.
Goschen's defence of the bill was perfectly successful
against Mr. Vernon Harcourt. It was not meant
to be an enfranchising, but a relieving measure.
It could not do both things, that is to say, remit the occu-
pier's contribution to the public burdens, and at the same
time invest him with the privilege of a voice iu public
affairs, without an entire recasting of our representative
scheme ; and for that the Ministry are not yet prepared.
The occupier did not come before us in the character of a
claimant for a political privilege, but as an applicant for a
certain indulgence in the mode of paying his rases. The
legitimate course is dearly for Mr. Vernon Harcourt, to
bring in a new Reform Bill himself, in which residential
manhood suffrage shall be embodied. In the meantime it
is a little unreasonable for the compound householder to
expect to be endowed with a new political privilege by the
very same instrument which discharges him of a civil
liability.

The Daily News says that among the symptoms which
justify a cheerful, if guarded, confidence, we may point to
the meeting held at Exeter Hall on Wednesday in favour 4
of the Trade Union Bill introduced into the House of
Commons by Mr. Thomas Hughes and Mr. Mundella.
The bill bears the name of one employer of labour upon a
large scale ; the meeting was presided over by another,
The presence of Mr. Samuel Morley in the chair sheaved
not only a kind and generous temper, but also a wise fore-
sight. It is creditable to the trade societies by whom the
meeting was organised that they should have invited Mr.
Morley's presidence, and it is equally to his honour that
he shonld have accepted the invitation. Ire and they
have acted in the interests of peace and good-will.
The object of the bill is, as Mr. Morley
ably and frankly stated, to leave to the members of trade
societies, as such, the liberty, and to subject them to the
restrictions which attach to all subjects of the Queen,
neither more nor less. Those who advocate a " short way
with the " trades unionists" as Defoe advocated, in
earnest or sarcasm, a short way with the Dissenters, are
in danger of sanctioning an inequitable law, which may
some day reach themselves. Principle can never safely
be sacrificed to temporary convenience, even if the conve-
nience be rightly estimated, which is not always a matter
absolutely certain. The bill of Mr. Hughes and Mr.
Mundella is in its essential principles sound. The temper
of Parliament and of the capitalist class will be tested by
the reception it meets. For its own sake, and for the
sake of the wider and deeper social interests involved in it,
we hope that the spirit of the House of Commons will be
'as good as that which was exhibited on Wednesday in
Exeter Hall.
The Star discusses the recent meeting of the Dialectical
Society, at which Mr. Home and other eminent medla
enlightened the audience as to their prospects in the other
World. When questioned on the subject of future rewards
and punishments, Mr. Home augured badly for the
prospects of those persons who have had the misfortune
to be convicted of crime, as "lie believed that spirits
retained their personal identity, and that a person with
cropped hair would appear cropped." But if we serf: for
a comfortable certainty, for positive and definite informa-
tion regarding the mysteries of the future, Mr. Dainrain
is clearly the man. We are to feed, he says, on spiritual
fruit, which is rather tantalisingly described as " nourish-
ment in the atmosphere." Spiritual boys go to school,
he infortos us, and continue to grow until 35. We should
like, however, to know where tin spiritual boys come
from, Mr. Danirair, naving previously stated that there
are no spiritual tiiildren; and to get out of the difficulty
by asserting th•st a boy is not a child is unworthy of a
spiritualist, Perhaps he means that a boy who has
not completed his education in this sesames it in a future
life, and a: so, we shall feel inclined to dispute the asser-
tion twat whom the gods love die youtig. Upon the
whale, the picture of a future state drawn by Mr.
Home and his confreres is a gloomy one. Disembodied
ispirits seem to work just as hard as our grosser selves,
though on what is, by a strange contradiction in terms,
called spiritall materials. Painters paint with sp.r.tual
pigments, mechanics make spiritual tables, &c., and the
inference is forced upon tis that the other world is not a
much better one than that to which we aro accustomed.
As to the morals of its inhabitants we are left in the dark.
Will Mr. home kindly inform us if he thinks that some
of his spiritualist friends will be allowed to practise in a
spiritual way Porn spiritual victims ; and will Mr.
I)antrain and the other members of the Di.dcctical Society
f. vour us with their opinions as to time probable perpetua.
Con of the conditions of gnilibility in a future state'

The Telegraph. believes there is t.o doubt that, in a few
days at farthest. the flouse of Commons ti ill la.! asked (1)
Eanction a grant of six millions and a half sterling, or
thereabouts, for the :satisfaction of all claims, and the
proper equipment of the great telegraphic machinery to
be provided by the State. The nati,4l not only lioys of
the right of a p:irticular company to send nies,:z;-;es over
a defined district ; it secure:; a victual nainopo!y• of every
district in t 11,! cool, Lei', mai a control of the lines %%ICA
connect England ii•ith the Continent. Thus tilt
devehipm,nt, rf tclegraphie enterprise in Csreat
Britaio iriit fall to the lot ef the State, without drear:
of rivalry ; and whether the country dur:ves the fit!
beneht in reduced charges, or in lafge revenues accruing
to the Exchequer, either wayit will gain a pvrceptilile and
always growing benefit. Now. as a matter of strict busi-
ness calculation, it is clear that whatever expands tele-
graphic intereolirse thronghont the iv:n.l(l must indefinitely
increase its amount in that colmLy which is the heart of
the world's industrial system—its exchange, bank, • am!
counting-house, its busy factory, its inexhanstible mine
We hope, however, it is not over Sanguine to anticipate
that from the telegraphic movemelit now in progre.-,3
England will Le the greatest gain r ; and that our country
will soon be ent•r!s of a va,t network of communica
ties which er.0.11 enli.;ra.,:e the earth and speed the °awful
1119yerang of humanity,