The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-17 00:00:00

COUNTY FINANCIAL BOARDS.

The Economist attaches much more importance to
Mr. Knatchbull-ilugessen's County Financial Boards
Bill than we have. Our contemporary considers
that the bill is the " beginning of the end ' so far as
the county magistracy is concerned. No one can
affirm that the county business is well done now ; no
one can doubt that the elected members of the
Board will speedily spew themselves superior to the
nominees of the Lord Chancellor, and that the control
will pass from the hands of the latter into those of
the former. The bill is the thin end of a large
wedge, and its effect will grow in importance year by
year as time goes on and old traditions wane. The
Economist hopes that the judicial functions of the
chairman of quarter sessions will not last long;

"Those of petty sessions will, perhaps, last some time
longer, because there is an undoubted convenience in
having a large supply of judges very diffused to whom we
pay nothing. But we are not very sure whether, if the
clerk's fees' were duly examined, the system is so
exceedingly cheap after all. Though the apparent judge
is not paid, the real judge—the man who tells the
magistrates what the law is—is well paid. Somehow or
other it is made well worth the while of a good attorney to
attend in each county each one of the many courts of
petty sessions, which he would not do for nothing ; and if
that fund was well applied, it would very likely be enough
to pay some good trained men to decide both really and
avowedly.

The Spectator takes a very different view of the bill,
and joins with us in thinking the measure most in-
adequate ; says, in fact, that " it is a most wretchedly
weak one," and that the introduction of it is the first
weak thing the Government has done. The Satur-
day Review supports the bill apparently because it
effects so little.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE PERMISSIVE

BILL

The Saturday Review is grievously disappointed.
It had hoped to have had in the Permissive Bill this
year the subject for the ordinary kind of article
against the supporters of the measure. In epigram,
sarcasm, and banter, the Saturday Review is unrivalled.
When it has to take to argument it does so with
very bad grace. But all its contemporaries have
descended or ascended to give their reasons for
opposing the bill, and the Sa'arday Review must
perforce do the same. Our contemporary likes
ii4hing what aver connected with the measure. The
title—Pcrolisii7e, Prohibitory—is ftricininloos ; its
permissive etiarader is bad ; its prohibitory object
is worse. The reviewer charges the sup-
porters of the measure with ignoring the
universal applica.tion of truth. If it is right
that public-houses should be shut up altogether
in one locality, it is right that they should be closed
in another. But it is not right, he goes on to argue,
that they should be closed at all. Human nature
ought not to submit to such a tyranny. As to the
public safety being the supreme law, safety certainly
does not lies in calling into existence an infuriated
minority smarting under a sense of oppression. That
drunkenness is the source of all the disease and
crime that is charged against it, may be more easily
said than proved. It is not right to force total absti-
nence upon any. If we prohibit in one case,." let
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