The Sun.
London, England, 1829-04-27 00:00:00

(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.)

A country Paper (the Manchester Advertiser) ob,
serves with regard to the. Police, that " the radical
error of the system is, that from the' Magistrates
inclusive, down to the lowest civil =boric/ under
them, r.ll are passive, when they ought to be all
active, in fulfilling the public duty devolved on them.
A Justice at Bow-street, or any other office, is, at
present, a mere recipient ; and he only fulminates
law and punishment against transgressors, after he
has been duly charged with information by the par-
ties aggrieved and seeking redress. When a robbery
or murder is committed—but not till Men—a Md.-
gistrate puts on his power—and not of course to
prevent what has already occurred, but to bring
the offender to justice, or otherwise to dispose of
the enormity to the best of his judgment. The
subordinates, in his department, shape their course
according to the same principle, their general rule
of duty being passiveness—the exceptions activity
against those of whom they have received information,
o: whom they chance to see engaged in the perpetra-
tion of crime. Knowing it to be a maxim of law,
that every man should be considered innocent till ad-
judged guilty, they improve on the idea, and
seem to think it right that thieves should be
at large an,4 unmolested, till they happen to
be convicted." There is much truth in these
ob,ervations. The principle of the present sys-
tem is no doubt radically vicious, inasmuch as
these is nothing preventive in it. It might
do well enough for Alfred's day, when the industry

of the country was confined to tilling the ground and
tending cattle, to go on with such a system : but
our Contemporaries, who contend that any attempt
to organize a plan for the prevention of crime, would
be an invasion of the Constitution, and refer us to the
days of King Alfred, are not perhaps aware of the
extent of our departure from the practices of those
times in police matters. For instance, the execu-
tion of the following enactment would be found not
a little embarrassingto some of our friends of con-
stitutional purity :—" Si peregrines vel alienus extra
viam per sylvan vagetur, et non vociferet, neque
cornu insonet, pro fure sit judicandus vel percutien-
dus vel redimendus. v. LL. hue § 20."—What
‘vould our contemporary of the Standard say, were
he, on diverging from the strait road, to be obliged
to shout out or blow a horn to put people on their
guard against him ? The moment a poor fellow
bawled himself hoarse, or took breath a while to
renew his performances on the horn, he might be
bastinadoed without mercy by any one who might
come across him. But we do not apprehend much
opposition to a reform in our Police. This is
matter that comes home to men's business and
bosoms. There are few men whose prejudices
are so stubborn that they are not to be overcome
by obvious interests. The rogues form yet, thank
God, the minority ; and those who possess pro-
perty will easily be persuaded to approve of
measures for giving additional security to it.

A great stir is now making every where on the
subject of opening the trade to India. On Wed-
nesday last there was a Meeting in Glasgow, nu-
merously and respectably attended, at which reso-
lutions were adopted, expressive of a determination
to claim the entire abolition of the East India Com-
pany's commercial monopoly in every branch of the
trade to and China, and appointing Deputies
to represent the interests of Glasgow at the Gene-
ral Meeting to be held in London. At this meeting
Mr. Kirkman Finlay exposed with much ability the
inconsistency of those who conceived it possible to
export to a country without reference to the returns
which such country can make. "No country on
earth," he observed, " can long expect to be able
to export a greater quantity of commodities than
the countries to which they are sent can take in ex-
change for their own." We cannot export to India
without importing from India. But the traders of
the country must prepare for a rigorous opposition
to their claims. The West India Monopolists will

join the East India Monopolists, and taken together
they will be a formidable enemy. The first great
step towards making India a profitable possession
to this country, is to admit of colonization. Were
the West India monopoly abolished, and coloniza-

don allowed in India, capital and skill would work
wonders on the banks of the Ganges. The natives
themselves, without European aid, will make very
slow advances in improvement.
(FROM THE MORNING HERALD.)

When we stated in a recent article that' the only

...._.. _ _
just mode in which the Revenues of the Church can
he meddled with would be a more just distribution
of them among those for whose general benefit they
were originally designed," we ought to have added,
" and to such other religious and ecclesiastical pur-
poses as they are strictly applicable." In their ori-
ginal institution in this country, tithes were appro-
priated to three objects :—the maintenance of the
Clergy, the relief of the poor, and the repair of
churches. At present, such of them as remain in
religious hands are applied, for the most par, but
to the first of these, and that, as we have shown, in
an unjust and unequal manner, while the country at
large is taxed to an enormous amount for the main-
tenance of the poor, and the repair-and bull ling of
churches. We have guarded ourselves, as above,
from its being, we trust, for a moment imagined
that we mean to lay this to the fault of the Clergy.
The tithes in lay hands are, probably, nearly, if not
quite, as great in amount as those possessed by the
Clergy; and therefore it is due to the latter, in
common justice, to declare that when the country at
large complains of being taxed for objects which the
tithes used formerly to supply, it is not because the
Clergy, but because the laity possess the means
thus misappropriated. How the evil thus perpe-
tuated, principally at the time of the Reformation,
can now be remedied we do not profess to be able to
su,►gest. But that it is an evil and injustice wherever
it exists cannot, we think, be denied; and our laws
teach us in theory, though not always very truly in
practice, that there is no wrong without a remedy.
What remedy can now be applied without an inva-
sion of purchased and vested rights we know not ;
and it is rather to clear away facts, and set ourselves
right against misapprehension, that we have rem red
to the subject, than in any hope of unravelling any
intricacy of such long and established endurance.