The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-04 00:00:00

gPiR/T of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE ILV/LNING ra.enns OF THIS DAT.
GLOBE.—We see with unfeigned satisfaction the
sort of revival which seems taking place, in the sense
of social relations between the wealthier classes in the
country and its peasantry. An instance of this will
be found in our columns in the meeting at Ongar,
addressed by Mr. Raikes Currie. We cannot,
however, dissemble to ourselves that there are
lions in the path to a more healthy harmony
between lower and higher classes. That the
atmostphere, in some Way or other, will at
length clear itself, cannot be doubted; but that
it will clear itself without storms, we dare not pre-
dict. There is so much to readjust, after so long an
artificial regimen, and so little certainty, at any time,
amongst mankind, of vigorous measures of improve-
ment from higher quarters, and definite and moderate
views in lower ones—or rather, there is so complete a
certainty, at all crises, of more or less deficiency in
both—that, while we rejoice in the evidences of an
improved spirit, we cannot but rejoice with trem
bling. This is the way to be dubbed alarmists
—a charge for which we care very little. Those
who can view without alarm the incongruities of our
present situation, and the provocations to criticism of
that situation administered from higher quarters to
multitudes, who were never so expressly called on to
canvass their condition before—those who can look
upon all this, and remember that, whoever may stir
social questions, there are always aspiring or embit-
tered spirits in society eager, in great numbers, to
work them, and to possess the people, called to
discuss those questions, with belief in the efficacy
of only such measures as only men malcontent with
the whole order of things would propose—but which
must find a fearfully sympathetic chord in breasts
enduring hardships under that order—those who can
regard these commencements, and contemplate those
hardly to be shunned consequences, without alarm—
shall be welcome to call us alarmists, without
ruffling our equanimity. The truth is, that
the higher order of men (we mean higher
placed socially) whom awakened feelings of social
relations prompt to express generous sentiments
to those classes which have least reason for attach-
ment to their existing state, and perhaps a little too
apt to enjoy the pleasurable novelty of their own
posture, without fully appreciating the claims and
responsibility which must ensue. We consider
Young England, in some of its abler organs, a little
in this predicament. A gentle glow of enthusiasm in
the privileged may pass by a too easy transition
into a fierce and uncontrollable fanaticism in the
unprivileged. The labouring people are little ac-
customed to excitement on social questions ; but let
them be once fairly excited on them, and we do not
think a second Coningsby, or a second Bolingbroke
(see Smythe's " Historic Fancies"), will prove their
congenial or lasting orders. For such reasons, or
under such impressions as we have slightly indicated,
what we most desiderate at the present crisis are two
things—sobriety and decision. Sobriety in the
sentiments which are now so widely ventilated on
social themes—decision, and self-sacrifice, in the
measures of practical improvement. These may be too
much for our hopes, but they are net too much for our
needs. We are deeply persuaded that sanguineness
in words, and selfishness in acts, will soon come to a
settling day. Poets and novelists may excite agree-
ably " the new generation ;" but excitement of suf-
fering men will be no poetical or imaginative matter.
Stern realities must either be soberly and unsel-
fishly dealt with by our statesmen ; or sterner
realities will spring out of that very awakening
which has now begun amongst gentlemen. Generous
sentiments are a luxury ; indolent ease is a
luxury too. The utterance of the one, and indul-
gence of the other combined—will be public ruin.
It is, therefore, we read with particular pleasure
speeches like these of Mr. Raikes Currie ; and we
entirely agree with him in regarding religion as the
great principle of social _harmony. But then it must
be social religion—it must be something really bind-
ing and connecting classes. It will no longer do
to recommend religion, like cheap soup, as an excel-
lent thing fur the poor. The sense of religion
must be shown in public action ; not in mere
preachments. In holding out to the peasantry the
consoling prospect of a future life, gentlemen must
deal with the affairs of the country, and with their
own, so as to show that their own souls are not
swallowed up in the present. Inequalities involving
miseries must be mitigated—those of style and station
excite no envy amongst the masses, because they do
not stand near enough to them. The enviers of these
are a rather higher class ; though it may happen, as
formerly it has happened, that the " proud man's con-
tumely," galling those just below, may supply leaders
for the more substantially suffering multitudes.
STANDARD.—We copy from the Times a long,
and not very temperate, article upon some recent
transactions in the island of Jersey. We do not pin
our faith, as it is pretty well known, upon the accu-
racy of all our Morning Contemporary's statements ;
nor are we very confident in the candour with
which it reasons, even from facts which it
states accurately. Upon the merits of the par-
ticular case referred to, therefore, we offer no
opinion. Still there is enough in the anomalous
condition of the Channel Islands to suggest a
suspicion that some great change in that condition
is required, not only for the good of the empire
generally, but for the benefit of the islanders them-
selves, and particular inquiries have led us to the
conviction that in Jersey, at least, scarcely any
change can be made which must not be an improve-
ment. We are no admirers of innovation, and
hold still, as we have always held, that existing
institutions have this twofold presumption in their
favour—that they have obtained the approbation of
the good and wise of successive generations, and
that society has commonly so adapted itself to these
institutions as to render a violent revulsion from them
likely to produce as much evil as good. But this
presumption, of course, involves the qualification that
the institutions have really been approved of by free
agents, and that the social state has not outgrown
them, instead of adapting itself to them. Now this
qualification applies, as we think, fully to the state of
Jersey, (we confine ourselves, as far as possible, to that
among the Channel Islands, as the one to which our
investigation has been most particularly directed).
The constitution of government in the island is a
singularity in the whole civilised world, the sole exist-
ing remnant of the political system of the eleventh
century. Now, to believe that this constitution has
had the deliberate approbation of the Jersey people
for eight centuries, is to suppose that the inha-
bitants of the island differ from all the rest of
mankind. The history of the island, however, at-
tests the fact, that the people of Jersey have not
been free agents in the matter, if by free agency we
are to understand the exemption from a sinister
influence, as well as from brute force. The history of
the island tells why the Jersey people have rejected
the benefit of English law, and the honour of consti-
tuting an integral part of the metropolitan state
of this great empire; or, if history do not give
full satisfaction upon the point, perhaps the matter
will be found fully elucidated in the records of the
Customs' Board. And how has this political isolation
operated upon the people of Jersey ? Good laws are
among the first wants of a people, and what sort
of laws have they in Jersey ? The old Norman code,
the old martial law of a purely military age—the
law • which has been rejected by all the nations
of Europe that ever submitted to it, and to which in
its extent England never would submit. The Con-
tumier is still the "institute" of Jersey law, and even
its language is preserved in legal proceedings five
centuries after that language has been rejected from
our English courts. " The common law of England,"
that wisest code that ever was framed by hu-
man wisdom, because resting upon the primary
principles of justice; which few and plain principles
were, by the provisions of our Saxon ancestors,
adapted to the equal benefit of all classes of the
people—the common law of England, the basis of
our own legal constitution, and the basis of tha
constitution of the United States as well as of the
Code Napoleon, by which so much of Europe is
now governed—the common law of England has
no place, never had, any place, in Jersey.
In England men are sure of having justice adminis-
tered in consonance with equity and reason ; in the
United States also, and in France, we meet only the
principle of our common law, but between the shores
of France and England, and in the dominions of
Queen Victoria, we find a law which no Englishman
can fully understand, and which, as far es
it is intelligible, fills one with disgust. The
Englishman on one side and the Frenchman on the
other 'have spurned this most absurd law (moat
absurd as applied to our age) ; but it is the law of a
British island, but a few leagues from London,
according to our present rate of travelling not
above 10 or 12 hours journey from Westminster
Hall. If this were simply absurd, that would be
bad enough, for absurdities cannot be safely in-
dulged in matters of government; but it is now
greatly worse than absurd. The Channel Islands,
hitherto and still of little value to the empire, may
be made of great importance in the new mili-
tary and commercial relations which Europe
has been made to assume by the introduction of
steam navigation. But, in order to obtain this
importance, they must be made rich ; and to be
made rich they must be made thoroughly and in
all respects English—English in language as they are
already in habits and interests ; subject to English
laws and to the English system of revenue. Rich the
islands will never be while Englishmen fear to trust
their property, and even their persons, to the mercy
of the local laws. In such case the highest
destiny of the islands must be to con-
stitute a refuge for insolvents and an en-
trepot for smugglers. Surely the inhabitants will
be ambitious of a higher destiny. Private interests
will of course excite an opposition to such a reform,
but it cannot be that the mass of men living
within sound of British law, and having it offered