The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-02 00:00:00

SD AY EV

Council had power to execute if this Bill was not passed."
This objection might have been taken ab initio ; and
would have prevented the unfortunate vote on its second
reading. To take the objection after the House of
Peers had, by a considerable majority, in effect passed
the Bill, was most ungracious. The Duke of Newcastle pro-
nounced the course taken by the Government as a "manoeuvre
—a State trick." The meekness of the Episcopal Bench was
ruffled; and Bishops spoke unadvisedly with their lips;
while lay Peers were fired with holy zeal in behalf of the
Church. The Duke looked more than usually grim, un-
moved by the discord that prevailed ; and Earl Powis
closed the scene by referring to precedents which showed
that, with reference to similar measures, the preroga-
tive of the Crown had never been interposed, as a bar-
rier to their being entertained by their Lordships' House. It
is obvious that the prerogative of the Crown was never
thought of by the Government until it became necessary
to get rid of the Bill, which was fraught with the elements I
of discord among the members of the Cabinet. To pre-
vent this, the prerogative of the Crown was made a pre-
text for getting rid of the Bill—a mere stalking-horse,
kept in ambush, to be used whenever the exigences of
a tottering Ministry require its aid to serve their pur-
poses. If we turn to the Commons, we see the Premier
compelled, from very shame; to forego his purpose respecting
the Irish Registration Bill. The second reading of the mea-
sure was announced by Sir Robert Peel for last evening.
After shelving one Government measure after another, as im-
possible to be proceeded with at this late period of the ses-
sion, the order of the day was moved; the Irish Registration
Bill was to be discussed, and then its further considera-
tion postponed till the next session. This trifling with
the public time, and "manoeuvre" to entrap Members
into premature opinions, was well exposed. At length Sir R.
Peel, seeing the hopelessness of resistance, gave way ; and the
Irish Registration Bill, which more than three years ago was
deemed essential to preserve Ireland from a host of evils, re-
mains among the useless parchments on which abandoned
measures are engrossed—fit only to be cut into slips for
" measures " more useful, but of less dignified appellation.
STANDARD.—The Morning Chronicle threatens that the
great "Mazzini question" is to be anew agitated in the
House of Commons to-night. We have no objection to this
provided that the question be treated fairly, which it cer-
tainly cannot be without a full and searching investigation
into the custom of the Home-office for some considerable pe-
riod of years. As we have before said, " The custom of sin
office is the law of that office"—a law rigidly binding
upon all who occupy the office, and the investigation for
which we call is indispensable to the ascertaining what is
the custom of the Home Office. Let Sir James Graham's
immediate predecessors in the office—Lord Normanby, Lord
John Russell, Lord Duncannon, Lord Melborne—make a
clean breast as to their pratice, and then the public
will be in a condition to form a correct judgment of the
present Home Secretary's conduct, but not before.
This consideration is not offered as a to quoque
argument, a kind of argument which we, at
least, shall ever disdain to offer in behalf of any Conserva-
tive against a charge brought by Whig-Radicals, because we
think that a Whig-Radical practice ought generally to be
known only to be shunned—" Ut fugerit exempla vitiorum
quieque notando." But we recur to our proposition, that the
custom of an office is the law of the office ; and it will
hardly be disputed, that the uniform practice of his four
immediate predecessors ir. office must be to Sir James
Graham a conclusive evidence of "the custom." We are in
possession of some curious facts and revelations connected
with this subject, which would astonish those who see the
Members ofLord Melbourne's Government—particularly Lords
John Russell and Palmerston—joining in the cry against Sir
James Graham. We have heard something, too, of the
history of M. Mazzini, which, independently of his sup-
posed connexion with the only conspiracy that
threatens the peace of Europe, would properly render him an
object of peculiar vigilance. It is better, however, to wait
until the ex-Home Secretaries shall have had a distinct invi-
tation and sufficient time to explain their practice, and M.
Mazzini's history will come out more conveniently upon
a formal inquiry. Meanwhile, though this gentleman
has lent himself to very worthless persons on the
present occasion, we would not, even by implication, offer
him an injustice. We are not aware that there is any impu-
tation whatever upon his honesty or honour as a private
individual ; but he is said to be an extremely prompt,
energetical, and bold person—admirable qualities in
a good cause, but which, in the warm temperaments
of the south may lead men concerned in political intrigues
to contemplate the use of means which our more phleg-
matic disposition reject, and which we would not willingly
see resorted to among strangers, much less among our friends.
Again, we disclaim making any charge against M. Mazzini,
except that he is a man of an impetuous and daring
temper; and such men surely, for their own sakes,
if not for the sake of others, ought to be closely watched
when they are supposed to be engaged in dark political in-
trigues. In justice, therefore, to M. Mazzini, of whom, as
we firmly believe, a great deal more than the truth has been
told by some officious agents of the Austrian Government—
no less than in order to act fairly by Sir James Graham and
the law—the matter ought to be fully investigated.

QUEEN'S BENCH.--(THIS DAY.)
(Sittings at Nisi Prins, at the Guildhall, before Lord
DENNAN, and a London Special Jury.)

CONSPIRACY.-THE QUEEN V. LORD ASHBURTON AND

OTHERS.
This was an indictment against,. Lord Ashburton, Mr.
F. Baring, and Mr. Mildmay, members of the house of
Baring and Co., for a conspiracy to ruin and destroy the
credit and property or Mr. Kinder, by procuring an Act
of the Legislature of Mexico to nullify a contract in
which he was engaged.
Mr. Erie and Mr. Bodkin conducted the case for the
prosecution; and Mr. Kelly and Mr. Clarkson appeared
for the defendants.

This case, which occupied the attention of the Court
during the whole of yesterday, was resumed this morn-
ing, when the case for the prosecution closed. The fol-
lowing are the facts of the case, as we gathered them
from the evidence of Mr. Kinder, and from the very vo-
luminous documentary evidence which was put in and
read, consisting of all the proceedings in a Chancery
suit instituted by Mr. Kinder against Baring and Co.:—
In the year 1825 Mr. Francis Baring, who was at that
time travelling. in Mexico, agreed, in conjunction with
the representative of the house of Mr. Kinder, in Mexico,
to take a very large tract of land, extending from ocean
to ocean in that country. Information was sent to the
members of the house of Baring in London, and to Mr.
Kinder, by their respective agents, and it appeared that
both parties were dissatisfied at the purchase. At that
time the house of Baring held dishonoured bills of
Kinder's to a large amount, and granted him indulgence,
to which Mr. Erle contended he was well entitled, inas-
much as his resources had been stopped by Mr. Francis
Baring iu Mexico. Mr. Kinder, it appeared, had sus
of transferring
gtheest
pedurWch company, but the firm of
Baring, which had kept itself aloof from all joint-stock
LoerdteAasjhebinutr-tsotneek thepropetty
companies, refused to accede:lto such a proposition.
Baring and Company sent out to their agents in Mexico,
warning them as to Kinder's credit, and stating that
they held dishonoured bills of his to a large amount, and
desiring their agents to adopt every means in their
power to put an end to the contract. In accordance
with these instructions, the agents exerted themselves
to procure the passing of an Act through the Mexican
Legislature to nullify the contract. This Act was passed
on the ground that foreigners could not hold land in
Mexico, and it appeared from certain letters from the
Mexican agents of Baring and Co., that one of them,
a foreigner, named Noulti, had bribed' certain mem-
bers of the Legislature to suppo-et the Bill.
These transactions took place in 1828. In 1830 Mr.
Kinder went to Mexico. He returned to England about
the year 1837, and in 1838 he filed a bill in Chancery
against Lord Ashburton and his partners. They put in
their answer, which gave Kinder access to all the
papers. In 1840, and just as Lord Ashburton was on
the point of sailing for Mexico, Mr. Kinder went before
the grand jury at the Central Criminal Court, and pre-
ferred this indictment, on which Lord Ashburton was
arrested, and gave bail at the Judge's Chambers four
days before he sailed to the United States on a diplo-
matic mission relative to thelßoundary Question.
Mr. KELLY, for the defence, commented on the con-
duct of Mr. Kinder, waiting sixteen years before he
brought forward this indictment, and in bringing it for-
ward in the manner and at the time he did, just as Lord
Ashburton was about to leave England as the represen-
tative of his Sovereign. With regard to the facts of the
case, he contended that if the Ilouse of Baring had been
desirous of ruining Mr. Kinder, they might have done
so most effectually by securing him on his dishonoured
bills, instead of holding them even as they had done.
It appeared that at first Kinder had expressed himself
dissatisfied with the purchase, and there was nothing to
show that he had even expressed his satisfaction at it, so
that the house of Baring might well believe that he like
themselves would require to get rid of it, their interests
in the purchase being identical, and as they knew that
Kinder was not possessed of funds sufficient to carry on
the undertaking, it was not surprising that they should
desire to get rid of the connexion with him. There was
nothing illegal in supporting a Bill before the Mexican
Legislature to nullify the contract; but then it was said
that Mr. Noulti, the agent, had bribed. True, in his
accounts there was a sum entered for bribes, but
those bribes had been paid without any com-
munication with the Barings, who knew nothing of
Noulti's acts until after the transaction had been con-
cluded, and with regard to those bribes it should be re
collected, that in many foreign countries it was im-
possible to get any great public business, even of a judi-
cial character, transacted without giving what were
called gratifications to every officer, from the judge down
to the crier. Now, all that had been done had been to
allow these sums in Noulti's account, and no doubt, if
they had not been so allowed, Mr. Kinder would have
called the attention of the Court to it, as a most
unfair and most unjust transaction. Then, with regard
to the communication to the agents on the subject of
Kinder's solvency, that was certainly a confidential com-
munication. No action of slander would lie on such a
communication. If it' had been brought, Messrs.
Barings might have justified, and have put in the dis-
honoured bills in evidence, and, therefore, this could not
be given as evidence of a criminal conspiracy to ruin the
prosecutor. -
The Learned Counsel had not concludes when our
report left.

THE Spy SYSTEM.
(From the Ten Towns' Messenger.)
We do not at all wonder at the interest, as well as jea-
ousy, with which all parties in and out of Parlia-
ment, have regarded the letter-opening question, which
was the subject of
a debate and division in the
House of Commons on Monday night. In the debate,
Sir James Graham, who tried to wrap himself still
closer round in the mantle of dignified reserve, State
policy, and Government prerogative, was rather
roughly handled, and in the division he came very
shortly off, 44 being the whole majority he could
muster in a House of nearly 400 ! That Sir James
Graham is an unpopular Home Secretary, there never
was much doubt ; the present division shows with
how much distrust and suspicion he is regarded.
There is no point on which an Englishman is so
sensitive as a letter. To read another's letter, or open
another's letter, is
regarded, and very justly, as a moral
felony. There is, however, no use in disguising;
and it was not attempted to be tdisguised, that such
a license must of necessity, for the safety and pro
tection of the State, be vested in the Government,
and such a license must not be interfered with or
questioned. This right, however, which no ono in
his senses would interfere with or question, if it

2, 1644

were only acted upon in very rare instances, and those
of exigency and importance, and with the greatest
discretion and delicacy, all of which extenuating or
rather justifying circumstances seem to be wanting
in the present case, which is brought before the House
as a very fair subject of complaint. We do not know
anything about the foreigner in question. M. Mazzini,
who has had 70 letters detained and opened, and with
a petty cunning carefully re-sealed—all of which he
declares are perfectly guileless ; but whether there
was a necessity or not for opening his letters, there
was no necessity for the want of strightforwardness
and honesty in the way of dealing with him ; and there
is a necessity, in spite of all Sir James Graham or his
friends may urge—there is a necessity for that which
public faith and public decency require, namely, an ex-
planation of the affair—a partial, if not a full explana-
tion, which is now altogether so doggedly, so discourte-
ously, so disdainfully withheld.
(From the Liverpool Times.)
Probably no discussion that has yet taken place in
Parliament has damaged the Government so much
as the debates on Monday and Tuesday nights, on
the subject of the alleged Post-office espionage ; and
deservedly so ; for Ministers have degraded not
only their own, but the national character, by prac-
tices abhorrent to the feelings of Englishmen, and
inspired by motives of the most humiliating kind. Well
did Mr. Sheil say, that in this most shameful case
the public opinion was altogether against the Govern-
ment. We believe that they have committed moral
suicide; that after this deplorable act of Sir 'Tables
Graham, they can never face their countrymen on the
hustings a second time with any chance of success.
A hundred party defeats would not have ruined their
reputation so utterly as their unblushing avowal
of a systematic breach of public honour and confi-
dence, and their hardened unconsciousness that they
were doing. anything wrong in committing an act
which, in private life, would send a man to Coventry
for the rest of his days. The Home Secretary and
his colleagues stood upon their right to exercise this
extreme and delicate power, forgetful of the maxim,
Summum jus, summa znjuria, and that, although they
might be shielded by the strict letter of the law from
personal responsibility, they were not the less guilty of
perpetrating a consummate wrong, and most despicable
meanness.

For what could be more infamous than that a
dictatorial power, paramount to all law, and only in •
tended to be exercised in extremities—ne quit quid
detrimenti republica cupiat —should, in ordinary times,
be used as an engine to crush an unfortunate and
inoffensive exile, not plotting against the social order
of this country, but obnoxious to foreign despotisms
on account of his efforts in favour of the " good old
cause," which Englishmen, since the days of the
glorious revolution, have been accustomed to honour ?
Still more intolerable is it that this power should
be expanded into a systematic abuse of the con-
fidence reposed in the Post-office by private in-
dividuals in general, and that no Englishman can
hereafter indulge in the boast that, unlike other countries,
the spy system is unknown here—that the privacy of his
letters is sacred from all eyes except these for whom
they are intended. Sir J. Graham has dispelled that proud
illusion for ever. The Englishman's house may be his
castle, but his letters are not his own secrets. We
must hang our heads and confess that, in this respect,
we are no better than our neighbours, so long as a Tory
Government continues in office. For, differing from
our contemporaries, we believe that the whole
Cabinet share the disgrace, and are equally respon-
sible for this mean and arbitrary practice. In this
instance Toryism only betrays the old sympathy fur
Holy Alliance principles, the slavish subserviency to
foreign despots, and the remorseless persecution of
Liberals of all countries whiCh characterised it in the
palmy days of Sidmouth and Castlereagh.

IMPErctAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, July 1.
SUGAR DUTIES BILL

The Earl of DALHOUSIE rose to move the second
reading of this Bill. He felt that he would not be 3usti-
fied in taking the discussion on the Bill to-night, as
many Noble Lords had left the House with the under-
standing that the discussion would come on, on the third
reading to -morrow.
_ _ _ _

After a few words from Lord BROUGHAM, the Bill
was read a second time, passed through Committee, and
the third reading ordered for to-morrow.
LIBEL BILL.

In answer to a question from the LORD CHAN-
CELLOR,
Lord CAMPBELL said he should move the third
reading of this Bill at five o'clock to-morrow (this day).