The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-21 00:00:00

irfinning 24M

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1845.

The House of Lords met at Four o'clock, for the pur-
pose of hearing the Royal A ssent given by commission to
certain Bills.
Their Lordships re-assembled at Five.
The Marquis of NORMANBY presented a petition from
the parishioners of Oakingham complaining that they
were prevented from repairing their parish church by
the conduct of the Dean of Salisbury, who united in his
own person the incongruous offices
,of Patron, Ordinary,
and Rector.

A pry entation cf petitions against the game-laws by
_ _

Lurd CA,APBELL gave rise to an animated conversation
on the subject of those laws, in which Lord DACRE'
Lord HATHERTON, and the Earl Of STRADBROKE took
part.

Earl FITZWILLIAM, in presenting a petition against

the Maynooth Bill, took occasion to state his dissent
from the prayer of the petition, and his approval of the
grant to Maynooth, which he looked upon as the pay-
ment of an instalment of the debt due to the Irish people
His Lordship also expressed his approval of the Minis-
terial plan for establishing colleges in Ireland, and, in
allusion to those who called it a scheme of Godless edu-
cation, said that they were persons of more enthusiasm
than religion, who mistook names for things, and who
must have forgotten their own university career ; for he
would venture to declare that few of the lay members of
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge ever attended
the theological lectures, and at Oxford, on a recent occa-
sion, tile higher powers of the University bad recom-
mended students not to attend the lectures of the Pro-
fessor of Divinity.
Several Bills having been forwarded a stage, their
Lordships adjourned.
The House of Commons assembled at Four o'clock.
The motion for bringing up the report on the Grand
Junction Railway Bill being opposed by Mr. RICARDO,
a short discussion ensued; after which, on a division,
the Bill was rejected, the numbers being—
Fur bringing up the report 73
Against it

Majority against the Bill --133
Lord HowicK suggested the propriety of introducing
come measure for regulating the charges on railways.
Sir G. CLERK thought the question worthy the con-
sideration of the Board of Trade, but would not be pre-
pared to offer anything beyond a suggestion.
Mr. LABOUCHERE thought the Board of Trade should
take up the subject.

On the motion of the SOLICITOR-GENERAL, the Se-
lect Committee was nominated to consider the case of
HOWARD V. GOSSETT.

Mr. B. OSBORNE moved for a return of all monies
derived from rents of college lands, endowments, be-
quests, fees on matriculations, and taking of degrees ;
specifying the amount of income paid therefrom to
the senior and junior fellows, professors, scholars, and
other officers of Trinity College, Dublin.

In answer to Sir T. FREbIANTLE, who expressed a
hope that the motion would be withdrawn,

Mr. OSBORNE said, that he wished to see Trinity Col-
lege thrown open to all religious denominations, and
should certainly press his motion, as he considered that
such must be the result of inquiry.
The motion, IN hich was seconded by Mr. WARD, was
supported by Mr. HUME, Mr. WARBURTON, Mr,
EWART, M. SHELL, Mr. BELLEW, Mr. M. GIBSON, Mr.
T. DUNCOMBE, Lord J. RUSSELL, and Mr. BRIGHT; and
opposed by Mr. SHAW, Sir T. FREMANTLE, Sir R.
INGLIS, Sir R. PEEL, and Mr. COLQUHOUN.

On a division the motion was negatived, the numbers
being—For the motion, 53 ; against it, 82—majority
against the motion, 29.

The adjourned debate on the Maynooth Bill was then
resumed by Sir H. W. BARRON, who supported the

measure.

The House was subsequently addressed by Mr. Law-
son, the Hon. H. Cholmondeley, Mr. Ffolliott, Sir D.
Norreys, Mr. Godson, Colonel Rawdon, Mr. Shaw, Mr.
Gaskell, Mr. Bellew, and Sir R. Inglis; after which,
upon the motion of Colonel Verner, the debate was
adjourned.

Among the orders of the day for the present week
we perceive, with pleasure, some that bespeak, on the
part of those who have moved them, a just appreciation
of, and sympathy for, the interests and the comforts of
the poorer classes of society. Of the latter, we may
instance, for an example, the Committee on Mr. W.
CowrEß's " Field Gardens Bill," appointed for the 23d
instant, and upon the merits of which we have already
expressed a strong opinion. To be sure—against the
satisfaction which this entry in the House of Commons'
paper affords us, we must set the orders for the second
readings, respectively, of the " Commons' Inclosure'
and the " Drainage of Lands" Bills. But we are so re-
luctant to believe that, at this time of day, the House
can be brought to sanction measures of legislation so
directly and arbitrarily interfering with the prescriptive
rights and enjoyments of the poor, that we shall rather
assume that these Bills are not destined to attain the
maturity of law. Among orders of the day of the former
character, namely, those which have regard to the inte-
rests of the poorer classes, we must notice with our hearty
approbation— Ist, the intention of Mr. HOME to move
in Committee on the Justices' Clerks and Clerks of the
Pence Bill, " that all fees payable in criminal proceed-
ings shall, after the passing of such Bill, be abolished ;'
and 2d, the contemplated proposal of Captain PECHELL.
in the same Committee, to insert a clause in such Bill to
disqualify magistrates' clerks from acting as agents for
the election of Members of Parliament, and to provide
that petty sessions shall not be held in inns or public-
houses.

With regard to the payment of fees in criminal pro-
ceedings, we are not quite aware of the general scope
and details of Mr. Humz's clause. But beyond all doubt
it is the most cruel of all the anomalies that aro incor-
porated into the system of our criminal judicature, to
exact fees either from the promoters or the objects of
criminal proceedings, where the result is to establish the
necessity for their institution. If that necessity be
made out, the promoter is net merely justified, but he
has performed a public duty in instituting such pro.
ceedings. Why should he be mulcted in the costly
charges he is liable to through preferring an indictment,
when upon every principle of legal and municipal polity,
he has done service to the commonweal by prosecuting
the case ? We do not enter here into any considerations
touching the liabilities, civil and even penal, a party
unjustly or vexatiously instituting criminal proceedings
ought to remain under. That is another and a wider
question, and perhaps we are already going further than
Mr. HustE will feel called upon to push his proposition,
Nevertheless, the abstract principle undoubtedly is to be
maintained to this extent. But to compel the party,
against whom the criminal proceedings are set in motion,
to pay fees in addition to the pecuniary fine, or other
penalty, which he may be adjudged to suffer is a cruel
absurdity, to be equalled only by that refinement of judi-
cial cruelty in the institutions of China, which requires
the delinquent who has just been sentenced to be
strangled or decapitated to return his acknowledgments
to the Court for the justice it has been pleased to exer-
cise in his case ; and exacts of the sufferer under the
recent discipline of the bamboo the additional suf-
fering of tendering his courteous thanks to the
public executioner for the trouble which he has occa-
sioned to that august officer. In justice to the laws of
the Chinese, however, we must own, in common fair-
ness, that the mockery and cruelty of insisting upon
these compulsory civilities are equalled, at least, by the
more studied hardship and insult of exacting fees for
justices' clerks, or clerks of the peace, and other func-
tionaries, under the ostensible designation of " costs"
in criminal informations under the game-laws, or on
charges of trespass and damage under local and en-
closure Acts, or miserable cases of petty larceny, pilfer-
ings, such as prompts the houseless wayfarer perishing
from cold and exposure to collect half-a-dozen dry twigs
in a thicket where he finds them perhaps already blown
down, in order to kindle a quasi fire under the shelter
of some hedge side, wherewith to reanimate his shiver-
ing frame ; or the famishing pauper who purloins a
couple of turnips or potatoes to satisfy the intolerable
cravings of his hunger. How often, in the course of
last year only, were we called upon to animadvert on
the barbarous and inhuman rigour with which
country petty sessions inflicted costs to the
tune of 400 or 500 per cent. and upwards more
than the amount of the fines they inflicted— these
fines being in themselves, though but a few shillings or
even pence, utterly beyond the no-means of the wretched

delinquents to pay. In higher courts of criminal juris..

diction the evil is in principle the same. So much the
fine, so much more the costs ; or, imprisonment for
such and such a term. The party can pay the fine, but
not the costs ; the " vulgar arithmetic" of graduated
terms of imprisonment squares the difference. If the
case, and the criminal proceedings instituted after it,
result in a conviction, why not let the sentence, whether
it be one of imprisonment or fine—in short, of whatever
kind, be complete and adequate to the offence? To
" throw in" a burden of costs and fees is (as in this coun-
try happens in many instances) to push the vengeance
of the law beyond the point which the law itself has pro-
posed to reach.
Captain PECHELL'S intended clause is one of these
which announce propositions that carry their own con-
firmation on the face of the terms in which they are
expressed. That " magistrates' clerks should be disquali-
fied from acting as agents for the election of Members of
Parliament," is a doctrine which no man conversant
with the theory of our representative system, as an
integer of the constitution, can venture to dispute. The
character and business of an electioneering agent are
those of a partisan professedly and professionally in-
terested. The office and function of a magistrate's clerk
suppose, for their faithful and impartial discharge, an
utter insensibility to all partisanship; an unwavering
inaccessibility to all the interested objects and rewards
of " agency." If the union of such incompatible occupa-
tions be permitted in one and the same person we may
well suppose, indeed it is impossible not to believe, that
the magistrates' clerk will be very open to impulses of un-
due favour to parties coming before that magistrate who
are known supporters of the same political opinions and
parties as himself ; and of undue prejudice agaireit, or
resentment at, other parties coming before the same
magistrate whose votes or good wishes will 13.:
addressed in the support of antagonistic candi-
dates and opinions to those supported by such
magistrate. The other proposal, to do away with the
holding of petty sessions in inns or public. houses, is
made with the best intentions, but we believe it would
be difficult to carry it into effect.

We have already adverted to the discussion which
took place on Friday in the Commons relative to the
state of the navy ; but it is a matter of too much im-
portance to be passed over without further notice, and
we are glad to learn that the question will not he al-
lowed to rest where it is. The subject will probably be
resumed on Friday next, or whenever the navy estimates
are again brought forward. It is unnecessary, on this
occasion, to dwell upon the paramount and indispensable
necessity which exists for maintaining the navy in a
condition capable of efficient extension at the shortest
possible notice, and on a footing of present strength and
preparation much beyond the ordinary scale of our peace
establishments. To enter into any recapitulation of
these reasons would be at one unnecessary and invidious.
We take it, however, that there is scarcely one English-
man in the United Kingdom who would not support
by his vote and sanction the fullest establishment of this
constitutional force which may be necessary, having a
prudent regard to the existing aspect of foreign relations.
The fact is that men see we are perhaps on the verge of
one of those political exigencies in which practical ex-
perience supplies the proof of constitutional theory, as
to the readiest, the furthest reaching, the most formida-
ble, the most national arm of our strength.
The navy is the common rallying point of men
of all parties who are agreed in attachment
to our constitution, whenever the honour and the
welfare of the empire appear to be menaced, whether
immediately or remotely. Yet to that navy, the nation,
indebted as she is to it for her most substantial suc-
cesses and progress, as well as her most illustrious
triumphs, has been but a harsh stepmother ; fond
enough of its glory, so conducive to her own greatness,
but niggardly and reluctant, withal, in making commen-
surate provision for its maintenance on a scale of com-
mensurate liberality. " Britannia," in truth, has, from
time to time, manifested something like a cold neglect in
her habitual deportment to this, the noblest of her chil-
dren. But when she has found it indispensable to invoke
its protection and its power, in order to vindicate her
rights or her authority, she has unhesitatingly thrown
herself into its arms, and rendered it all honour in the
sight of nations. The great mischief appears to be that
that consideration and cherishing affection, which ought
to be permanent and continuous, have hitherto been in-
termittent. It is not the least of the elements that have
constituted the good fortune of this empire, that such a
capricious and interrupted treatment has but in a very
slight degree estranged the affections of such a progeny.
But let her learn caution by the past, and have sonic
better hold on their affections for the future, by a wiser
and a more generous course of action. The upholding
of our navy should be at all times the foremost
care of the Legislature, the most anxious duty of the
Executive. We are glad to observe that Mr. WIL-
LIAMS, representing as he does a section of the House
of Commons which is pledged to the most rigorous eco-
nomic supervision of the public expenditure, declared,
"If the Government considered it expedient, in reference
to the state of our foreign relations, to increase the
navy, he would not oppose that increase, for whatever
tended to enhance its efficiency he looked upon as the
truest economy." Had this observation preceded the
speech of Captain BERKELEY, it would have served as an
admirable text for the observations of that Hon. and
Gallant Officer.. For what was their eject ? Simply to
prove that in the system of manning our ships of war
(line-of-battle ships more especially) the Board of
Admiralty adopt a false principle of economy as to ex-
pense, and a destructive principle as to efficiency.
In expressing the surprise with which he had listened
to Sir GEORGE COCKBURN'S declaration of a former
evening, " that he could at present man the navy well
with good seamen," the Gallant Officer referred to the
proof of his own consistency in deprecating the system
he was now denouncing by refusing to act with his col-
leagues at the Admiralty under the last Whig Govern-
ment, because they would persist in the vicious
practice which he found the present Board
adopting after practically repudiating it. This
practice was, the sending out men-of-war in time of
peace with what was called a " peace complement."
Than this absurdity of two complements for a man-of-
war, nothing could be more absurd. " A war comple-
ment" should be superseded by the phrase " a proper
complement." But it is the more surprising (as the
Member for Gloucester argued), that this plan of capri-
ciously undermanning ships of the line should have been
recurred to by the present Admiralty Board, when, on
a reference made by the Whig Board, of which he had
been a member, to the ablest and most distinguished
officers in the service, their concurrent opinion had been
reported against such a scheme; and it was by these
officers declared that the true basis of any scheme for
manning ships of war should be this:—" That the
numerical amount arid capacity of the crew should be in
proportion to the number of guns and the weight of
metal." The reasonableness of this principle is so ap-
parent that it is difficult to imagine how any Admiralty
Board could ever have departed from it. But it is ab-
solutely astonishing—and even deplorable—to note with
what sort of arguments Sir GEORGE COCKBURN at-
tempted to justify the cases in which there has recently
been admitted departures from it, whilst he acknow-
ledged its truth, soundness, and necessity. Now it
is a principle which the welfare of this coun-
try is more deeply interested in vigilantly
maintaining than away to a casual observer be apparent,
on its mere enunciation. The infraction of this prin-
ciple has a direct and positive tendency to disgust the
service ; and we are, therefore, sorry that Capt. BERKE-
LEY did not call upon the House of Commons, by an
affirmative resolution, to pledge itself to its practical ob-
servance. We cannot sufficiently condemn their appeals
to the excitement of popular feeling in Ireland, which
endeavours to enforce her claims to more extensive inea

sures of remedial and equalising legislation, by me-
nacing suggestions of the amount of defection which

would be witnessed in the ranks of our army, and from
the strength of our ships' crews, in the event of a war
breaking out before those measures shall have been
granted. We have ever advocated, in the most exten-
sive sense of the phrase, " justice to Ireland" through
the extension to her of all the full rights of an integral
member of the Union. But wo as little believe that the
denial of "repeal" will exercise any such disorganising
influence on the Irish contingents of our army and navy
as that it will withdraw one Irish workman from the
yards of our builders, masons, and bricklayers, or any
other of the numerous crafts and laborious avocations
in which their spirited industry has always prompted
them to earn a hard, but honest, subsistence, rather than

abandon themselves to squalid indolence and destitution

at home.

We know enough, however, of the sentiments of the
British seaman, English, Dutch, or Irish, to feel the

most serious apprehensions as to what the inevitable

tendencies must be if such inexcusable disregard for
his comforts, his feelings, his just demands, as that

which were, incidentally established against the Admi-
ralty in several very significant cases mentioned by
Captain BERKELEY and Sir CHARLES NAPIBR. If pro-
ceedings of this nature should be any longer persevered
in, the utter disgust they will occasion to the service
will be evidenced in its utter loss of all attachment and
loyalty to the cause it has hitherto carried to triumph
and to victory over every sea. Let us advert to a few
of these facts.

When the Albion (90) was last fitted out under
Captain Locicrmt, for the experimental squadron in the
Channel, she carried a crew of from 800 to 830 men;