The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS. ,

F'RC.•S: IB EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

GLOB E.-I—W ith reference to the conversation last
night in the Lords on the subject of New Zealand, we
would submit that the name of Hibernia Minor, or
Little Ireland, should be conferred upon that colony,
while it remains in the hands of the high and mighty
powers now subsidised by the present Government.
The Wakefield ascendancy there demands a small
war-steamer, and a small standing army, to maintain it
against the aborigines, just as the analogous parties in
Ireland proper. The Earl of Ripon, after' stating that
a part of their demand had, for the present, be en com-
plied with, proceeded to say, " There certainly were
means within the reach of the colonists which they might
adopt for their own safety. The Governor was authorised
to levy a militia, and to establish a constabulary force, as"
in Ireland, fur their safety; and, when there were 10,000
inhabitants, he could not see why such a course might not
readily be adopted." We shall not despairof a New Zealand
edition of the Boyne Water, with appropriate variations,
and a standing toast of " The Glorious and Immortal
memory of Edward Gibbon Wakefield ! " It is worth
observing that this mercantile association of sturdy
beggars, which, after calumniating every Government,
till it bullied them out of alms, is now putting forward
the somewhat more serious petition for armies—is
the body which prepared its operations by attacking
the missionaries for their land speculations. We
do not recollect that the missionaries pushed their
land jobs till they wanted armed force to back them.
We suspect that the blackening system worked against
them had much the same meaning and motive as that
which Spanish and Portuguese rapacity carried out in
the New World against the Jesuits. By their fruits ye
shall know them. The Jesuits and William Penn con •
trived to do without fleets and armies. Again, this is
the body which wanted nothing of Government but
to be let alone ! Fight for us--pay our bills—and
let us alone with our domains and our dividends !
As the subject is thus again obtruded before the
public, we recur briefly to some curious treatment of it
by the Herald of yesterday. The Herald, after borrow-
ing some of our old objections to " the Wakefield sys-
tem," and after handling quite as severely as we have
done its application in New Zealand, concludes by
saying that Mr. Wakefield's principles are in
tha main sound, and that the Globe Misappre-
hends them. We suppose its motive is to pat Mr.
Wakefield on the back for supporting Govern-
ment in Canada. It does not tell us on what
point we misapprehend " Mr. Wakefield's principles."
Indeed, that is what these colonial Mormonites never do.
They never condescend to argument in defence of their
" Book of Mormon." If you criticise it you are simply
a blasphemer ; and the faithful have nothing to say to
you. The Word is written on plates of imperish-
able gold, but to infidel eyes invisible. We do not
think it worth disputing in the abstract, whether
or no we apprehend the Wakefield system. It
is disputing whether you have hold of Proteus—if
you had, he will have slipped through your fingers
the next minute. What we have quarrelled with as
" the Wakefield system," is the system of blowing
colonial bubbles, on pretence of having discovered a
principle by which new countries are at once assimilated
to old ones, and by which capitalists are assured of pro-
fitable returns fur investments in colonial wastes at
prices calculated by what their value is to be, after
labour has successfully been applied to them. It is the
system of fixing an anticipated and artificial value on
colonial wastes, a value which is to be fixed high enough
to serve the double purpose of transporting labourers out,
and of securing that they shall not seek to cultivate on
their own account—it is this that we have understood as
the Wakefield system. It is on the strength of the sup-
posed self-supporting vigour, and profitable returns, of
the process of transporting masses of labour to distant
a astes—that the means have been raised for recent colo-
nial adventures—and the fingers burned of all those Who
have had any finger in them. If the " system" is tacitly
dropping out of all its original pretensions to a com-
plete, circular, self-supporting character ;—if its famous
central doctrine of sufficient prices for waste lands is
dwindling down from its fine frenzy of exorbitance, and
sinking gradually to the level of the rational practice of
the United States— why doubtless it may become
" Fine by degrees, and beautifully less,'
—till nobody can have any objection to it, any more
than to the corpulence of ",the fat single gentleman six
months ago." All its artificial proportions of labour and
capital may shrink into common sense. In the mean
time, we repeat that the Herald, while assuming to direct
a vague censure against our strictures on that " system,"
has borrowed the main point we have always urged,
and applied it precisely as we might have done, as one
cause of the present fix in New Zealand.
STANDARD.—The Ecclesiastical Courts Bill was
last night read a third time and passed in the House of
Lords. There was the usual amount of carping on the
part of the Opposition Peers, with something more than
the usual injustice. The principal topic of complaint
was the permitted existence of the diocesan courts—
courts, however, which the same Noble Lords who com-
plain of them as an intolerable nuisance, permitted
during ten years of office to remain undisturbed, and to
remain in company with some hundreds of other alleged
" nuisances" now to be swept away. This however, is
not the only inconsistency-, or the greatest of which the
Opposition Lords are guilty in this matter. If
we are not mistaken, they are all, without ex-
ception, zealous promoters of the Bill for establish-
ing local common-law courts, on the principle
that justice ought to be brought as near as possible to
every man's door. Is there not, then, a gross self-con-
trad,ction in their complaint that the metropolis is not
to absorb all the courts of ecclesiastical law ? The
diocesan courts are, however, said to be sub-
stantive nuisances, the toleration of which in
any form sanctions the mischief of which
they are the cause. This, however, is going
something too fast : a Court may be a nuisance or a
benefit, according as it is constituted or conducted.
Even our most favourite tribunals will be confessed
by all to be but mixed goods, and though no doubt
what is excellent in them predominates, the very
fact that supplementary tribunals are called for,
and that these supplementary tribunals are not
to imitate them very exactly, shows that they
do not give entire satisfaction. We need scarcely
make it a question whether a Local Courts
Bill, which should establish tribunals as uncertain,
tedious, and expensive as the courts at Westminster,
would be accepted with much gratitude by the
country. Before assuming, then, that the diocesan
courts mast remain perpetual nuisances, may
it not be fair to inquire whether these
courts cannot be subjected to a reform, ana-
logous to that proposed in the local common law Courts?
For ourselves, we have long since arrived at the con-
clusi,!n that the law reform which commences with the
chopping and changing of courts, the multiplying or
diminishing the number ofjudges, is a reform begun at
the wrong end. The first evil to be contended
against is the process, which a number of ingenious
and expert and deeply-interested men always
are and always will be labouring to make as
expensive as possible. Let the Legislature con-
stantly keep its eye upon this point, and it will be a mat
ter of comparative indifference whether the courts are
" more and merrier," or " fewer with better cheer." The
work, however, properly belongs to the Legislature, and
(we say it with all respect) not to the judges or other
heads of courts. The pursuit of perfect justice grows
with these Magistrates to a passion, which they will
arrays indulge at whatever expense of labour to
themselves, or of time or money to unhappy clients ;
and thus contrivance after contrivance to exclude pos-
sible wrong is heaped up in the portals, until the
temple of justice is closed against nearly ev, ry one.
What is-the use of our principal courts to ninety-nine
Out of a hundred of the community? Is it not certain
that for one wrong they right they shelter a thousand
that they might right, if their process was simpler and
less costly? The Legislature has less reason to indulge
the unhappy passion for an unattainable perfection of
justice, and therefore, it might perhaps be prevailed upon
to enforce a chogrtind simple process, that no doubt
would occasionally cause injustice, but which would
generally work well, and would work for all; and until
the Legislature does this all law reforms will be illu-
sive. As regards th• ecclesiastical courts, we cannot
see why they must still adhere to the, old cumbrous pro-
cess of the Roman lasi, now laid aside in every country
of Europe, even in those countries where the maxims of
the Roman law constitute the basis of the national code?
Let the diocesau courts, however, be reformed in respect
of process, and every argument in favour of the loeal
common law courts applies to recommend their preser-
vation.

• THE COAL TRADE.—The deputation from the coal
mining interest of NorthuMberland and Durham, which was
sent to London to endeavour to induce the Government to
repeal the duty on coals sent foreign, consisted of Messrs.
Morton, Pease, H. Taylor, Johnson, and N. Wood, who were
joined in London by other gentlemen from Wales, Scotland,
and Yorkshire, and accompanied by other parties connected
with the coal mining interest, viz., Messrs. Plews, Turnbull,
Price, Cadell, Briggs, &c. The following Members of Par-.
liament united with the deputation in calling upon Sir R.
Peel and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Wednesday
last, viz., Lords Marsham and H. Vane, Sir E. Filmer, -and
Messrs. Bell, Bowes, Wawn, D. Barclay, H. Mitealfe, Smol- !
lett, Ord, Cayley, Bright, and M'Lean. The deputation
having enforced their views of this obnoxious and injurious
impost, retired with polite acknowledgments for the informa-
tion conveyed, but without any intimation of the views of
Government. The deputation further begged that any at-
tempt to increase the London taxation, as contemplated by
the Commissioners for Improving the Thames, might be dis-
countenanced. They afterwards saw the Earl of Lincoln, as
Chairman of the Commissioners, on the same subject.--
Durham Advertiser.
METROPOLIS IMPROVEMENTS.—Monday, in con-
sequence of the entire removal of the houses adjoining the
workhouse of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, in Belton-street, Long-
acre, the site for a new church to be erected there was being
a
marked out, the tower of which will be built upon the exact
where stood the public-house the Guy, Earl of Warwick,
which existed for about 200 years. The sacred edifice,
which will be called " Christ Church, St. Giles-in-the-
Fields," will be constructed with Caen stone and Kentish
rags, and will be made capable of containing about 1,000
persons, all the sittings being free. There will be galleries,'
and the interior of the edifice will be 50 feet wide, by 70 feet
long. A part of the sittings in the gallery will be allowed to
the paupers of the workhouse, who will have an entrance for
themselves at the east end. The tower will be upwards of
100 feet high.
The cost of it will be rather more than 4,0001.,
a portion of which is provided from the Metropolis Churches'
Fund, but the greater part has been raised by voluntary con-
tributions from the princiol inhabitants. A sum will also
be subscribed for the endowment of the church. Adjoining
tome iitein pl
tahniss
po f
irt the
of
the
this building will be some spacious houses erected
.according
th
Commissionersmetroroiis.
WHITE. WITCHCRAPT.—A, few weeks ago, the cot
of the Woods and Forests,-
'
which, when completed, will! make a very great improve-
tage of a labourer in the village of Martin, near Great Bedwin,
of his hands.
al,
Wilts, was robbed of 65., and strange to say, tho robber was
eyess p e c t anded partiesone
discovered by means of a" cunning man," who was to deprive
the thiefto bringof both
the h issa
o o kTi -g ass ordeal
was ,
and-the real culprit, alarmed at the process, confessed the rob-
bery, and restored the money.—Bath Journal.