The Sun.
London, England, 1821-05-14 00:00:00

where they are not nominated—in counties for
example : does any voter think or consider, that
in choosing his representative he confers upon
that representative a power of sending him to
prison without trial, by lodging a complaint be-
fore the other representatives ? and that it is for
the good of that voter and all the other voters of
the kingdom, that he should be so sent to prison,
if, in an unguarded moment, he vilifies the par-
liamentary conduct of one whom he had himself
aided in sending into parliament ? Arid if this
privilege is revolting when exercised by members
really elected, how much more painful is it when
put into action by the mere nominees of peers or
other borough-holders, in whose election the
people have no concern ? We know all the idle
rant and declamation that is used upon this sub-
ject : as, " that if the House of Commons may
not imprison thus summarily—if Honourable
Members are to be slandered in the discharge of
their duty, and the dilatory forms of the law are
to intervene before the slanderer can be punished,
there is an 'end of the House of Commons," &c. ;
but we never yet heard one argument advanced,
or attempted to be advanced, in support of the
privilege ; the exercise of which, if it be practi-
cally necessary, is the more to be regretted, as it
never implicates even the most criminal with-
out diffusing a general feeling of terror.
It is further asserted that this power of
punishing without trial by jury is the law of
Parliament, and the law of Parliament is the law
of the land : but if this practice (for no one now
doubts the practice)—if this practice be the law
of the land, we beg leave to ask what kind of
law it is ? Is it statute or common law I We
know no other as applicable to the government of
British subjects. It cannot certainly be common
law, for it is not that of which the origin exceeds
the tradition or memory of man. Judge Hale,
in his standard history, says that the period from
which our common law emanates, goes back no
further than the reign of Richard 1., when the
House of Commons did not exist, and therefore
could have no such privilege : and if it is statute
law, who-4), we ask, is the statute to be found ?
No such law ever passed King, Lords, and Com-
mons. That the House of Commons may have
by-laws for its own government, and for the regu-
lation of its own proceedings ; and that those by-
laws, having received only the sanction of that one
House, are binding upon its Members, no one can
doubt ; but this privilege or practice goes out of
the walls of Parliament, and fetches in British sub-
jects to be tried according to the rules of a body to
which he does not belong; it drags him out of the
ordinary walk and haunts of life, before a court
to which neither the common nor statute law of
his country, but only the resolutions of that
court itself, have rendered him amenable. He
is not allowed 'to take his counsel into that court
to support him ; (he is not to view the charges
against him before he pleads. 'He looks around
in the hopes of seeing a jury of his Peers to try
him ; there is no such body. His accusers are
his judges, or are among them. He asks for a
sight of the indictment ; the accusation is oral
only. He begs to cross-examine the witnesses
against him ; he is not even allowed to hear them
give their evidence: Arguments are urged at
which he is not present. He might apply to the
King for a remission of the sentence. The So.
vereign has still less right to be heard in this
court than the subject. The debate closes, and
he finds himself immured in a prison.

[NEW TIMES.]
Consols closed on Saturday at 7334 for Account,
the general impression being favourable to a rise,
principally on the ground of the expected finan-
cial statements. It is understood that while cer-
tain persons have been impeding the public busi-
ness, and occupying the public time with a suc-
cession of frivolous and vexatious objections to
the expenditure, Ministers have been silently at
work on the details of a cautious and judicious
retrenchment in the various departments of the
State. We have never dissembled our opinion
that the return to Cash Payments was prema-
ture. We believe that the early adoption of
that measure was the principal, if not the only
cause of the distress which has fallen on certain
classes of the community ; and so far we go along
with Mr. Attwood in his very ingenious and'
interesting speech on seconding Mr. Baring's
late motion for a reconsideration of the cur-
rency question. The great evil was the sudden
fall of prices, but it must not be forgotten that
this evil has some concomitant advantages. The
amount of the national expenditure may of course
be greatly diminished, if due advantage be taken
of the low prices (which we doubt not has been
the case) in the formation of contracts for the
supply of the army and navy. The tranquillised
state of the Continent too, while it renders
foreign Stock more valuable, reacts upon our own
funds, and gives a general steadiness to the mo-
ney market. A new loan of about a million
sterling has been concluded at Naples, under the
guarantee of the Allied Powers. It is in a five
per cent. Stock, and the shares are now selling in
Paris at 65, which it is said affords a very con-
siderable profit to the original contractors. It
is probable that something of the same sort must
soon take place at Turin, where Victor Felix has
at last consented to assume the regal title. The
miscreants who attempted to revolutionise that
country dilapidated its treasures, during their
short sway, in the most shameful manner ; and
some of them are supposed to have actually
stolen large sums, with which they took flight.
It is to be hoped that these robbers will be inde-
fatigably pursued, and given up to justice where-
soever they may endeavour to conceal their in-
famy, and.to enjoy the fruits of their villainy.

Ever since the,establishment of John Bull, we
have avoided speaking of that Paper, because a
fair estimate of the good and evil which, in
our opinion, it was doing, would have led
us into long discussions without any ob-
vious use ; but now that it is made the
object of attack by the pretended friends
of the Liberty of the Press ; now that its faults
are exaggerated and cried out against, with af-
fected horror, by men in our estimation far more
reprehensible, it becomes our duty to say what
we really think of that Journal. We think;