The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-13 00:00:00

THE JUDGMENT ON T. 121,.: KOSSUTH
NO IL'S.

It was a matter of course that the judgment de-
livered on Saturday last by Vice-Chancellor Sir John
Stuart, in the case of the Emperor of Austria
versus Messrs. Day and M. Kossuth, should be ap-
pealed against. We believe that the general opinion
of the bar is entirely unfavourable to the judgment,
and that no man of any eminence, except the
plaintiff's counsel, hopes to see it confirmed. Sir
John Stuart argues that the Court of Chancery
has a jurisdiction in the matter, on the ground
that the right of the sovereign power to regulate
the currency of any realm is not a municipal
right, but a great pub'', right, recognised and
protected by the law of nations ; that England re-
cognises the right by enacting statutes against the
counterfeiting or forging of foreign money ; and
that, in the absence of any other protection for it,
the Court of Chancery is bound to step in and shield
it. The argument is a very strange one on many
accounts. The English statutes against counter-
feiting and forging foreign money are rather an
argument against our recognition of the supposed
international law than in its favour, seeing that the
statutes would scarcely be enacted if the common
law of nations already afforded protection. Besides,
their purpose is rather to protect the victims of
false coin or forged notes in this country than to
protect the foreigner, who is usually held competent
to protect himself. Again, the interfereece of the
Court of Chancery is limited to the defence of pro-
perty rights where there is no other remedy, and it
might possibly be argued that for the manufacture
of counterfeit notes or coin in England the only
sufficient remedy would be in England. But the
issue of notes which bear expressly on the face of
them the political assumption under which alone
they could be available stands on quite different
ground. The Emperor's property rights (if they
are recognised by England at all) in the currency
of Hungary are not endangered by these notes in
any way, though they clearly contemplate a time
when these property rights may have ceased toexist
de facto. 'I hey assume a political convulsion as the
only agency which would turn them to account,
and, therefore, if they supplant the Emperor's pro-
perty rights at all, it is only through his political
rights. If any Austrian, dreaming of a conquest
of England, were to prepare orders in his own name
on her Majesty's Exchequer for money no one would
imagine that such orders, openly signed by a per-
son without authority or right, would be am inva-
sion of her Majesty's property rights, which a Ger-
man Court of Chancer 3 could restrain, because they
could by no means injure or affect that property,
even though after a certain political catastrophe
they might conceivably take the place of Treasury
warrants • yet this is exactly a similar case. Instru-
ments which have no tendency to excite a revolu-
tion (or even if they had would certainly not be
liable to the jurisdiction of a Chancery Court on
that account), which, if they ever have any effi-
ciency at all, can acquire it only through political
events, strike, in Sir John Stuart's opinion, not at
the political stability, but at the civil property of
the Emperor of Austria. The precedent quoted by
Sir John Stuart is a thoroughly unfortunate one.
He tells us that in the case of Farina v. Silverlock
an injunction was granted against the issue of cer-
tain eau de Cologne labels professing to state that
the contents of the bottles bearing them was eau de
Cologne manufactured by Farina, although it was
not proved that they had been or were intended to
be put to any use injurious to Farina, simply on the
ground that it was probable they might be so put.
That judgment, however, was overruled on appeal,
and overruled expressly because the defendant
showed that under certain contingencies they were
capable of a p rfectly lawful use. The same may
be said of these Kcssuth notes. They are only an
inchoate instrument, capable of uses, if they should
ever have any, which may be either lawful or un-
lawful in Austria, according to the course of future
events. It is indeed quite clear that if Kossuth
has been guilty of any breach of law at
_all, it is a
criminal offence, a political conspiracy—if that be
an offence under our law—to upset the power of the
Emperor of Austria in Hungary. This is a case for
a Common Law Court and a jury. It is a case,
doubtless, which could not be successfully pressed
by the Emperor of Austria before an English jury,
both because the notes are very insufficient evidence
of any conspiracy to upset the power of the Austria'
Government, and because it is by no means certain
that such a conspiracy, if proved, is a criminal
offence by English law at all. But if there has
been a breach of law at all it was of the law of
conspiracy. It is incredible that the Court of
Chancery can have any jurisdiction in the matter,
and it is something of an artifice in the Emperor of
Austria's representatives to take their case into the
only English Court in which, from personal rather
than legal considerations, there was any lope of
their getting a favourable judw.ent. We coal.
dently expect that the decision will be reversed by
the Court above Economist.