The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is not without a strong sense of public duty
that we have recently, on more than one occasion,
enforced the necessity of a complete separation be-
tween the first civil and the first military appoint-
ment tinder the Crown. We say a complete sepa-
ration, thereby meaning that in what relates to tht
details of the service, and more especially to the dis-
posal of military patronage, the person at the head co
the Army should not only be distinct from the First
Lord of the Treasury, but altogether free from hi,
vontrol or influence, and absolutely independent of
him. That such a doctrine should not have been
more liegaently recurred to, and impressed more
zealously, by others, on the minds of the people,
both in Parliament and out of doors, may have arise!,
from the apparent. impossibility of the danger al.
laded to ever in fact befalling us. Two thin
would seem to have been taken for granted by a son
of universal consent :—lst, that no man of nuilitaru
education, habits, and character, could ever, b'e
dreamed of by a King of England as a fit person to
discharge the duties of a Prime Minister of thi,-
--ealm ,2d; that if by some miracle an exception
;bould be foand, the total abandonment of all con-
nexion with the Army, by the new head of the Ca-
binet, was too much a thing of course to require or
ro hear discussion. We find, however, that there

are few political extravagancies which may not oh-
' twin countenance among the advocates of party. A
respectable evening paper of Sat urday (the Standard)
presents its readers with the following treatise 01!
the innocence of pluralities in the State, leaving
those of the Church, we presume, to stand upon
their acknowledgefl usefulness to religion :
" As to all that is said of the incompatible nature of the
office now held by the. Duke of Wellington with the even
direct command of the army, it is mere nonsense in a con-
stitutional point of view. The Constitution, according to
the letter, knows nothing of either standing armies or
prime ministers. In spirit, it combines all ministerica,
functions in the object of the Sovereign's choice, be that
Object simple or complex, one or many. The incompati-
bilities recognized by the Constitution relate to the combi-
nation of legislative or judicial offices with ministerial;
and among themselves ; but we must descend a long way
below the principles of the Constitution—,lve must sink
to the details of service, before we can fin 3 any incompa-
tibility between merely ministerial 'inlet; ins. But if we
are told that there is danger iu the comb' ttion, we reply
by asking what danger ? What militate power has the
Duke of Wellington, as First Lard of the Treasury, which
be had not as Commander-in-Chief? Power he had, no
doubt, and power he has, but it is power under strict re-
sponsibility. The grenadier who mounts guard at St.
James's Palace has the King's life in his power. 'What
then ? The danger arising from that power is neutralized
by responsibility. And what power has the Duke of Wel-
lington, or could he have, with whatever plurality of
offices, for which he would not be responsible, and which
he most not exercise through responsible hands ?"
We have given the above extract, as an edifying
instance of the tendencies and contingencies which
seem to be ripening around us, if matters are suf-
fered to take their unmolested course. Because,
forsooth, what is called ministerial o' responsibility"
was the only safegtterd that our ancestors could de-
vise, against the evil (stimitted to he inlay:346l4e)
n placing great power in one irituie hands, end
therefore great temptation to abuse it, the .evil
according to the Standard, to be aggravated as much
us possible by increasirg the quantum of pown to
the utmost, and by enabling this new species of inetn I
pluralist to diminish to the utmost -,hAs responsibility
for the abuse of it, by playing off one kind of power
to uphold the other, and to screen him from the
consequeneeelOf abusing and perverting both. Here
is a plairillangerse-namely, that of distributing mili-
tary fitin'ofictt: 04'Y 'as while the army is ruined by it,
the favour of the Aristocracy is secured, and a bad
Administration wrongfully and iniquitously strength-
ened . And yet the Standard talks of " responsi-
bility," forsooth, and law ! as if responsibility is not
evaded in the exact degree in which patronage is
abused, and Parliament corrupted ; or as if any -
device of statute-law or common can punish
a Prime Minister for even the most fla-
gitious system of packing and destroying the
British army, should he, or any person de-
pendent on 'hint, be placed unfortunately at its
head. 'I hat the Duke of Wellington has resigned
the command,—that is to say, in form,—we are not
ignorant ; and our remarks go merely to the neces-
sitv,—the military as well a; constitutional neces-
sity,—of making that resignation as perfect in sub-
stance as it is in semblance, while the argument of
the Evening Paper would justify an assumption of
every office in the Cabinet,—nay, of every dignity in
Church and State,—by the same individual Duke
of Wellington; for is he not " responsible ?" says
the Standard,— -and is there not the law to restrain
him ? The Duke himself appears to have enter-
tained more becoming sentiments on every part of
the subject, at we very distant period,—at least, if
we may judge by his printed speech on the 2d of
last May. The following passage shows clearly
enough what notions he then had formed on two
important points-Ist, his own fitness to be First
Lord of the Treasury ; 2d, the incongruous nature
of that offeee with the command of the troops, which
latter he speaks of sacrificing, as a painful but ine-
vitable consequence of his appointment to the head
of the Cabinet:—
:a Do your Lordships suppose that, having raised myself
to the: highest rank in the profession which I had pre-
viously ;.ollowed from my youth ; that, having been ap-
pointed to the highest situation in that profession—for I
Gallant yriends,
may say I rah-ed myself, without indicating any desire to
oieligations to my Noble,
underrate my
the General Officer; of the Army by whom I am sur-
rounded, and still less those which I owe to his Majesty
for his most gracious favour and kindness, I may safely say
that bis Majesty could not have placed me where I was, if
I had not rendered some service to the State deserving of
his approbation ;—I say then, that having raised myself to
such a station in my profession, I could not be desirous of
leaving it in order to seek to be appointed to be the head of
the Government, a situation for which I am sensible that
• I am not qualified ; and to which, moreover, neither his
Majesty, nor the Right lion. Gentleman, nor any one,
wished to see me called. Do your Lordships think it pos-
sible that I was not gratified by being restored • to my old
relations of command over my old friends and companions,
and to have attained the power of recommending them to
his Majesty for the professional rewards of their services,
after having passed my life in exciting and directing their
exertions ? Does any man believe that I would give up
such gratification, in order to be appointed to a station, to
the duties of which I was unaccustomed, in which I was
not wished, and for which I was not qualified ;. as it must
be obvious to your Lordships, that not being in the habit of
addressing your Lordships, I should have been found, be-
sides other disqualifications, incapable of displaying, as they
ought to be displayed, or of defending the measures of Go-
vernment as they ought to be defended in this House by
the person thus hoeoured by his mejesty's confidence?—
My Lords, I should have been worse than mad, if I had
thought of such a thing."-- Times.
c: The Schoolmaster is abroad (said Mr.
Brougham,) and I will trust more to him, armed
with his primer, than to the soldier with his bayonet"
In another part of our Paper will be found an abridge-
ment or an account in The Leicester Chronicle, of
the progress of the Schoolmaster in that town. The
Rev. T. C. Vaughan, of Cesar and God notoriety,
figures in that account consistently enough, as the
determined opponent of Infant Schools and
he was
supported, conscientiously, no doubt, by his
' trate.
" The Schoolmaster is abroad!" But truly he has
business enough on his hands. How many men are
there in situations of power and influence throughout
the country, with less eccentricity of character, per-
haps, than the-Rev. T. c. Vaughan, but with notions
not one whit more enlightened as to matters as to
which it is of the uttitost moment they should enter-
tain correct opinions. The Rev. T. C. Vaughan,
amidst all his High. Church absurdity, displayed
.something like feeling for the condition of the poor.
He thought, indeed, that it was better the children
of the poor should receive no education, than one
which was not exclusively adapted for members of
the Established Church, but he seemed to feel the
hardship of the separation of children from their
parents. Unfortunately for a high Churchman,
when his heart is in the right place, his head is sucli
a receptacle of perverse notions and absurdities,
that his sensibility becomes a nuisance instead of
st benefit to the communit.v. The Rev. T. C.

Vaughan, for instance, imputes the separation
of the child from the parent to the avarice oi,
the manufacturers. They decoy the mothers e
the children into their establishments, and the
educating by wholesale, in Infant Schools, the chil-
dren so unnaturally abandoned by them, is merely
a scheme of these avaricious manufacturers to
varnish over their cruelty
.with a seeming humanity.
But how happens it that the Leicester manufactu-
rers do not succeed in decoying the ladies of the
Rev. Mr. Vaughan and the Rev. Mr. Page, hi.
Curate, into their establishments? 0, but they are
not poor; and it is only poor mothers that so aban-
don their children. It is the poverty, then that is
the cause of the abandonment, and not the cupidit)
of the manufacturers. The Infant Schools do not
ether produce the poverty, or cause the mothers to
abandon their children, but they preserve thou
children when poverty forces their mothers, against
their inclinations no doubt, to abandon, from that
early initiation in vice which is the inevitable con-
sequence of allowing children to roam about without
c mtroul in large town,. The poverty is the evil;
and the Rev. T. C. Vaughan would have been
much better employed, when in his far famed Ser-
mon he traced our Gracious Sovereign's right to
rule us without controtil to his inheritance of King
Adam's absolutism, if he had endeavoured to find
out how it happened that, while one of King Adam's
descendants can relax himself from the toil of makine
Ministers and Bishops, with building Palaces and
Colleges, the descendants of the younger branches
of the family are reduced to so li:ar a plight,
that the labour of a father alone will not support his
wife and infant child; but that both parents must
roil, while the child is deprived ()fa mother's care.
It is not alone in manufacturing towns that this
spectacle of cheerless poverty presents itself. In
the Address of the Chairman to the Grand Jury,
at the last Quarter Sessions of the county of Devo;,,
he states that the prisons arc crowded with juvenile
offenders, which he attributes to the compulsory
separation of children from their parents. The
child so separated at a tender age, is, he says,
consigned " helpless, and almost useless, to an
unwilling master." To a parent we may safely en-
trust the power of chastishig his child for misconduct,
iral even in most cases such a power will not be
abused by a slave owner ; but it would be pregnant
with danger, to allow a master to punish at his dis-
cretion, the hapless children consigned to him as
apprentices, in whose well-being hehas little interest.
The Magistrate, therefore, supplies the place of
parent, and the Correction-house is the school, and
the Beadle's whip the birch. " All this mischief
(says the Chairman—the having the prisons crowded
with juvenile delinquents) is attributable to the sys-
tem which prevails of binding parish apprentices,
who are committed upon complaints preferred against
them by their masters for misdemeanour." The
whole rural population throughout the South and
West of England are paupers, and the children are
at the disposal of the parish, and hence the functions
of the parent cease when the child is begotten. In
the West Indies the parents arc in like manner re-
lieved from parental cares, and after the child has
been nursed by the mother, she returns to field-
labour, and it is transferred to a plantation-nursery.
The planter, however, having an interest in rearing
theelitele Blacks, takes as good.eare of them as he
etlaehe)Oeie- young cattle—a very different care from
`.`that which is besti;lkedon the children of the parish
i4toor, by thaiihalbrs on whom they are forced, or
oy the gaolers under whom they so often finish their
education. The Schoolmaster is abroad ! We wish
the Members of the Honourable House had come in
his 'tvay ; for, with a few exceptions, it would be
difficult to find, in any assembly of full grown people,
a larger proportion of individuals who owe so much
to beef and wine arid so little to his ministrations.
Year after year the condition of the labouring people
throughout the country has been growing worse ;
year after year have they been adding to the number
of penal laws, and to the number of prisons, never
once doubting their capacity to legislate—and the
consequence now is, that the labouring people have
at last become so utterly reckless, that if the country
were covered with prisons, punishment has utterly
llst it; terrors. Some of them console themselves
for their inability to dieconr the cause of this evil,
vith their acuteness in discovering more in one clause
of Magna, Charm; than in all the boasteddiscoveries
of modern philosophy. Others console themselves
with their blindness at home, by their quicksighted-
ness in finding panaceas for all the nations lan-
guielkee under the Holy Alliance. There are
many ‘veliemeaning men in the Legidatnre, but
it is impossible to look on the countenances of
most of these well-grown gentlemen, without per-
ceiving, symptoms of an exceaent digestion, and the
absence of all traces of thought. Many of them
would rather see the labouring people comfortable
than otherwise, but they have no idea that more can
be expected from a Legislator than adding to the
number of penal laws, and countenancing the erec-
tion of prisons. The schoolmaster has never fallen
in with them. Mr. Otwav Cave, at the Leicester
Meeting, made a sensible speech, in which he endea-
voured to satisfy the Rev. T. C. Vaughan, that the
abandonment by the mothers of their childreaewas
caused by poverty, and that this poverty was the
result of the disproportion between the supply of la-
bourers and the' demand for them. One of the best
signs of the times is, the disposition of young men
of family to improve themselves by stetly,_ The
generation entering on life is, in respect of unow-
ledge of a substantial kind, greatly superior to the
generation immediately preceding. This will, no
doubt, gradually improve the composition of the
Legislature, from the ignorance abounding in which
we sutler so much at present.—illorning Chronicle.
Tire Dal,s which lay dormant and unnoticed upon
the table of the House of Lords for some time pre-
vious to the conclusion of the last Session of Par-
liament, for transferring the right of representa-
tion from Penryn and East Retford to the populous
manufacturing towns of Manchester and Birming-
ham, are again, we perceive, called into life by their
original movers, Lord John Russell and Mr. Tenny-
son. The principle of these J3ills, it will be recol-
lected, was strenuously opposed in the House of
Commons by Mr. Canning, then Prime Minister,
but was nevertheless sanctioned by the House,
through the efforta end influence of the party with
which that Right Hon. Gentleman had just con-
tracted his illeomened alliance; these circumstances
illustrating in a very curious and instructive man-
ner, that unanimity of principle which was the daily
boast of the new allies. Such is not the unanimity,
nor are the principles such, which pervade the
present Government; and we entertain no
doubt whatever that these Bills. (clearly revo-
lutionary as they are in their tendency)—will
meet with the prompt and uncompromising re-
sistance, and undergo the early fate, of• which
they are so entire!), worthy. The question is. of the
utmost magnitude in .a Constitutional point of view;
'and we cannot. suffer it to be narrowed into
a mere
question of local corruption here, and of lo-
cal wealth, population, and importance there.
i
It s not whether the offence of bribery ought
to be puniehea,' or whether the immense po-
pulation of two great towns ought to be distinctively
considered or gratified, or even whether we have it
right to expect tour better Sexators from Manchester
and Birmingham than from East Retford 4114 Pen_
ryn ;--tllv question is, whether it is wise or safe for
the Legislature to remerd in two solemn Acts its de-
liberate admission, that the principles upon which
the British House of ' Commons is now constituted
are vicious and unsound. The slightest reflection
suffices to shew that this is the real question at
issue : and we entertain nut the least doubt, that
1 these Bills if suffered to pass • into laws would
soon
be appealed to as the highest possible autho-
iv y in favour of more extensive innovation. Are
the principles of our National Representation sound
• and beneficial ? All who answer this question in
, the affirmative must in consistency strive, not to
protect and perpetuate local corruption, for this is
opposed to those principles, but to chastise and
eradicate it, by means which will effect the least
• possible change of the existing system, or to speak

more explicitly, by merely extending the right of
voting in the offending botoughs to the freeholders
of the adjacent hundreds. Are the principles of our
national representation vicious and mischievous ?
Those and those only alto are prepared to answer
this question in the affirmative can consistenly ap-
prove of so violent a departure from them as would
be involved in the transfer of the right of representa-
tion from one small borough in Cornwall and an-
other in Nottinghamshire to two large manufac-
turing places in the counties of Lancaster and
Warwick, whose only claim to the distinction con-
sists in their being large manufacturing towns. But
it is not individuals who are. now called upon to
answer the questions above stated. The whole
Legislator e of the United Empire is in substance
anti effect called upon for a sentence of approval or
conderimation of the entire system of our National
Representation—and its sentence will be conclu-
sively pronounced by the fate of these two Bills. It
would be an insult to the Legislature to doubt for
one moment what will be its sentence. If, indeed,
the Bills in question promised any great practical
benefits as likely to result immediately from their
enactment, this might serve to reconcile us in some
degree to the mischief which lurks under their
principle. But the reverse of this is the fact. The
only effects which these Bills can possibly produce
upon the character of the House of Commons, are
to strengthen the manufacturing- and commer-
cial, and exactly in the same proportion to
weaken the landed intbience; to strengthen the
reforming (we employ the mildest term), and to
Weaken, in the same proportion the conservative
influence in that House. These, in our judgment,
so far from being benefits, would be palpable inju-
ries. We dislike the end as much as we dislike the
means. We should dread to see the landed in-
fluence weakened in the House of Commons. We
should dread to see the opponents of rash innova-
tion and experiment less powerful than they noa-
are in that House. We should dread to see the
House of Commons assimilate less to the other
branches of the Legislature in principle and feeling
than it does at present. It appears to us, for the
reasons we have already given, to be the imperative
duty of Ministers to resist these Bills ; and we have
little doubt that this duty will be vigorously and suc-
cessfully discharged. The most zealous advocates of
these Bills, in the Commons, do not affect to believe,
should they even be successful there, that they have
the smallest chance of a favourable reception in the
House of Lords. And the zeal of some of these
advocates, although in this censure the Noble
and Honourable Movers cannot, we are satisfied,
justly he included, is stimulated less by any sincere
anxiety for the ultimate fate of the Bills, than by
the hope that their final rejection in the House of
Peers may furnish them with another opportunity
of reviling and ridiculing, collectively and individu-
ally, as they have often done before, the Noble Mem-
bers of that illastrious Assembly. Such persons it
is the special duty and • interest of an honest and
patriotic Administration to thwart and disappoint
upon every possible occasion; anti it is an interest
and a duty which can be forgotten or neglected only
by an Administration so base and feeble as to de-
pend in some measure upon the support of Faction
or by Otte which reckons among its members some
who are at once so foolish and so malignant as to
harbour selfish feelings of resentment towards the
Aristocracy of the land. We have now fortunately
an Administration, to which neither of these dis-
graceful descriptions will apply.—Morning Post.
Mr. Brougham has give» notice of a motion for
inquiring into the present state of the laws, with a
view to their amendment; and as that Gentleman is
most conversant with what is called the Common
Law Department, it is naturally supposed that that
will he the first object of his attention. We trust,
however, that this supposition is erroneous, its we
have full faith in his ability to treat even the other
branches with success, if he had previously bestowed
on them that degree of attention which the long va-
cation has left at his disposal. We say we trust that
the supposition is erroneous, because we conceive
that, many as the abuses and imperfections are which
even that department presents, they fade into utter
insignificance when compared with those of that di-
vision of the law which is, generally, though perhaps
not very accurately-, designated by the name of
Equity. That Law is, in common parlance, called
Equity, or Chancery Law, about which Chancery
Barristers and Conveyancers are conversant; and
Common Law that which occupies the Common
Law Courts, and Special Pleaders. Under
these distinctions, therefore, we shall treat
them in the' folloWing remarks :---sThe prin-
cipal complaints against • the present system
are the very great expense and delay attendant on
it ; and, secondary to these, the impossibility of a
client perceiving, through the complexity of its
structure, the justice of a decision. iNow, with res-
pect to all these points, the Courts of Common Law
have a very decided advantage over Chancery.
However enamoured we may he of the simple modes
by which our very remote ancestors redressed wrong
and secured right, we are instructed by history that
no civilized and prosperous nation ever enjoyed such
simple process, unless, indeed, when all law rested
on the absolute and unfettered will of the Prince.
That some inconvenience should attend on litigation
is a great public as well as individual benefit, because
it dispeses men to adjust their differences in a more
amicable way, and inculcates that spirit of forbear-
ance which is necessary to the repose of society;
and, therefore, it is not so necessary to facilitate a
recourse to law to those who are led there for
the sake of anger or redress, as to those who apply
for the aid- of judicial decision on the subject of
doubtful right, or complicated claims. It is not
intended to assert, that either ought not to be as easy
of access as possible, but merely to point out how
much more material this object is with respect to
the latter class of litigants; but still more important
is it that all difficulty should be removed to the
effecting of legal precautions against future litiga-
tion. In reality, however, as the law is now prac-
tised, this order is nearly reversed, and the precau-
tionary measures, such as the legal and accurate this-
, position of property, involve in general more ex-
' pence than an appeal to a Court of Common Law,
in case of a dispute. The evil most oppressive,
most needless, and most easily remedied, is the ex-
pence attendant on conveyances. So needless and
so - easily remedied is this, that scarcely more is
wanting to'its abolition, than a hearty desire on the
part of solicitors to accomplish it. It is well known
in the profession, that a conveyancer, who was in
the habit of making ;host drafts, would soon lose
his clients, because, though the length of the in-
strument contributes to his own profit, it con-
tributes in a threefold ratio to that of the soli-
citor. It is not an uncommon thing for two sets
of instructions to come into a conveyancer's of-
fice, exactly the same in substance ; and while
the objects of both will bp equally effected,
the expence of one shall vastly exceed that
of the other, merely because the words " as short
as possible" were written under the instructions for
the latter. As conveyancing, then, ought to be at-
tended with the least expence, but is actually accom-
panied with the most, and as the evils connected
with it are most easily remedied, this should be the
first object of the man who wishes to purge the
present system of our law of its many imperfections.
With respect to the common law department, the
expences are not sufficient to deter men frOm having
recourse to the Courts, on grounds so frivolous and
trifling, as almost daily to call forth the animadver-
sions of the Judges. And in the state of society to
which we have arrived, it is difficult to imagine
how a suit can be more expeditiously brought to a
conclusion, without manifest injustice to the parties,
than it is at present in the King's Bench. It is not
for a moment intended to defend the system of spe-
cial pleading in its details, or to say that the plead-
ings in a suit might not be materially abridged,
and, of course, the expence in some degree dimi-
nished • but, in its principle, the English system of
pleading is the most -perfect in existence; for none
other tends so much to attain certainty and despatch;
and though it, like every other, affords opportunities

' for dishonest delays, they are few, in comparison, to
those of other SySteins. We will, in a future article,
enter more fully into this subject; but, for the pre-
sent, must content ourselves with repeating that
this is the least imperfect branch of our law, and that
the interests of society are more directly con-
cerned in the amendment of the system by which
property is secured than that by which mere per-
sonal wrongs are redressed.—New Times.
Amongst what may be fairly called the rubbish
of antiquity, nothing seems to work more decided
injustice than the claims set up by small but wealthy
spots—such, for instance, as Inns of Court—lb'
exemption from their fair share of public burdens.
While parochial levies were trifling matters, ivhat
are called extra-parochial places excited no attention ;
but now, in the Metropolis especially, when these
local taxes amount to more than what was the rent
of the houses on which they are rated .50 or 60 years
ago, it is high time that these claims to exemption
should be narrowly investigated, and, where possible,
done away with. The law is a tolerably lucrative
trade, and why it should not bear its share of the
public burdens, in common with trades that are far
less so, we cannot imagine. Privileges which place
men beyond the reach of those services and burdens
which attach to others are the same in their nature,
though not in their effect, as a distinction which should
make them outcasts of one part of the community, and
place them out of the pale of the law. Sergeant's'
Inn, Chancery-lane, it seems, claimed a right some
years ago to be exempted from the Poor-rate; the
question was tried, and decided against the Inn; but
now, forsooth, the payment is resisted, op the ground
that Sergeants'-inn, Fleet-street, has since obtained
a contrary decision. Nearly all the Inns of Court,
we believe, have at some time or other claimed a
similar exemption; but that a decision in favour of
exempting one, is to be a precedent for exempting
the rest, and that in the teeth of a decision to the
contrary, is a species of logic which lawyers may
comprehend, but which we confess that we do not.
Acts of Parliament, we believe, are sometimes passed
" to settle doubts ;" though lawyers, we dare say,
will continue to doubt, in spite of doubt-resolving
Statutes. We think, however, that no great harm
or injustice would be done if one general Statute
wem passed, sabjecting all the Inns of Court to the
same taxes and regulations as apply to the rest of
the Metropolis; for considering how much the law
gets by its own doubts, there can be no doubt but
that it ought to contribute its quota towards charges
it has so large a hand in creating.—Morning
Herald. •