The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-27 00:00:00

PIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

'."- FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
''STANDARD.—We will not affect to disguise the
regret, with which we refer to the proceedings of the two
Houses. pf Parliament last night. In the House of Lords,
Lord Brougham presented a petition from a number of
persons, -women. and girls, we believe, complaining
that the law had, deprived them of their occupation in
collieries, and:the Noble and Learned Lord took the op-
portunity of delivering very strong opinions against
any restraint upna the hours of labour, maintain-
ing, as we under-Stood his Lordship, that toil is
he lot of humanity, and that the tendency of
• vilisation is to aggravate that toil. His Lordship
also warmly protested against the policy of inter-
krence between employer and employed. He
can have little modesty who sets his own judgment
hastily against the judgment of Lord Brougham
—but, in a matter so thoroughly winnowed
as the question of excessive labour has been,
we cannot surrender our own conviction to any
authority, how highly soever we may respect
it. The very case brought forward by Lord
Brougham is indeed one of the strongest arguments
that we have met with against his Lordship's apparent
conclusion—the case of women and girls condemned
to the alternative of the disgusting, cruel, and de-
moralising labour of the mine, drawing others of their
sex into the same painful and loathsome con-
dition on one side—or starvation on the other.
Must not the system be odious and criminal
which creates such an alternative ? and is it
not right to put an end to such an execrable
system ? Goldsmith, we think it is, who tells
of a Chinese or a Tartar tyrant, who was
in the habit of burying obnoxious or suspected per-
sons in dungeons " deep, deep under ground." His
successor, a man of humanity, broke up these living
tombs, when one surviving tenant of them alone was
disinterred ; and he, when brought to the surface,
found the ight painful, discovered that he had out-
lived all his kindred and acquaintance, and the
• strength by which in youth and manhood he had
been able to earn a subsistence; he therefore
prayed to be restored to the grave from which he
had been dragged, and to the society of the toad and the
spider, his only familiar friends. Whether he was rein-
terred is not told ; but though Goldsmith cites the story,
as a proof of the power of habit, nobody that we have ever
heard of has used such an instance as an argument, ex-
cept to prove the barbarity of imposing habits and cir-
cumstances that unfit human beings for the support or
the enjoyment of life—habits really equivalent to the
mutilations formerly practised in the Netherlands,
to disable persons from pursuing particular trades. Toil
is the lot of man: no doubt in the sweat of his brow
must he eat his bread; but, according to the Divine ap-
pointment, in the sweat of his brow he may eat his
bread ; without adding th sacrifice of health, and
life, and liberty, and morals : toil, not excessive or
premature, or unnatural toil, is the lot of man.
We can imagine the burning scorn with which
Lord Brougham would have swept away the
arguments of any one who should have attempted to
justify negro slavery on the ground that " toil is the lot
of man." Is it true, again we ask, that the tendency of
civilisation is to render necessary severer and more
painful labour—labour breaking in upon the order
of our natural associations ? We think too reverently
of the dispositions of the Great Author of Nature
to believe this possible. We see perfect harmony
in all his other works, and we will not believe that
in his dealings with rdan he appoints society to civilise
and elevate his creatures on one side, and to degrade and
corrupt them on the other; and if any moral truth was
ever demonstrated, it is this—that of excessive, pre-
mature, and unnatural toil, degradation and corruption
are the necessary consequences. We know, indeed, but
. too well that the tendency of civilisation is to
tempt to the abuse of its opportunity; and of
what other blessing *ay not this be said? Civilisation
brings wealth, and wealth gives power, and power un
restrained will be always exercised in selfishness and in
injustice; but if civilisation brings wealth, it also brings
wisdom; and one of the earliest tasks of wisdom is to
impose restraints upon all irresponsible power, the
power of wealth in the first place. This is the
point at which we have now arrived, and we respect•
fully submit it to Lord Brougham as a scholar
and a philosc pher, that upon the decision now
made will depend the fate of the British empire;
we speak of the decision in principle, not the decision in
the matter of detail, though we own that we cannot
easily separate them. It is now decided that the in-
fluence of wealth may not be in any degree restrained ;
but that one rich man choosing to exact too much,
or too early, or unnatural, labour from his
fellow-creatures, shall be at liberty to do so, and
to ruin all who will not imitate his example
(for the first tyranny is exercised upon compe-
titors), if this decision be come to, then we refer the
Noble and Learned Lord to his own favourite author,
particularly to " The Oration on the Classes," for a
picture of the eoisequences Once more we repeat it,
• that the civilisation which grows only in wealth, and
not in wisdom and humanity, is a civilisation that leads
to perdition, and leads more rapidly the more rapid the
increase of wealth. It is an abuse of a Divine blessing,
and let those guilty of such abuse beware.
GLOBE.—Sir Robert Peel last evening moved for a
Select Committee of the House of Commons, to inquire
whether any—and if any, what—improvements are
required in the present law for the trial of contro-
verted Parliamentary elections. The present law
was an experiment ; and was, in the first instance,
enacted for a limited period, which expires with the
present session. Previously to its being enacted,
as a permanent measure, it is only reasonable that its
mode of operation should be ascertained. Its defects,
if any, will be thus pointed out, in order to their being
supplied in the new Bill ; and its powers extended, if
necessary, that it may be efficient for the purposes to
which it is to be applied. We are therefore induced to
hope that the Committee will suggest various improve-
ments in the existing law. Though an improvement
upon the old system of ballot—which rendered the
result of' a petition against a return a mere lottery—the
present system is far from securing a decision in accord-
ance with truth and justice. When the present law was
under discussion we ventured to suggest that the most
effectual way to secure satisfactory results from inquiries
into controverted elections, and thus prevent the corrupt
practices which had prevailed at Parliamentary elections,
on the one hand ; and, on the other, to protect successful
candidates from frivolous and vexatious petitions on the
other; would be to remove the, jurisdiction from the House
of Commons to another and indifferent tribunal. While
the House of Commons continues to be what
it is—and ceasing to be what it is, an arena of party
conflict, its very constitution ,must be changed, and
thus its value would be destroyed—party spirit must
pervade its members. That spirit will rule, more or
less, in its election committees, and influence the de-
cisions at which they arrive. Sir Robert Peel, it will
be seen, carefully abstained from meeting this very
essential point in the inquiries he has referred to the
Select Committee. The Right lion. Baronet shrinks
with instinctive dread from attempting so serious an
invasion of the prerogatives of the House of Commons.
Mr. Gisborne, in the course of some practical re-
marks of considerable value upon the working of the
existing law, shelved, from the party character of the
decisions of election committees appointed under it, the
necessity of providing for the exclusion of party spirit,
which yet biassed election committees, and rendered their
decisions justly suspected of being tainted by its influence.
The constitution of these committees renders them
liable to the suspicion which their decisions tend to con-
, firm. The committee is still a party tribunal. Three
Members are selected from one side of the House and
three from the other • and, by turns, a chairman is taken
from one side of the nouse to one committee, and from
the other side to the next. This mode of forming a
tribunal is most extraordinary, if the design of the
inquiry be a decision in conformity with evidence. To
our minds, it wears the appearance of an expedient,
and that not a wise one. It gives to each party, alter-
nately, a chairman who has the power to rule
every decision of the committee of which he is the
head, by his single vote. In numerous instances—as the
published reports of the proceedings of election com-
mittees under this law incontestably prove—the mem-
bers of the committee have been equally divided ac-
cording to their party politics ; and the chairman has
decided the point, for or against the petitioners, in con-
formity with his party views. Then, on the question
of costs—which, if the inquiry were to be conducted
according to, and the decision governed by, the practice
of every other court, would depend on the result of the in
quiry—there is a kind of compromise. A mutual
understanding seems to exist, whatever may be the
merits of the ease—however palpably frivolous and
vexatious the petition, or however corrupt the practices
proved against the sitting Member—there shall be no
decision by which costs will be imposed on the losing
party. " lire will say nothing about costs ; that may ap-
pear to be severe. The petition was, indeed, wholly un-
supported; and there does not appear to have been any
grounds for the inquiry." On the other hand,
" The bribery by the recognised agents of the
sitting member, was clearly proved: the intimida-
tion was terrible: the treating was on the largest
scale, and the member's committee scarcely took any
pains to conceal their participation in the illegal acts.
But, then, such proceedings are so common ! Every one
who has had anything to do with a severely contested
election, knows that these things arc of common occur-
rence." Thus, in the one case the vexatious petitions is
dismissed, and the member against whom it was pre-
sented is made to pay one or tWo thousand pounds to de-
fend his seat ; which would never have been attacked had
there not been a probability of getting a party chairman ;
nor then, the practice of the Courts been
adopted, and costs followed a failure of the attempt.
In the other case, the seat would, probably, never
have been defended, had the member who had ob-
tained his seat by illegal practices not hoped, in the first
place, that the committee would be presided .over by a
chairman taken from his own side of the House, and
therefore disposed to serve him where the case pressed
with most severity against him ; or, if he should be un-
fortunate in the order in which the chairman was
appointed, there would he the satisfaction of knowing
that he would escape the costs of the inquiry ; except
such portion of them as were incurred by himself, which
he could make as light as he pleased, by giving up the
defence as soon as he ascertained the party complexion
of the chairman.

RAILWAY TIMPASS.—On Monday; a carter from
'the country was fined by Sheriff Skene in W. for trespassing
on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway on the previous
Saturday night. It appears that the man, who was tipsy, had
been apprehended walking along the line from Kirkintolloch
to Cowlairs, and that the night train had passed him on the
way. It is certainly singular that heavy fines 7quire to be
inflicted on people for the purpose of more impressively warn •
ing them to be careful of their own lives 1 Had this man been
eun over bYthe night train, oh whom would the have
rested P—Glusgow Post.