The Sun.
London, England, 1828-03-12 00:00:00

eertiorari. The former, it is true, is at the option
of the Court of Sessions to grant or refusU the liti-
gant party applying for it; but the latter is a com-
pulsory process, by
.means of which the parties jar
terested may, under certain restrictions, remove sub-:
jects cognizable by all the inferior jurisdictions into
the superior Courts of Westminster. There was
formerly another mode of revision, by referring legal
difficulties to the Judge of Assize ; but that is now
disused. Where it is optional with Magistrates,to
send a case to the Court of King's Bench or not, it
is clear that may be made a nugatory remedy for
ignorance and injustice. But the writ of certiorari
is less resorted to than it other Wise would be, on
account of the expense attending it, and the techni-
calities with which it is incumbered. In our opi-
nion the best way to obviate injustice is to.punfy
the appointment of Magistrates, so as to admit none
but men of knowledge and, character to the im-
portant trust of administering the laws. Other
methods may sometimes remedy injustice, but that is
the only way to cut it up by the roots.--Morning
Herald.

We remarked yesterday, in speaking of the landed
I interest in this country, that if we were compelled
to choose whether that interest or the monied one
should have the ascendancy, our voice would be
given for the former, as " more congenial to the
habits of the people"—" more stable," and because
" its sway is more ancient and more interwoven with
old customs and old feelings." We are aware that
in using this language at the present day, when the
fashion of change is rife among us, and when public
men are supposed to manifest their intellectual supe-
riority according to the degree in which they arraign
the wisdom of their ancestors, we run the risk of
being looked down upon with infinite contempt, as
dull followers in the paths which our forefathers
have trod, and destitute of that mental vigour
which would enable us to free ourselves from the
trammels of prescription. We bow to the de-
cision ; and humbly confess our inability to dis-
cover that England. is what she is, because
ignorance and imbecility have presided over her
Councils for the last four centuries. But un-
fortunately for us, the more we reflect, and the
more we inquire, the less we are satisfied that the
converse of the poet's maxim is right, namely, that
" whatever is, is wrong ;" such is the melancholy
fact, however; and although we feel that in attempt-
ing to fortify our own opinions by any reference to
the sentiments of the Statesmen of other days, we
invoke a far inferior authority to that of any of the
Members of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, we shall yet venture, with all becoming
humility, upon the retrospect. Every age has had its
reformers,its innovators, and its bold pretenders to ex-
clusive sagacity. It will astonish those who are unap-
prised of the fact, to learn, that in the reign of Eliza-
beth it was a question whether " tillage deserved en-
couragement !" one on which no less a personage
than Sir Walter Raleigh maintained the negative,
and supported his proposition in the House of Com-
mons. He affirmed—(see D'Ewes' Journal, 674),
" That grain could-not be rendered a staple commodity
in this country, for that all nations abounded with corn ;
that France had offered the Qaeen to serve Ireland with
corn for 16s. a quarter; that the Low Countries, though
they never sowed corn, yet, by their industry, had such
plenty, that they could serve other countries; that the
Spaniard, who often wanted corn, would not be beholding
to the Englishman for it, nor to the Low Countryman
nor to France, but would sooner fetch it from the bar.
barian."

Sir Walter was a theorist, and fortunately he was
opposed by such unambitious practical men as Sir
Robert Cecil and Sir Francis Bacon, who wisely
adopted and ably supported the contrary opinion.—
Sir Robert Cecil observed, with the plain good
sense of his masculine mind :

" That in every Commonwealth, except Sir Thomas
More's Utopia, the ploughman is the first and chief object
of attention, and encouragement ; that the strength of
the nation consisted in that order of men ; that the
great body of our armies was composed of them ; that from
his experience he knew that when warrants went from the
Council for levying of men, and ties certificates were re-
tui ned, the greater part were ploughnien." He urged
the utility of exportation, and showed that the depopula-
tion would follow the discouragement of tillagf, remarking
that if it was worth while to make a law in Edward the
First's time for the maintenance of the fry of fish, and in
Henry the Eighth's time for the preservation of the eggs
of wild fowl, it was at least of as much consequence to at-
tend to the support of the human species."

This was the language of the Secretary Cecil;
one of those men who had not the advantage of
living in the nineteenth century. Sir Francis Bacon,
labouring under the same disadvantage, advocated
similar doctrines—(see Sir Simonds D' Ewes' Jour-
nal, 551) and in his History of Henry VII., going
fully into the subject, he remarks—

" Enclosures at that time (the reign of Henry VII.) be-
gan to be more frequent, whereby arable lands, which
could not be manured without people and families, were
turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herds-
men ; and tenancies for years, lives, and at will, where-
upon much of the Yeomanry lived, were turned into de-
mesnes. This bred a decay of people, and, by conse-
quences, a decay of towns, churches, tithes, and the like.
The King, likewise, knew full well, and in no wise forgot,
that there ensued withal, upon this, a decay and diminu-
tion of subsidies and taxes, for, the more gentlemen, ever
the lower book of subsidies."
It is well to refresh our minds with these good
old English maxims—this native and sterling wis-
dom, which our unsophisticated ancestors believed
and practised when there was- no school of political
economists to dilute the sturdy produce by the lixi-
vium of crude theories and only half engendered
principles. The quotation with which we shall
conclude is a trite one, but our readers will at once
perceive that the poet has only given us, in flowing
verse, the sentiments of a Cecil and a Bacon :

Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied. —[New
Times.]

A Contemporary (The New Times), alluding to
the rumour which we noticed the other day, of an
intention on the part of Ministers to extend the fran-
chise of East Retford to the adjoining hundreds, ob-

serves, "We .are not advocates-for the exclusive do-

minion of any party in the State—yet, if we were
compelled to submit to such a dominion, that of the
landed aristocracy is more z.ongenial to the habits of
the people; it is more stable, it rests upon a soun-
der base, and carries with it more noble associations,
than the moneyed aristocracy; and as its sway .is
more ancient, and more interwoven with old cus-

toms and old feelings, so it is more tolerant and
i---4ed up with more kindliness than the power
which !,as been accumulated by petty means, from
which men of „!;igher minds shrink as contaminating,
and which can handy ;!,.e practised without a certain
tarrow contractedneas of spirit which is the enemy
of wlwever is generous and noble ;n human nature.
To add to the democratical party, or to the cotn-
mereial party, is, we think, in the present state of
the House of Qomtnons and of the country, quite
unez)led for." We can td low for the feeling which
led our contemporary to make these observations.
—There is no question that the desire of
riches, which is generally so intense in tlw
breast of an Englishman, and the worship
which is paid to wealth in this country, are not cir-
cumstances calculated to raise our ideas of human
matire. It is, no doubt, true that they who have
been ae,oustomed to wealth from their infancy will
he less likely to entertain exaggerated notions of its
value, than they who are born poor: and accord-
jowly we do not find that purse-pride, that incessant
display in the old Aristocracy, which are so disgnst-
ing in the moneyed men who have been the archi,
tects of their own fortunes, But this is taking a
very narrow view of the subject, It is the over-
grown wealth of the Aristocracy, and the influence
which property possesses under the Constitution of
this country, which are the cause of the extrava-
Fgant desire of wealth which forms so disgusting a
eature in the classes under them. We pass over
the idea of an Aristocracy being a stable dominion,
it being notorious that what alone gives stability to
any Government is the existence of a numerous
middle class, and that an Aristocracy, without