The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—We never could quite understand Mr.
Goulburn's reasons for refusing to publish the evi-
dence taken before the Commissioners of Revenue
Inquiry, concerning the conduct of the members
and officers of the Board of Customs. Probably
Mr. Goulburn, not the clearest of thinkers,
did not understand his own reasons. The report
of the Comeeeissioners, which is published, dis-
closes P... 0 the charges made against the different
111.Zdribers of the Board of Customs and Custom-house
officers ; gives the circumstantial denials—which
must be satisfactory to every one who reads them—
of all the persons accused, and absolves them all.
The evidence can contain nothing material, in addi-
tion, in the way of charge—certainly no more
serious charges than what are given in detail in
the report, and answered. The only effect of with-
holding the evidence can be to excite suspi-
cions that the Commissioners doubt the conclu-
sions of their report; and are unwilling to let the
public test those conclusions for themselves. The
evidence might have been published with the omission
of names, if there were any object in such omission ;
which, after what we have read in the report, we cannot
conceive there could be. The public would have seen
the nature of the evidence as well as if the names were
given. This, however, seems the very case in which
the House of Commons should have exercised the
power for which it has so lustily contended, of publish•
ing names and everything. The conduct of the mem-
bers and chief officers of an important public board is
directly in issue. Charges against individuals are
the very matters inquired into and reported upon;
and it greatly concerns the public to be able to
satisfy itself whether the charges are true or
false. The House of Commons claims immu-
nity in the courts of law for libel in its pub-.
lished reports; on the ground, that the public
cannot be placed in a position to judge on a sub-
ject of public inquiry without the publication of libel-
lous matter. This is just one of these cases. The
libels are here material. We find that the House of
Commons uses no caution about publishing charges
against individuals with their names, in other cases,
where no object whatever is to be gained by ex-
exposing the names of individuals. For instance :
in the published Minutes of Evidence taken before
the Select Committee on Gaming, we find Cap-
tain Rous expressing opinions about a person
whose name is given, but which we shall withhold.
Captain Rous may, or may not, be justified in his
opinions; but the person whose character he impugns
has no opportunity of clearing himself, as the
members and officers of the Board of Customs
have had; and a knowledge of the character of
this individual was utterly immaterial to the ob-
ject of the Gaming Committee's inquiry. The
minutes of evidence taken before the Dog-stealing
Committee contain a number of choice com-
pliments to individuals who are named. The publica-
tion of the name of the party whom Captain Rous holds
in such contempt was unnecessary for the purpose of
describing turf malpractices. But dog-dealers, and
the individuals attacked by Captain Rous, are persons
of a humble condition in life ; and of course no one in
the House of Commons troubles himself about their
feelings, or the injury which may be done them in
business, by the publication of these attacks upon
them. The members of the Board of Customs,
on the other hand, are all fine gentlemen, many
of them aristocratically connected ; and worthy,
therefore, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's
protection. But they are unfortunate in hav-
ing a blunder-headed protector, who only in-
jures them by his protection. The Commis-
. sioners of revenue inquiry have pronounced the
charges unfounded. The only effect of withholding
the evidence will be to excite suspicion that Mr.
Goulburn, the protector of the Customs Board, fears
to let the public judge for themselves between the
' evidence on the one side, and the other—the answers
of the parties accused and the report of the Com-
missioners.
STANDARD.—There is no doubt that in the long
run " honesty is the best policy;" but they who look
merely to temporary objects will sometimes see great
advantage in expedients deflecting considerably from
the rule of right ; and of such expedients perhaps
none presents a stronger temptation than to misrepre-
sent the principles and designs of a political opponent.
You have only to impute to a public man, or to a
party, principles and designs odious from their in-
justice or extravagance, and you succeed at the time
in heaping unpopularity upon the object or objects of
misrepresentation, and lay up a good opportunity for
imputing tergiversation and inconsistency, when the
facts prove that you have been dealing out falsehoods.
It is not you who have been lying, but the men who have
deserted their principles. This convenient channel of es-
cape, too, is very much favoured by the fact that there
are dependent upon every leading statesman, attached
to every political party men who mean more than they
say, expect more than they profess to look for, and
some of these, when disappointed, will be always sure
to justify the charge of inconsistency brought
against their late political patrons or brother
partizans by affirming that their extreme
views were the understood, though not ex-
pressed, views which all held in com-
mon. The Opposition journals are just now
very freely employing this reaction, as it were, of
their own falsehoods, poured forth when the Con-
servatives were in opposition. For nearly eleven
years those journals described the Conservative
party as, by their selfish desire of monopoly and
by their religious bigotry, unfit for the admi-
nistration of the government—three years' ex-
perience of a Conservative Ministry, supported by
a great Conservative majority in Parliament, has
however proved that the Conservatives are neither
monopolists nor bigots, and now the Whig-Radical
press turns round and charges the Conservatives with
apostacy, appealing to the poor Morning Post as the
only remaining type of true Conservatism—" the
faithful found among the faithless," though it would
be difficult to show what useful light our melancholy
Contemporary shed upon Conservative principles
during the eleven years of the party's eclipse. We,
for ourselves, can only recollect that it abused us
with much regularity for the shortcoming of our
Conservative notions. Now, the true test of consis-
tency is surely not the exaggerated imputation of
enemies, or the absurdities promulgated by
very slightly regarded hangers-on, but the
former professions and the previous acts of the
party against whom the charge of inconsistency is
alleged; and, tried, by this test, the Conservative
party generally, or its distinguished head, has little
to fear—neither the one nor the other professed
monopoly or bigotry, or any opinion or design that
could be properly described as monopolist or bigoted.
if either did let the proof be advanced. We do not
affect to conceal that both enemies and hangers-on
have, in the practice of former Tory Govern-
ments, an apology for imputing to the pre-
sent, an under system of policy, very dis-
tinct from that which is professed. The re-
cently published " Life of Lord Eldon" proves
that, from whatever course arising, the administration
of Lord Liverpool, and the latter part of the admi-
nistration of Mr. Pitt, had generally two faces, one
to the public, one for the Cabinet, and sometimes
(when it was convenient to keep the just and vigilant
Sovereign in the dark) even a third face for the King.
A letter of his father, lately read at a repeal meeting,
in Dublin, by Mr. Henry Grattan, presents a curious
picture of the Protestantism of even Lord Sidmouth's
Government. The letter from which we are about to
quote was addressed to Mr. Fox, and bears date
Dec. 12, 1803 :
" All the subjects you mention—Catholic emancipa-
tion, for such I must call it—payment of the Catholic
clergy by the State, and perhaps some little improve-
ment regarding our Church, and, above all, a faith-
ful and cordial execution, by the executive magistrate,
of the laws in favour of the Catholic—their appoint-
ment to a share in offices to which they are now
qualified (I believe there are scarcely any of them so
advanced) the withdrawing from any intrigue to
exclude them from the corporations to which they
are admissible, but excluded by a faction—the im-
posing silence on any Government press who would wish
to sustain a religious war—the withdrawing of the coun-
tenance of Government from all such who are notoriously
and inveterately foes to the Catholic body—the gracious
reception of their persons (it was so in the time of Lord
Fitzwilliam)— these things, the manners of the Court as
well as their measures would be absolutely necessary for
that security and unity which you desire. Letgiasit hattiree
provisions are not enough ; it is necessary
Minister should love those provisions ! .
The writer of this letter was, at the very time of
writing it to the great leader of the opposition, the
adviser—we should rather say the master—of Lord
Sidmouth's Viceroy, the Earl of Hardwicke, and con-
tinued to really exercise the Irish Government until
March or April, 1806.

THE LONDON GAZETTE,

(THIS EVENING.)

Commission by the Lord Lieutenant of Essex.
The Hon. C. 11. Maynard to be Deputy Lieutenant,
July 25.
Commissions by the Lord Lieutenant of Bucks.
C. G. Du Free, M.P., to be Deputy Lieutenant ; M.
A. de Rothschild, Esq., to be ditto, July 31.
Commissions by the Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire.
First or East Devon Regiment of Militia—W. D.
Band, Gent., to be Ensign, Jan. 23.
Royal First Devon Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry—
Sir J. T. B. Duckworth, Bart., to be Major ; E. A. San-
ders, Esq., to be Captain, July 29 ; J. B. Smith, Gent.,
to be Cornet ; T. Daniel, Gent., to be ditto, Oct. 17.
WHITEHALL, Arc. 12, 1844.
The Lord Chancellor has appointed Edward Hands-
comb, of Ampthill, in the county of Bedford, Gent., to
be a Master Extraordinary in the High Court of Chan-
cery.

WHITEHALL, JUNE 13.
The Lord Chancellor has appointed Alexander Ander-
son, of Aberdeen, Gent., to be a Mast€r Extraordinary