The Sun.
London, England, 1835-04-17 00:00:00

assumptions and inferences which the evidence, so far as
it has come to the know edge of the undersigned Com-
missioner, viz., the evidence obtained in the city of
London, and the printed circuit reports of the Commis-
sioners, ending with the Leeds report (p. 1,624), does not
sustain.

It would be difficult to point out any branch of legal po-
licy which can be investigated with accuracy and justice un-
less the foregoing distinctions be admitted ; but in the present
inquiry they are of vital importance. The address of the
House of Commons, upon which the Commission is grounded
is in the nature of an accusation : municipal corporations are
to be put upon their trial before the whole High Court of
Parliament. The address is virtually an information against
every corporation which has been visited ; and any Bill
adopted in consequence of the address and report will be
not an amendment of abstract principles of law operating
in fitturo, but an adjudication affecting vested rights and
franchises ; and, so far as it alters or divests those rights
and franchises, a bill of pains and penalties. In the great
case of the city of London it was argued, and most con-
clusively, that the franchises of a corporation are not liable
to forfeiture by reason of the misuser of its individual
members ; whereas the assumptions and inferential state-
ments adopted by the report make each corporation liable
not only for the acts of its own members, but also for
the acts of the members of every other corporation.
Each personal• default, each local abuse, is ascribed to
the whole aggregate of municipal corporations ; includ-
ing not merely the transactions of the present era, but rang-
ing without limitation of time to the past, and suggesting,
as existing defects, abuses which have ceased or have been
wholly extirpated. And although it is not maintained that
the high Court of Parliament, acting in its legislative capa-
city, should conform to the strict and technical rules re-
quired in cases between party and party, yet it is submitted
that the evidence should he presented to the Legislature in
a form regulated by the maxims and dictates of justice ;
and furthermore, that although the report of the Commis-
sioners is in no wise stringent upon the Legislature,it never-
theless is fit and proper that in such a report an endea-
vour should be made to sum up the evidence, so as to
assist Parliament in the duty of applying the evidence
to the several branches and bearings of the subject ;
pointing out also those portions of the evidence which
ought not to be received implicitly, or which ought
to be wholly rejected. It is further submitted that in order
to assist Parliament in the duty of forming a right judgment,
the evidence ought to have been analyzed and digested, dis-
tinguishing, in all needful cases, between the acts of indi-
viduals and the defaults of communities ; and further, so as
to discriminate clearly under each head or article of in-
quiry, between and amongst the following classes of evi-
dence, viz., I. Evidence relating to abuses capable of being
remedied by the ordinary course of law, or by new laws re
medial of the abuse, but not necessarily affecting the present
form of municipal corporations. 11. Evidence relating to
defects inherent in the present form of municipal corpora-
tions, and by which they are rendered inadequate to the
wants of the present state of society, or perverted from their
proper ends. 111. And lastly, evidence which ought to be
carefully examined before it is admitted as the motives of
legislation, or wholly discarded. And that by neglecting
this, or some similar mode of sifting and trying the rele-
vancy of the evidence, various assumptions, generalizations
and inferences, are presented to Parliament by the report,
which are not sufficiently supported by the evidence to which
the report refers. The whole of the evidence is not before
Parliament, but the report states that the Commissioners
" have reason to believe that the remaining reports will not
affect their conclusions otherwise than by affording further
illustration and confirmation" (p. 15), and the mode of rea-
soning would not have been altered had the general report
been postponed until the production of the whole of the
evidence.

-.—
.—...
(2.) It is stated in the report " that there prevails
amongst the inhabitants of a great majority of the incorpo-
ted towns in general, and in the opinion of the Commission-
ers a just dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions,"
and "that the corporations of England and Wales neither
possess nor deserve the confidence or respect of his Ma-
jesty's subjects." (p. 49.) That is to say, that there is a
great majority of dissatisfied towns, and a majority of dis-
satisfied inhabitants in each dissatisfied town ; whereas it ap-
pears, so far as the existence of dissatisfaction can be col-
lected from the printed circuit reports, that the feeling
which in the loose language of conversation is termed gene-
ral unpopularity exists only in a small proportion of these
communities (see tables hereto annexed, pp. 22-32) ; and
whilst it is thus proved by the evidence that such dissatis-
faction does not exist in a great majority of the incorpora-
ted towns, it is impossible to ascertain the absolute extent
of dissatisfaction or distrust in the places where (according
to the circuit report§) it does prevail. In the report it is
assumed to be a gene. Ijir.d preponderating feeling : but
the evidence does not afford (nor could it afford) any suffi-
cient data from which such au inference can be drawn.
There is no evidence of the numerical proportion of the
non-contents to the rest of the inhabitants. The report
further affirms, and offers as the grounds upon which Par-
liment is to pronounce a penal judgment, and in addition
to the before-mentioned "general " and " just dissatis-
faction,"—" a distrust of the self-elected municipal coun-
cils," a distrust of the municipal Magistracy, tainting with
suspicion the local administration of justice, &c.," but the
Commissioners have not the means of measuring the extent
of such dissatisfaction, distrust, or suspicion with any degree
of accuracy. The individuals (and what were their num-
bers, whether few or many, is not stated) who came before
the Circuit Commissioners for the purpose of testifying
upon these points can only be received as competent evi-
dence so far as they speak to their own opinions. But their
opinions do not afford a test of the opinions of those who
remained at home, and respecting whose sentiments the
commissioners could not, from the very nature of things,
obtain any information. In such matters even the result of
a poll at an election is a very insufficient test : for very
many of those individuals whose opinions and sontiments
ought to be collected and consulted abstain from active in-
terference in public affairs. And if it be desirable, as it
may possibly be on future occasions, to collect the opinions
of the inhabitants of a town upon their municipal constitu-
tion no certain mode can be adopted, excepting by the
double operation of openinga general declaration book at
tie Guildhall, and also of sending the parish or ward offi-
ccrs round from house to house to collect the " contents"
and " non-contents" of such inhabitants. By nothing short
of this process can the deliberate decision of an inhabit-
ancy be obtained. In a mere question of property the
Legislature requires a specific record of " assents," and
" dissents," and "neutrals" to the line of a canal or a rail-
road ; and the same precaution is fully as desirable where
the measure concerns the rights of a whole community.
(3.) The evidence thus failing (as it is submitted) to
st~.tain the position of the preponderating extent of the
dissatisfaction, assumed by the report to be " general," it
becomes expedient to consider its nature and value ;
whether, in the emphatic phrases of the report, it is a " just
dissatisfaction," and whether it is a testimony that the
" existing corporations of England and Wales neither pos-
sess nor deserve the confidence or respect of his Majesty's
subjects."

In a certain proportion of towns the dissatisfaction, of the
inhabitants is ascribed to particular causes, not unfrequently
to the assertion of rights, which, though legal, are unpleas-
ing to the inhabitants, or of which the inhabitants contest
the legality. The " public mind" is dissatisfied in Penryn
because the corporation holds a property of which it has
been in uninterrupted possession since 1669. (Evidence,
pp. 565, 566 ; App. p. 48.) At Arundel the inhabitants
are dissatisfied because a common is withheld, of which,
as the Commissioner reports, the freehold had been so long
in the burgesses or corporation that it seemed useless to pro-
secute the inquiry ; whilst in the same place much angry
feeling is excited in relation to the share which the corpora-
tion ought to take in paying the church-rate. (Evidence,
pp. 669, 673 ; App. pp. 56, 56.) In South Molton the
inhabitants are dissatisfied because they conceive they have
a right to be consulted in the " disposition of Copes' pro-
perty." (Evidence, p. 616 ; App. p. 52.) At Kingston-
upon-Huh they are dissatisfied (amongst other causes) in
consequence of the exaction of market tolls, &c., the cor-
poration having been successful in actions respecting such
tolls. (Evidence, p. 1539 ; App. p. 78.)
In a second class, magisterial acts, improperly exercised,
or believed, supposed, suspected, or inferred to have been
exercised improperly, are the causes of dissatisfaction. At
Lyme, dissatisfaction arises from the stopping up of a foot-
path, by which the public have been deprived of the accom-
modation which it afforded.--(Evidence, p. 1315 ; App.
p. 71.) In Chichester, dissatisfaction arises from the license
of a public-house, granted in 1813.—(Evidence, p. 725 ;
p. 58.) At Dover, dissatisfaction arises from the
strong belief that the justices have granted or refused
licenses from improper motives ; and " two or three cases
were mentioned which tended to an inference" that the
justices bad refused such licenses to soldiers and sailors,
entitled under Acts of Parliament to carry on trades in
corporate towns, until they had purchased their freedom,
" but no instance of this was fully substantiated."—(Evi-
dence, p. 952 ; App. p. 64.) And in Southampton a com-
plaint "of unfair distribution of public-house licenses ante-
rior to the year 1815," founded upon instances which could
not be distinctly made out, and which the Commissioners
diminish to a " suspicion ;" and another " suspicion" of a
" wish," on the part of the corporation, to decline acting
upon a presentment (of which they had no knowledge)
made by a Leet Jury against a member of the corporation
for using defective weights and measures, are reported by
the Commissioners as the grounds of " want of confidence
in the corporation."—(Evidence, pp. 878, 883, 887 ; App.
pp. 62, 63.)
A third class exhibits the " dissatisfaction arising from
the unpopularity of particular Members. In -Tenterden
" a feelinc, of rancour, which it is impossible to exagge-
ate," and which is extremely prejudicial to the itgerests