The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-16 00:00:00

—nothing surely can be more reasonable

in every way or more judicious.

The lower

middle classes, and the upper working claes?s are
those the Vice-President of the Council is most de-

sirous of benefiting by the new organization and the
new rearrangement of this educational endowment.

The Government have an eye also through the bill to the
promotion of girls' education and to the multiplication
of day schools. Until the reorganization of theschools

shall have been effected, it is proposed that the in-

spection of them shall be postponed. A'Anost imme-
diately before the completion of his very able
and comprehensive ad Ires, Mr. FORSTER an-
nounced, to the general satisfaction of the
House, his readiness to refer tbo Bill to
a Select Committee. The intimation was most
welcome, and gave the swing of success to his closing
remarks—the second reading, after a brief discussion,
being almost as a matter of course carried.

1 THE extreme length and consequent costliness of
the election petition trials render it important that,
ra endyu c inp rga c
themti cal
wexpedient r
es hroeualsdo n
abbel e
limits.ad o te d
Sirf r
lIENnY BIILWER has—perhaps not unnaturally,
considering the large sum in which he has been
mulcted in defending his seat—complained that too
much facility has been given for the promo-
tion of these petitions. However that may be,
cheapness of procedure is certainly not one of the
inducements by which politicians are enticed into
this kind of hostilities. There is room for abun-
dance of economy before we make this sort of litiga-
tion a common luxury. In fact there is little doubt
that at present many election petitions which ought
to be heard are not heard through fear of the
lawyer's bill. In other words, justice fails
because it is dear. Under these circumstances
a remark made by Baron MARTIN during the trial of
the Salford petition is well worth consideration. his
lordship said that the reports of the trial given in the
local papers were so full and accurate that it seemed
useless labour for him to take notes. There is no
doubt that he was right. There is no doubt that the
" judge's notes" are simply a useless relic of antiquity
which might well be dispensed with in this
rapid age, when the money value of time is
tenfold what it used to be. Everybody who has
attended a court of justice knows how slow is the
process of an examination ; how large is the amount
of time occupied by it compared with the amount of
space which it fills in the newspapers. This tedious-
ness is caused mainly by the necessity under which
the judge is now supposed to be to write down every
question and answer. Thus an election petition or a
monster case like the Saurin trial is protracted to
double the necessary length, to the great pecuniary
loss of the litigants.

Nor is this the only disadvantage of the present
system. Evidence taken in this disjointed way is
very unsatisfactory. An honest witness will often
be entirely discomposed when he has to tell his story
in fits and starts. A dishonest witness will use the
pauses for patching up a plausible tale, which would
not have hung together but for the interval thus
given him. The judge also loses the opportunity of
keeping his eye on the witness, and thus is deprived
of one important means of forming his judgment as
to his credibility. The amount of physical labour
involved is by no means small, and the energies
which should be concentrated upon judicial duties
are in no little:degree dissipated in mechanical labour.
For all these disadvantages there is not the smallest
necessity. Professional reporters can always take
down evidence as rapidly as it is given, and it would
require very little management for the judge and
the jury to be supplied with a verbatim report of
the proceedings within half-an-hour from the time
that it was given. A reporter, sworn to accuracy,
should be as much a necessary official of the
court as a juror sworn to a true verdict.
This little reform would not perhaps suit
Parliamentary counsel fond of handsome " refreshers,"
but all other parties would benefit by it. Election
petitions would then be conducted at half the time
and cost, and we should no longer hear of 150 cases
postponed for a whole month because the most tedious
trial of modern times stopped the way.

THE reply of the Duke of ARGYLL to the deputa-
tion on the growth of cotton in India suggests reflec-
tions which are at once melancholy and hopeful. It
is not creditable that our efforts for the improvement
of India should be guided by the measure of our own
needs ; but it is better that England's necessity
should be India's opportunity, than that the much-
needed reforms should be lost. There is no denyingthat
the great empire of two hundred millions of subjects
which is underour charge has been comparatively neg-
lected. Its condition has immeasurably improved under
British rule, but the sum total of improvement is by
no means equal to the means at our command.
Indian affairs excite little attention in the
English Parliament and less in the country
at large. Indian reforms are slow in operation
and meagre in extent. But there is now much reason to
believe that the progress of improvement will be mate-
rially accelerated. The advantage, it might almost be
said the necessity, of rendering India a great cotton-
growing country will give the work of improvement
an impetus which it would otherwise have been long '
in attaining. The experiment of growing cotton in
India has now been tried for several seasons with
increasing success. The latest report from the Cen-
tral Provinces is in every way satisfactory ; the
exports have been larger than in precedingTearrs, the