The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-09 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 1857.

The question of the future Government of
Greece is once more on the tapis, and, it i 3 more
than probable, will shortly occasion diplomatic
contests in a new European Congress. The visit
of the King of BAVARIA. to Paris, is for the pur-
pose of settling the question, and securing the
goodw ill and co-operation of the EMPEROR on
behalf of his brother, King OTHO, and the other
members of his family, who are not prepared to
accede to the conditions on which the Crown was
conferred on the new dynasty. Great care must
be taken that the objects which induced the Euro-
pean Powers to interfere shall not again be de-
feated, as has hitherto been the case. King OTHO
has been but in name a king. Ho has been to all in-
tents and purposes a mere tool of Russia, who had
no will of his own, but received, and acted on,
intimations direct from St. Petersburgh,
and whenever he hesitated, the object was
achieved, through the openly acknowledged
Muscovite tendencies and predilections of Queen
AMALIA ! His conduct and intentions during the
late war deserved exemplary chastisement.
Although the very essence of the Contract by
means whereof he ascended the throne, was com-
plete neutrality, he became the unblushing par-
tisan of the CzAR, and sanctioned proceedings
which should have restored him to a private
station, as a Prince of the blood Royal of Bavaria.
These offances have, however, to a certain extent
been condoned. If the European Powers have
accepted his own recognisances for his future good
conduct, it is beneath their dignity to rip up by-
gone events, or to set aside the amnesty they have
—perhaps injudiciously—accorded.

But, certainly, King OTHO has no grounds to
look for any extraordinary favour at their hands.
Ile cannot anticipate more than impunity for the
past. They cannot travel out of their way to
afford him opportunities of again violating his
promises and undertakings, and of displaying
wilful and deliberate treachery, where all should
be straightforward and above board.

We have done quite enough for kings and
kingcraft. It is time that we should now look to
the interests of the peoples. It would have been
far better if, when the Turkish supremacy was
shaken off, an independent republic had been
established, as was desired by the vast majority,
if not the entire population of the country. The
veto of the Autocrat, however, prevailed. NICHOLAS
looked on a republic as the bete noir, to be re-
sisted with all his power, and all his strength ; and
he was not then known, or to U3O a vulgar but
expressive illustration, " his measure had not
been taken." Now, "nom changeons tout cela."
The ipse dixit of Russia has lost its weight. She
can no longer bamboozle the world by pretended
moderation, and must be contented to have a
voice in the Councils, in place of dictating to the
rest of Europe.

The appanages of Greece. are not sufficient for
a monarchy. The people cannot afford the costly
but useless pagemutry attached to the office. Let
Greece alone—and s/.le will do as well as Can be
expected ! If she should misbehave as a Republic,
the same power exists of binding her over to keep
the peace in the case of a republic as well as of a
monarchy. °TITO'S dynasty will probably expire at
Lis death ; for there is no reasonable prospect of
direct heirs, nor is there a chance that his ap-
pointed suc3essor will conform to the Greek re-
ligion—an indispensable condition on the part of
the future Sovereign. LA the future of Greece
be fairly dealt with—let the interests of the peo-
pl•) be properly regarded—and, with some trifling
safeguards, that course will also be found to be
most in accordance with the interests of Europe,
and most conducive to no peace and tranquil-
lity of the civilised world.

Last night the "Married Womens' Rever-
sionary Interest Bill" was read a secnd time, by
a large maj)rity, there being 151 for, and but 6
against its principle. We regret to find that
Sir ERSKINE PERRY, who has so ably advocated
the rights and privileges of the weaker sea, should
have become the leader of the opposition to a just
and salutary measure, which seems indispensable to
the independence which he is so desirous of advanc-
ing. There cannot be a single argument advanced
against the proposition. If a woman should be
held competent t 3 deal with property in actual
possession, why should she not also be able to
dispose of any reversionary interests to which she
may be entitled ? She is already enabled to do so
with respect to land, and the object of the present
bill is merely to assimilate her powers respecting
real personal property. - No mischief has arisen
from the former provisions which have been many
years in operation, and the time has gone by
when any obsolete distinctions 02U be recognised
by the Legislature.

We agree in one respect with Sir E. PELItY.
It would have been well if the two measures could
have been brought forward pari passu, so that
the principles should be simultaneously discussed.
They ought, is fact, to be amalgamated, and
made part of one general measure, to ensure the
perfect freedom and independence of the femme
couverte. The sill will not, of course, interfere
with any settlement. If the parent or guardian
had provided by prenuptial settlement that there
should be no power of anticipation, that limitation
will still exist. But if the settlement has
been silent on the subject, or if there
has been no settlement, all the actual
or contingent prop3rty of the wife should be se-
cured for her sole and separate interest, free from
the debts, control, and interference of the hus-
band. It is impossible to blow hot and cold at
I the same time, and if Sir E. PERRY desires the
independence of married women, he must permit
it to be placed on the broadest foundation.
There are many cases in which the interests
both of husband and wife, and still more, of their
issue, are involved in the power of giving a
valid security on the wife's contingent re-
mainders in personal, as well as in real, estates.
All parties are mabrially injured by the impedi-
ments thrown in the way of the free disposition
of property. There may unquestionably be cases
where the
difficulty is favourable to the wife's
interest, but there are ten times the number the
other way, where she herself suffers in connection
with her husband,
regulations she Under the contemplated
must be examined, "separate and
apart" from her husband, by one of the Judges
of the Court of Common Pleas, He will take
care to ascertain that there has been no undue

influence, that the arrangement has been en-
tered into with her own free will and assent.

The principle of the Bill, simply, is to place the
wife's reversions to real and personal property cm
the same footinz. To that we cannot see any
reasonable objection, and while we cordially con-
cur with Sir E. PERRY in desiring to render full
and complete justice in every particular to mar-
ried women, wo cannot reject what is good in
itself, because all that we should desire does not
receive the legislative sanction at the same time,
land by the same act.

" Between two stools"—we all know the rest
of the proverb. It is an axiom unfortunately of
universal and familiar application. It is just the
very reverse of Cinderella's glass slipper—lt fits
everybody—and wo are all of us, one after ano-
ther, continually putting our foot in it. About
the last case in point that has come to our know-
ledge, not to our knowledge exclusively, but, on
the contrary, to that of the entire community, is,
to the adage referred ts, what may be called a
political, or rather a parliamentary, or more
strictly speaking an administrative illustration of
its truthfulness. To be plain :—lt will be remem-
bered that last session the Statute Law Commission
was, so to speak, in active operation. It will also
be borne in recollection that for a very long time
—we don't know how long, but certainly for
many months past-we have been " dreaming,
dozing"—about the expediency of having a Mini-
ster of Justice appointed. A now Secretary of
State empowered to preside over one of the most
complicated and yet hitheito, be it said, one of
the most neglected departments (so far as any
comprehensive supervision is concerned) in the
whole of our elaborately involved, wonderfully
intricate, and exquisitely delicate machinery of
Administration. Very well—we at once take
the reply to this for granted—the reply, so let us
phrase it, to this biocular glance of retrospec-
tion. Everybody, of course, does recollect per-
fectly well—first of all the "activity" of the
Statute Law Commission, and secondly the pro-
tracted "talk" about the expediency of creating
at last a Minister of Justice. Yet it is now
matter of notoriety that the labours of the former
have been rendered altogether nugatory by reason
of the latter—this latter remaining, of course, all
the while the merest political daydream, without
ono perceptible glimpse through it as yet of its
speedy or even remote realisation. How the
popular hopes have fallen to the ground between
these two stools, that of the looked-for Secretary-
ship of State and the late Statute Law Com-
mission, was rendered glaringly apparent last
evening, thanks to the pertinent enquiries
addressed to the Treasury Bench by the hon. and
learned gentleman the member for Midhurst.
The reply elicited by Mr. WARREN from the
Right Hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster amounted literally, in simple
terms, to this—that the committee of last session
was not reappointed this session, because, "in
consequence of the opinion expressed by the
House," Ministers had under their serious con-
templation the project already mentioned of ap-
pointing a new Secretary of State, to be entitled
a Minister of Justice. "If that were found
practicable," observed Mr. BAINES, with delight-
ful sang froid, yesterday, by way of giving a
triumphant close to his explanations—" If that
were found practicable [Not a hint, observe, as
to the probability of its ever being found practi-
cable!] the revision of the current legislation
would be one of that Minister's most proper func-
tions [" Hear, hear," quoth Hon. Mem-
bers] and in that event it would be un-
necessary to appoint any committee." And
again 11.013. Members cried "Hear, bear.'
Really we don't see what there was at all to
applaud in those purely abstract definitions from
entirely hypothetical contingencies. So-and-So
"would be" ono of that imaginary Minister's
most proper functions ! And, "in that event,"
moreover, it is added it would—then—be unneces-
sary to appoint the Statute Law Commission. In
what event? Why, forsooth, in the event of the
Government finding it (perhaps somewhere about
the Greek Kalends), expedient to appoint a
Minister of Justice at all 1 Or, as Mr. BAINES
bluntly expresses it, talking of the project—" If
that were found ticable." And so the matter
drops—leaving questions like the ruck on
the Derby Day—nowhere. That is all the satis-
faction we get in regard to each separately. No
Minister of Justice. No Statute Law Commis-
sion. Both together would be unnecessary. One
at any rate would be superfluous. And there-
fore—we have neither I 1

The Metropolitan Communications in 1855
furnished an important subject for investigation
befere a &led Committee of the House of Com-
mon'. And in the Report of that Committee
there was comprised the following earnest recom-
mendation :—" That all restrictions upon the
natural and convenient flow of traffic,
such, for example, as Tolls on the Roads
and Bridges in the Metropolitan Districts,
should as a Ger eral Rule be Removed !"
Yet, in despite of this recommendation by the
Select Committee of 1855 upon our " Metro-
politan Commun.'cations" —we are threat-
ened with another Toll Bridge in the
new bridge, absurdly called Chelsea Bridge—
spanning the river between Pimlico and Battersea
—so that instead of removing the old tolls, there
is actually an immediate prospect of their increase
by the creation of a new one. We cannot for an
instant entertain the notion that this preposterous
project will be realised. Particularly with a bold
and sagacious administrator like Sir BENJAMIN HALL
as our Minister of Public Works at the time. The
folly of such a non sequitur as this to the whale
scheme of metropolitan improvements, latterly
set afoot, is really and truly to us inconceivable.
We cannot credit it. We look hopefully for the
opportune nipping of so absurd a notion in the
bud, to the.very Bill which was introduced only
late last night by Sir BENJAMIN HALL at the close
of yesterday's proceedings in the House of Com-
mons. A Bill designed b extend the time
for enabling the Commissioners of Her
MAJESTY'S Works to complete the improve,
ments in Pinalica and the neighbourhood
of Buckingham Palace—the said bill being at
once read a first time, and forthwith referred
pro forma to the private bill ex miners. Let Sir
BENJAMIN HALL, while there is yet time, look to
it, that the expectations of the public in this par-
ticular meet not with an egregious disappointment.
" While there is yet time," for there is yet time, let
our English Minister of Public Works remember
the recommendation of the Committee of 1855
and act upon it. If the Right Hon. Baronet be
only true to himself, and to the public generally
—The Toll Reform Committee will not have
striven in a rational, and we had almost worded it, a
national cause, in vain. Then, in that event, we
shall have in 1857 a new Free Bridge, instead of
a new Toll Bridge across the Thamesand a
sudden and satisfactory close will be put to the
heartburnings and indignation now agitating the
inhabitants of Pimlico, Chelsea, Lambeth, Vaux-
hall, Battersea, Knightsbridge, and neighbouring
places.