The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-30 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL.

The disease still continues prevalent in several
districts of Liverpool, and now threatens Toxteth-
park, where several deaths have occurred. The
Toxteth Guardians have made no adequate provi-
sion, and have not carried out the orders of the
Privy Council. It is to be feared that unless they
speedily take active measures the disease will make
rapid progress in this densely populated district.

The following is the return of deaths from cholera
and diarrhoea in London registered on Tuesday,
Aug. 28 :

West districts ...
North distric's
Central districts...
East districts ...
South districts

Cholera.
• 1
~. 2
▪ 2
~. 22
4

Diarrhcea,.
0
• 2
• 3
13

... 5

Total

... 23

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—At the Birmingham Reform Meeting
Mr. Edmond Beales, the President of the Reform
League, announced that he had ceased to be Revis-
ing Barrister for the county of Middlesex, and he
left it to be inferred that he had been deprived of
his office from motives of political animosity. He
had lost his post, he said " for having thus warmly
supported the rights of the people, and having
taken part in an agitation of an ordinary character."
The audience received this announcement with cries
of " Shame," and no doubt Mr. Beales was at once
regarded as a victim of Tory malignity. It is of
importance that there should be no misunderstand-
ing on the subject, and a correspondence which we
publish elsewhere furnishes the true explanation of
Mr. Beales' deposition. It is to be observed, in the
first place, that it is not a matter in which either

e Government or any political authority is in the
slightest degree concerned. The appointment of
Revising Barrister is in the hands of the Lord Chief
Justice of England. The office, moreover, is an
annual one, and in ordinary course is renewed from
year to year. What has really occurre,l, therefore,
is that the Chief Justice has not thought fit to re-
new 111 r. Beales' appointment for the ensuing regis-
tration. The motives which have determined the
Chief Justice to this decision are admirably explained
in his letter to Mr. Beales; but before we consider
them we May observe that the character of the
Chief Justice would be sufficient to render it cer-
tain that he cannot possibly have been influenced
by political animosity. The days, indeed, are
long past when our great Judges suffered political
feeling to influence them in the discharge of their
duties ; but even if the present Chief Justice had
been as stout a partisan as Lord Eldon, it would
still be impossible to attribute his decision in this
matter to political bias. Sir Alexander Cockburn
happens to have been always conspicuous for Libe-
ral opinions, and, so far as political feeling is con-
cerned, he would sympathise rather with Mr. Beales
than with his opponents. In fact, it was Sir Alex-
ander Cockburn himself who appointed Mr. Beaks
to his recent office as late as 1861, and as Mr.
Beales' opinions, though not so notorious, must have
been perfectly well known at that time, it is ob-
vious that they cannot have been regarded as con-
stituting in themselves any disqualification. It will
be idle, therefore, for Mr. Beales himself or his sup-
porters to pretend that he has been sacrificed to his
political opponents. He has been deprived of office,
not by a politician, but by a judge—by the same
judge who had previously appointed him, and whose
political opinions resemble his own. The considera-
tions which have determined the Chief Justice are,
indeed, wholly impartial, and would have rendered
his decision equally necessary if Mr. Beales had been
at the head of an extreme Tory instead of a extreme
Radical agitation. He takes care to explain that
merely " to entertain or to express decided political
opinions" is no disqualification for the post of Re-
vising Barrister. He is quite right in saying that
the vast majority of men, to whom he has no doubt
Mr. Beales belongs, would decide upon a disputed
vote solely with reference to the evidence brought
before them. No suspicion is cast upon Mr. Beales'
impartiality because he is a Radical, nor would there
have been had he been a Tory. No complaint has
been alleged against him in the discharge of his
duties, and we are quite ready to accept his
assurance that he has been both conscientious and
active. But the Chief Justice properly observes
that there are other interests besides those of
the Revising Barrister himself to be taken into
account. It is not enough that a judge should
be impartial and his decisions just ; it is quite as
important that the public and the suitors should
have every assurance that he is so. It is not fair to
the public to appoint a Judge whose decision could
possibly be suspected of undue influence. If there
is any post in which these considerations are of un-
usual force, it is that of a Revising Barrister. The
questions which come before him are often of great
delicacy and intricacy. Party feeling frequently
runs high, and he has' to turn the balance of a
delicate question by his sole authority. Under such
circumstances it is obvious what a disadvantage it
would be if his decision could ever be plausibly at-
tributed to the partiality of a partisan. It would,
in fact, deprive his office of its greatest use, which
is to settle what would otherwise be heated disputes
by the weight of an authority believed to be im-
partial. The Chief Justice has decided that Mr.
Beales4 recent conduct has exposed him to these
misinterpretations, and there are very few persons,
indeed, who will not approve such a decision. To
entertain or to profess strong opinions is one thing,
to make yourself a prominent agent in an agitation
for enforcing them is quite another. There is all
the difference in the world between entertaining an
abstract opinion and having a strong practical in-
terest in carrying it out. A decided political
philosopher and a fervid political partisan are very
different persons. It is possible, r o doubt, as Sir
Alexander Cockburn says, that " the partisans and

fervid politician of to-day may be trusted to
assume to-morrow the calmness and freedom from
bias and passion which are essential to the office of
a Judge ; ' but people would not be unreasonable
if they were sceptical as to the transformation.
An agitator, insensibly to himself, loses his head.
He lives in a perpetual atmosphere of passion
and excitement. Opinions and persons become
alike distorted, and it would be no reflection on
his honesty of intention to doubt his impartiality.
Such are the grounds upon which the Chief
Justice has based his refusal to re-appoint Mr.
Beales, and the public will certainly be of opinion
that he has only done his duty. He reminds Mr.
Beales that the Judges are always expected to ab-
stain from mixing in party strife, and they are
scrupulously careful to obey the restriction. If
such a course is considered fitting in a judge who
has so rarely to decide cases which involve political
questions, it must be infinitely more incumbent on
a revising barrister, whose decisions are always of
political importance. When Mr. Beales, therefore,
urges that some well-founded complaint ought to
have preceded his dismissal, it is sufficient to an-
swer that he has given ample ground for very seri-
ous complaint. He has acted in a manner unbe-
coming his office. If Mr. Beales had been a private
person, no fault whatever could have been found
with him for indulging in any political agitation
he pleased ; but any political agitation is unbe-
coming in a person holding the office of a judge.
It is for this, and this alone, that he has been de-
prived of his office ; and it is sheer nonsense for
him to represent himself, as he does at the close of
his letter, as a political martyr. His dismissal
will, he assures us, have even " a dangerous effect."
It will "force the people to the conviction that no
man . . can sincerely and warmly advocate
what he considers their rights without the risk of
subjecting himself to very serious personal loss."
If " the people" are capable of all the arguments
and conclusions which Mr. Beales and some of his
friends attribute to them, they must be much more
irrational than we believe them to be. Every Eng-
lishman can understand that a judge ought not to
be a leading agitator, and that it is no hardship if
he is compelled to choose between the two charac-
ters. Mr. Beales has aspired to the honour and
glory of presiding at the Reform of the British
Constitution, and he ought not to feel disap-
pointed at having to relinquish the insigniricant
office of deciding between election agents. In-
deed, as he considers " the Legislature as at pre-
sent constituted to be a mockery of the rights of
the unrepresented millions," we wonder how he
can have felt any satisfaction in assisting at the
production of so great a rham. At all events, as
he expects to be the creator of "millions" of votes,
it will be no great hardship if he is denied the
privilege of annually granting a paltry dozen or
two.

POST.—The efforts which are now being made by
the Democrats and the more liberal and enlightened
section of the Republican party in the United
States to re-establish that form of government
which existed previous to the civil war are so
praiseworthy that every well-wisher of the Republic
must desire to see them rewarded with success. It
is now eighteen months since the war came to a
close, and the supremacy of the Government at
Washington was conclusively established through-
out the length and breadth of the Union. It is
true that a twelvemonth was permitted to elapse
before Mr. Johnson officially declared the great
rebellion to be at an end ; but the tardiness of this
admission was dictated by special reasons totallyr
independent of the actual state of affairs. But, not-
withstanding the termination of the war and the
unconditional submission of the Southern States,
every effort to restore the status quo ante by per-
mitting them to resume their ancient place in the
Union has been sedulously opposed by the present
Congress. The same spirit which actuated the ex-
treme Republicans and Abolitionists whilst the
Southern States were in revolt continues to inspire
them even now, and the resolution by which the
representatives of those States were denied the
right of taking their places in Congress has never
been rescinded. The crime of disloyalty to the
Union was of too deep a dye to be purged by a
mere return to a former state of allegiance, and
even those who were loudest in their professions of
a desire to see the Union restored seemed to consi-
der themselves bound to impose restrictions which
in their very nature were calculated to prevent the
accomplishment of their wishes. To put an end
to this anomalous condition of things, and
to re-establish the right of State representation
throughout the Republic, are the main objects which
the Convention now assembled in Philadelphia has
in view. If, in denying to the representatives of the
Southern States the privileges accorded to them by
the Constitution, Congress was actuated by a sin-
cere desire to advance the interests of the country,
its conduct would be at least intelligible, and might
even be considered praiseworthy. But those who
are familiar with the operation of American institu-
tions have no difficulty in ascribing the conduct of
those who at present occupy seats in the House of
Representatives to more unworthy motives. By pre-
venting the admissson of men who would at all

events be their political opponents, the Republican
faction not only retain in their own hands the sole
direction of public affairs, but are enabled to turn to
their own personal advantage the opportunities thus
afforded, without any danger of being called to an
account by a hostile opposition. The Republican
party have had it all their own way in Congress
during the past 18 months, and yet during that
period they have not passed a single enactment
which was truly calculated •to promote the welfare
of the United States. On the contrary, no less than
five different measures were passed by the two
Houses, to which the President refused his assent,
and his conduct in so doing met with "the approval
of the great mass of the American people. Having,
engaged iu a war, bloody and costly beyond all pre-
cedent in modern times, with the avowed object of
effecting a union between the Northern and South-
ern States of the American Confederation, the Re-
publican party have employed the conquest they
achieved for the purpose of reducing to a state of
servitude those with whom they alleged they were
united by the indissoluble bonds of new fellow-
citizenship. In a country possessingsome 30,000,000
inhabitants, scattered over a wide extent of area,
and in which the right of suffrage is enjoyed by all,
it is absolutely necessary that the leading men of
the various political parties should select those
whom they deem fitted to represent tbem, and that
the electoral body should accept the nominees thus
offered to them by men in whose skill and judg-
ment they have confidence. And, accordingly, it
has been the custom in the United States to determine
the choice, not only of the Chief Magistrate, but of
the senators and representatives who shall consti-
tute the Congress, by means of what are termed con-
ventions, the choice thus made being, as a matter
of course, submitted for the ratification of the
people. The House of Representatives, according
to the terms of the American constitution, must be
dissolved at the end of two years, and as the period
of the dissolution of the present House is fast ap-
proaching, the Democratic party is anxious that
the new House shall contain a majority of members
pledged to support the admission to Congress of the
representatives of the Southern States. Hence the
Convention which has assembled at Philadelphia,
and hence the resolutions which it has passed de-
claring that the Union and the constitu-
tion had been restored, and that it was
not competent for either Congress or the
Government to deny the right of representation
to any State. These resolutions will be accepted
as the platform of the party, and those candidates
for election to the House of Representatives who
hope to receive the support of the Democrats must
necessarily subscribe to them. General Dix, who
acted as temporary chairman of the Convention,
when it held its first meeting, said that, since
the year 1776, no body of men had met in America
to consider events so momentous to the country ;
and we think that, in expressing this sen-
timent, he was substantially in the right.
It will not improbably depend on the next House
of Representatives whether the American States
shall be, in fact, once more united or be again dis-
tracted by an intestine war. When Mr. Johnson
succeeded Mr. Lincoln in the Presidential chair
he found a House of Representatives- which had
been elected before Richmond and Petersburg
bad fallen, and whilst Mr. Jefferson Davis still
directed in the capital of Virginia the affairs of
the Confederacy. That House was composed
almost exclusively of men pledged to prosecute the
war with unabated vigour, and prepared to wreak
any punishment within their power on the rebellious
States. With this House Mr. Johnson has had to
deal for the last eighteen months, and it is not too
much to say that his prudence and foresight have
alone served to prevent a policy being pursued by
Congress which would inevitably have led to another
war. It is, however, manifest that a contest be-
tween a chief magistrate and his parliament cannot
be prolonged without serious prejudice to the inte-
rests of the State, and in order to prevent a recur-
rence of those frequent collisions between the Pre-
sident and Congress which have attracted the notice
of the world during the past two years, an effort is
now being made to return a House of Representa-
tives which will act with equal justice and modera-
tion by acknowledging the right of the Southern
States to co-operate with those of the North in the
Government of the Republic. If it were the inten-
tion of the dominant faction in the North to reduce
to a state of absolute subjection the conquered
States, then the policy heretofore pursued by Con-
gress would at least possess the merit of consistency.
But such is not at least their avowed intention. It
is conceded that after a probation, more or less long,
the late Confederate States shall be admitted to a

.11.

participation with the others in the advantages in'
cidental to membership with the great American
.Union. But, dismissing all considerations of lega-
lity, what good object, let us ask, can be served 131
thus excluding a considerable portion of the Repub
lic from the pale of the constitution? The experience
of the past would indicate that such a policy can
alone be productive of evil, and we would therefore
hope that patriotism, if nothing else, may induce
the Republican party to abandon a line of con-
duct fraught with the greatest danger to the State'