The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—We could wish Ireland had made a
better appearance at the close of this session than
in a measure of " coercion" and a preposterous
scheme ; but the measure is a matter of course,
and cannot be helped? and the scheme is one of
those earth bubbles seen only by Celtic eyes. On
the whole, we have reason to congratulate ourselves
on the state of the island. A year ago Fenianism
was preventing the growth of that confidence be-
tween classes and interests which is not indigenous
in Ireland, and can only be accomplished by time.
Mysterious as it was, incredible as it might be,
people knew not what to say to a country in which
it was boasted that large bodies of men met every
night for drill, and had a complete American as
well as Irish organisation. The gentry flocked to
Dublin or to this island, Irish investments lost fa-
vour, and even the hardy tourist was frightened
away. The truth is, England has a great horror of
Irish rebellions. There was at least the possibility
of one, for where there is smoke there may be
flame. But the intervening twelvemonth has wit-
nessed a marvel in Irish history. The threatened
rebellion, which claimed the entire Celtic population
for its ranks, has collapsed. At home nothing is
left of it but a few men undergoing the usual pe-
nalty of crime, and a few more held in custody for
the sake of public peace. Some have been released,
if they were not too proud to make the requisite
renunciations and pledges. But when a man avows
himself a rebel, and is known to be only waiting the
opportunity that will never come, it is difficult to
know how to deal with him. The wildest Irish pa-
triot cannot honestly say that he should be set at
liberty. There is no choice but to continue the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act for a while,
and so suffer a national reproach, out of all propor-
tiona to its actual inconvenience. For the benefit of
foreigners, we may as well say that a manemveirgyhtp livert,
months in Ireland, and travel through
without a suspicion that the liberty of the subject
had been abridged by one iota, or that an Irishman
was not absolutely as free as an Englishman.
The other reminder of Ireland we have just
had is a pretty little suggestion by Mr. O'Beirne,
that her Majesty should adopt for his country the
functions of a freehold land society, or rather of
the speculator called, in the English land market,
an " estate butcher." The enterprise is carried on
in this country under many different conditions, and
with varied success. It is conducted sometimes on
purely mercantile principles, sometimes with politi-
cal views for the creation of votes, and sometimes
with a view to that social elevation which is sup-
posed to go with the possession of land. It is vain
to quarrel with a practice combining at once the
most sordid gain and the noblest aspirations and the
purest philanthropy ; but we may as well observe
that there is hardly a landed gentleman in England
who does not know of several personages and seve-
ral associations prepared to extort a high price from
his fears by buying every bit of land commanding
his property, and threatening to " resell" it, as Mr.
O'Beirne says, " in small lots." The process is so
thoroughly understood in this country as to become
a profession, which, under dexterous management,
may be exceedingly profitable. The question vir-
tually asked by Mr. O'Beirne last night was, " Why
should not this be applied to Ireland ?" The true
answer to this question is another—Why is not this
practice applied to Ireland ? No doubt it is ap-
plied in those parts of Ireland which approach to
this country in their social circumstances, in com-
mercial activity, and in the diffusion of capital. But,
whether in Ireland or in England, the practice is
entirely innocent of
_agricultural intentions. The
man who buys a " small lot" may intend to build a
cottage, to grow his own vegetables, to make a
flower-garden, and possibly to have a paddock for
a pony or cow ; but he looks to spending his money
there, not to getting it. The place is for his resi-
dence, rhis amusement, his health, but not for
his living, or with the slightest hope of pecuniary
profit. As a general and almost universal rule it
is found impossible to live here on a small lot
of land. The reasons are unnecessary when
the fact is notorious and indisputable. The small
people of our manufacturing towns love to have
little gardens in the suburbs, where they spend many
hours with the best results to health both of mind
and body; but they would not dream of living by
their small lots were they ten times as large.
They stick to the main chance, which is some regu-
lar industry—at the mill or the workshop. The
garden is an amusement, and nothing more. In-
deed, when they happen to have too many peas and
potatoes, they do not know what to do with them.
The proposal may be as simply benevolent as the
poet's dream of the time when every rood of land
maintained its man, and when it is to be presumed
a man required rather more than a goose and rather
less than a pig or a sheep. But it is not without
regret we see such impossible yet fascinating images
flickered before the eyes of a people generally incap-
able of estimating their practical worth. Most
people would like a little bit of land. It is a most
natural instinct. This earth is a beautiful place.
These isles, to do them justice, are fair spots. It is
something to call a portion of this wondrous crea-
tion absolutely's one's own, and one's self the lord
of it. The sentiment lies at the very basis of our
social fabric, and is the key of our greatest and
most distinctive institutions. Everything about us
fasters this love of the soil, and the craving for
land, which brought our ancestors here, and made
the British Constitution. The Irish variety of the
all-absorbing passion is somewhat different from the
English, having a tribal origin. But substantially
and practically it is the same. The Irishman, like
the Englishman, wants a bit of land that he may
really call his own, and off which he may warn
every intruder. But if the appeal to such a senti-
ment is so easy, and works its way at once to the
dullest fancy and the most sluggish affections, it
ought not to be made without the most careful con-
sideration. Mr. O'Beirne has not thought it neces-
sary to ascertain the working of his scheme, and
how far it would really benefit any considerable
number of his countrymen. If they are in a condi-
tion to purchase " small lots" of land at the prices
of the open market, we must tell them plainly that
they could do much better with their money, and
that any attempt to cultivate a " small lot" with
profit will certainly end in the loss of the last
farthing. We advise them to keep out of it, and
this advice is far kinder, because wiser, than Mr.
O'Beirne's, though, like medicine, it may not be
quite so palatable.
POST.—The correspondence relative to the Extra-
dition Treaty beween this country and France,
which has just been made public, will, it is to be ex-
pected, afford such support to the bill which has
been introduced as will enable the Government to
carry it through the House of Commons with as
little difficulty as it met with in the Lords. It has
never, that we know of, been denied that the Ex-
tradition Treaty is most desirable not only in its
direct tendency, but in the many indirect effects it
produces. The fact, however, remains, that from
the time it was signed, in February,. 1843, up to
the present day, one of the contracting Powers has
utterly failed to secure that extradition of its crimi-
nals, which it was intended to effect, and the circum-
stance that it is France who has been in this position
should make us all the more ready to consider the
steps necessary to put the treaty into working. order.
Now, as the convention was of the nature of a bar-
gain, by which certain advantages were to be con-
ceded by both sides, it is impossible to deny that if,
for any reason whatever, one of the two contracting
parties failed from first to last to reap the advan-
tages contemplated, while the other enjoyed them
throughout, the failure amply justified the Power
which derived no benefit from the treaty to exer-

else its power of putting an end to it, and it is equallY
clear that, if the causes which led to the failure were
removable, they should be removed by those who for
so long had got everything for nothing. What these
causes are the present correspondence makes quite
cleat. The first, as they are stated in the Prince De
la Tour d'Auvergne's letter of Dec. 4, 1865, is that
the English Government does not consider itself
authorised to deliver up condemned persons,. and
that because the treaty only provides for the delivery
of persons " accused" of the crimes therein specified.
The consequences of this, since it applies the rule.
to those who are only presumed to be guilty, ana.,
withholds it from these wno have been actually, and
by judicial procedure, proved to be guilty, are, a!
the French Ambassador remarks, "peu logiques
but with much moderation the French Government
appear to have forborne to press their wish that
this point, reposing as it does upon the treaty itself,
should be amended, and to have limited their de-
mands to such an alteration of the procedure under
the treaty, as it exists, as will afford a reasonable
chance of rendering it operative on the English side
cf the Channel for the future. This brings us to the
second reason which has operated against our fulfil-
ment of our part of the bargain. It is, to quote the
Prince De la Tour d'Auvergne again, that, as inter-
preted in England, the treaty would appear to re-
solve itself into the obligation of in some degree
judging the case in England, by requiring, in addl-
tion to the mandat d'arret forwarded to this coun-
try with the request for extradition, copies of the
depositions attested on oath by the person producing
them, for which it has been held to be necessary that
that person shall have seen the original depositions
and shall have compared the two. Now, it is to be
remembered that the copies are in the first instance
certified under the hand and seal of the Juge d'ln-
struction before whom they have been made, and the
effect of the rule therefore is that the person produc-
ing them, who is usually of necessity a common
policeman, is required to certify that the Juge d'ln-
struction has certified what is true. This the
French Government naturally enough consider to
be an indignity offered to their judges, and it is, in
fact, here that the .main difficulty occurs. The
English magistrates, backed, it is true, by the Law
Officers of the Crown, have obstinately adhered to
the interpretation ; the French Government have
maintained their objection, and a dead-lock has thus
subsisted from 1843 up to the present time. It is
worthy of remark that, even in a country so jealous
of personal liberty as the United States, there has
been found but little difficulty in carrying into effect
a convention precisely similar in principle and almost
identical in terms with that between France and
England, and it appears as a fact that, ont of ten
demands for extradition made under the Franco-
American treaty, five, as a rule, are successful ;
whereas there is not a single successful instance
under the Anglo-French treaty to be pointed to.
A reference to the American practice, made by
.M
Drouyn de Lhuys, procured a reference to the United
States from the English Government, the reply to
which was that there it is held that the evidence
requisite for extradition " may consist of parole
testimony, or copies of the depositions and other
papers upon which an original warrant may have
been granted in France, legally authenticated, so as
to enable them to be received for similar purposes
in that country." Thus it appeared that the French
asked absolutely no more from us than they actually
received from the Americans in the way of con-
struction as to the procedure under the treaty, and
Lord Clarendon, while still in office, in view of al'
these facts, had a bill prepared, the whole and sole
effect of which is to enable magistrates to receive as
evidence copies of depositions when certified by
the Judge d'lnstruction and further authenticated
by the signature and seal of the Minister of Justice,
without requiring, as at present, that they should
be still further authenticated by the testimony o.f,
an inferior person. That bill it is which has passed
through the House of Lords under the auspices of
the present Lord Chancellor, and which has now
come down to the House of Commons. As it bas
the distinct adhesion of both the past and the pre-
sent Governments, it is not to be expected that it
will meet with serious opposition, and indeed the
correspondence now published shows conclusively i
that it has every principle of fairness and justice n
its favour. It is a matter for consideration whe-
ther the list of crimes for which extradition alone
can be claimed, and which at present only includes
murder, attempt to murder, forgery, and fraudulent
bankruptcy, should not, as suggested by the French
Government, be extended to other crimes equallY
heinous. It seems absurd, for instance, to deliver
up a criminal accused of forgery, and to refuse 111
extradition when accused of the far graver and
more odious crime of rape ; but, at any rate, as the
treaty now stands, it is important—not less to our
interest than to our honour—that means should be
adopted which will afford a probability of its provi-
sions being carried out.