The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT or THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

It will be seen that a Protest has been signed
by a round dozen of Peers, against the Bill
which has just passed in Parliament, for letting
out, under a fixed scale of duties, the foreign
corn which may have been warehoused by the
Ist instant. It is not for us to discuss the act
of these eminent and illustrious persons, of what
Lord Grey would call " the order," or what
might, perhaps, with more propriety, be denomi-
nated " the caste,"—the caste par preference.
We may, however, venture to defend the late
Bill against all attacks,- from whatever quarter,
or under whatever form. It is very odd, and
very absurd, that the old Corn Bill should now
be defended in any writing or conversation, or
by any class of men whatever, when not only
does there exist against it the east body of op-
position by which it was always impugned, but
when even its authors, and with them all rational
men, give it up as untenable, and inapplicable to
the present state of the country. What, in fact,
can be more wild and extravagant than a law
-which continues to prohibit the introduction of
foreign wheat till the home-market shall mount
to above 80s., when that market has not, in
truth, for years approached to that sum, and
when the people are starving, with wheat at 605.?
What do the land-owners mean by all their
blusters, ithat they would shed the last drop of
their blood, and spend their last guinea, in the
late holy war, when, instead of now sustaining
the burden of the debt which they, and they
chiefly, were instrumental in contracting through
the war, they would drain the last drop of other
people's blood to maintain them in their pristine
Mate, and leave the burden to crush those on
whom it may alight ? It is, however, clear,
that both bread and butcher's meat are much
dearer to the consumer than the price of
corn and cattle will justify ; and the agriculturists
will expend their talents, and employ their time,
much more usefully in the investigation and cure
of these evils, than in foolish and wicked at-
tempts to circumscribe the bounty of Providence.
Wheat is low, it is argued ; there can therefore
be no deficiency in the produce, and no need to
introduce a large quantity of that wkich is bonded
into the market. But if wheat be low, is not
the iirpost upon the introduction of bonded
wheat high in proportion ? For every single Is.
that the price of native wheat sinks below 625.,
does not the tax upon bonded wheat, on its in-
troduction into the market, increase in a two-
fold ratio ? It is mere chicane and trick to say
that any portion of bonded wheat was imported
at prices lower by one-half than those which
were obtained at the same time by the growers
of wheat at home ; for, in the first place,
the price of sale is no sure test of the cost of
production ; and the fact, if it were such, that
British corn-growers obtained at any time twice as
much for their article as those of other countries,
only proves that the former obtained too much. But,
in reality, the observation leaves out the important
circumstance, that the original purchase-money of
foreign grain constitutes but a small portion of its
cost to the importer and salesman, and would insi-
nuate that which is untrue—namely, that there are
no evalizing duties. The Bill, therefore, which has
passed Parliament with the general approbation, as the
best remedy which could be devised on the occasion for
the evils to which the people of this country were ex-
posed,will, we have no doubt, maintain its reputation in
the country, now that it comes forward and is to be
applied. Those who would send it out with,a bad
character will find the intended mischief recoil on
themselves.—Triers. ves.—

The union of legal knowledge with the saga-
city which ought to be possessed by the .Legi-
slator, is seldom to be found on the Bench GI
this country ; where, however, the Judges are as
much the makers as the interpreters of the law.
One Judge was, indeed, distinguished for good
sense and liberality, and did much to improve
the law ; but that Judge, from political consi-
derations, was extremely unpopular in his own
day, and is hardly yet a favourite with the pub-
lic—we mean Lord Mansfield. The black-letter
men held Lord Mansfield in particular abhor-
rence, as did all bigots, and all admirers of
usages without any other merit than that of their
ambiguity to reccommend them. But Lord
Mansfield was not a mere lawyer. Pope tells
us that the sages of the law shook their heads at
Murray as a wit, and Warburton and other emi-
nent men of his day were frequent guests at his
table. This occasionally travelling out of his
own profession liberalised his mind, and pre-
served him from falling into such absurdities as
were gravely uttered by Lord Kenyon, respect-
ing forestalling and Tegrating ; or confounding.;
as Lord Eldon did in his judgments respect-
ing Joint Stock Companies, the driving compe-
titors out of the field, by being enabled to fur-
nish commodities cheaper, with the driving them
out of the field by means of the monopolies
against which ' our forefathers contended, the
efre,q of which was to increase the price of com-
modiiiies. Mansfield endeavoured to give con-
fidence to merchants and traders, by placing the
law as snitch as possible in harmony with the
usages of men of business. His decisions in
matters of insurance, in particular, are often al-
luded to by merchants with warm approbation.
On the other hand, merchants, and men of busi-
ness generally, seem to conceive that most of the
present race of Judges have some twist in their
understandings which prevents the dictates of
common sense from ever finding admission into
them. The City has been thrown into commo-
tion ( if we may use so strong a term), bv a re-
cent decision of the Court of Common Pleas
Foreign Loans ; and more par-
ticularly pal
ticularly by a doubt thrown out by the pre-
siding Judge respecting the legality of lend-
ing money to any Foreign Power. If Judges
are to follow oli:t their own fanciful anald.
gies, instead of attending to the practices of mer-
chants and traders, they may throw a whole com-
munity into confusion. The usages of the com-
mercial world ought always to be attended to, in
judging of commercial transactions. One of the
principles of law which it is of the greatest Un-
portance to hold violate is the giving effect to
contracts, according to the intentions of parties
at the time of entering into them ; and the un-
derstood customs of men who deal in loans ought
necessarily to be taken into account when decid-
ing with respect to loan transactions. In many
countries, it has been deemed expedient to with-
draw commercial transactions altogether from the
civil tribunal-s, from the confusion created by the
inference of lawyers with affairs of trade. In
Count Verri's valuable Economical History of
the Milanese—a country which still fills Jnglish
travellers with astonishment, from the proofs
.of
cultivation with which it abounds--we are told
that one of the chief causes of its decay, ater
falling under the Spanish yoke, was the destrie-
tion of the Commercial Tribunals and the in-
fluence obtained by lawyers. " The prosperity
of our internal commerce," says Count
" may he easily accounted- for when our old laws are
examined—I mean the old Statutes of Milan, printed
;n 1480. We see them excluding from the Assembly

of Merchants the cavilling of Lawyers ; and to pre-
serve in vigour the simple and summary Consular
jurisdiction, no appeal lay from the Consular juris-
diction to any other Judge :—Nullus possit se intro-
mittere, nec in ea procedere, nec aliquid agere, nec
ab interlocutoria eorum consulum valeat aliquo modo
ad alium Judicem appellari. Nullus debitor vel
fidejussor alicujus ex causis antedictis, vel ex pretio
alicujus rei emptai, vet venditze in civitate vel dis-
trictu Mediolani possit recusare judicium dictorurn
consulum vel se ab eis appellare. These laws, in
all that concerns the good faith of contracts, the le-
ality of commerce, the quickness in giving judg-
ments, and the protection of indu.,,try, breathe in
every part, in a barbarous Latin, the wisdom of an
enlightened Legislator." The picture which Count
Verri gives of the system introduced by the Spa-
niards, and which ruined for a time these fine pro-
vinces, would seem drawn from the Court of Chan-
cery under Lord Eldon. We wish, however, we
could say that the evil was confined to the Court of
Chancery.--Morning Chronicle.
We were not at all sorry to see Mr. Brougham,
the other day, fall foul of the Magistrates on ac-
count of the alleged treatment of his coachman
by some of the police-officers at the Lord High
Admiral's rout ; though it must be confessed
that the affair placed both parties in a somewhat
ludicrous position. Mr. Brougham.in office is
no longer Mr. Brougham of Palace-yard or the
hustings ; and of course all carriages and police-
officers should give way to a t, patent of prece-
dence." On the other hand, we are glad to see
a man of Mr. Brougham's spirit and conse-
quence interfering with the excessive humbug
importance of these police gentlemen and their
constables ; the latter of whom are, nine times
in ten, a positive abuse instead of convenience,
owing to their ignorance of their duty, and the
almost moral certainty there is of their miscon-
duct, however gross, being justified by their em-
ployers. Considering the enormous expence
which it incurs, there is probably nothing so de-
fective as the police of London and Westmin-
ster. The expence is included under so many
heads, that the public in general have no know-
ledge or suspicion of its amount. The police-
offices alone cost, we believe, something like
30,000/. per annum. At these the attendance
is frequently irregular, and the treatment such as
it requires tolerable nerve to stand. The tax
levied by the police-officers themselves is pro-
bably 10,0001. a year more. Then come the
costs of prosecution, which, under their va-
rious heads, are not less, we should imagine,
than 50,000/. more. Then the gaols, the house-
hold troops, &c. ; while in this calculation the
City is altogether excluded. So that probably,
were half a million :;et down as the charge to the
public on this head, it would not be much, if at
all, overrated. Now, if this be so, surely those
who contribute to pay this charge (and there is
not a man who buys an ounce of tobacco who
does not) are entitled, at least, to protection in
their persons and property, and, at any rate, to
decent and attentive conduct, as well from Police
Magistrates as their underlings. It is upon this
latter point that Mr. Brougham seems to be at
issue with them both ; and we trust he will fol-
low up the matter. Probably, as far as the mere
question between the Learned Gentleman's
coachman and the thief-taker goes, there may
not be many pins to choose between them. But
that is not the question here. The principle of
" first come, first served," ought to prevail at Police
Offices as well as elsewhere ; but here, when the '
coachman complains against the officer, no redress,
or even step towards redress, is to be obtained ; but
' as soon as the parties change places, and the imma-
culate policeman becomes the complainant, justice
is ready enough to lend its aid in support of its own
myrmidons. This, we hope, is what the Learned
far Winehpliu.. -p-at -whh. - -Of
course it would not be a matter worth bringing be-
fore Parliament, were it sitting, and therefore it
cannot be true that it was a petition from his coach-
man whirl, the Learned Gentleman held in his
hand on Monday, ready to present, could the
Speaker have made a House. But what we trust is,
that as the Seals of the Home Office are about to
fall into Whig hands, the better regulation of the
Police will not be lost sight of.—Morning Herald.

There was one change consequent on the late
reconstruction of the Cabinet, which every sound
hearted Englishman hailed with satisfaction, and
of which the most virulent opponents of the
Ministry have not ventured to complain. We
mean the revival of the office of Lord High
Admiral in the person of the heir presumptive
to the throne. The navy viewed in all its rela-
tions, is a force congenial, not more to the phy-
sical than to the political character of our island
empire. Separated by the surrounding waters
from the Continent, without the means of .car-
rying war into the fields of our neighbours, and
equally protected from their hostile irruptions,
Great Britain is deprived at once of the neces-
sity and of the power of competing with the
nations of Europe as a military power. The
institutions of the country are averse to any such
attempt, were it at all practicable. In the his-
tory of mankind, no nation• has been, for any
length of time, at once military, and free : but a
navy, as has been justly observed, is an armed
force, whose existence is in no respeet injurious
to the Constitution that it protects. It is,
therefore, matter of high satisfaction, to see the
duties and the cares of one who may he called
to the throne of Great Britain directed to the
regulating and perfecting a description of force,
on which, since her earliest annals, she has relied
as her best defence, and which has never failed
her in the hour ofperil. Although we number in our
history more naval heroes than all the world besides;
although our honest, simple-hearted sailors have
for centuries been as much distinguished for valour
as for skill ; and although in all that respects the
manoeuvring of our fleets, oc the management of
single vessels, we have attained very
near to per-
fection, it is astonishing how long any thing in
the shape of moral discipline, or regulated com-
fort, was, in being introduced into what may be
called the domestic economy of the navy. Those
whose memories can go farther back than our
own, must recollect a period, and that not very
distant, when the lash was the only monitor of
every irregularity committed or indicated ; and
when contempt for the sufferings, and disregard
of the life, of the crew of a man of war, were
proverbial. It was not, indeed, until the intelli-
gent Dr. Trotter had shown that the treatment
of our seamen was not less inconsistent with
prudence than with humanity, that any effectual
attempt at reform was made. Since Dr. Trotter
wrote, and, more especially, within the last
twenty years, the progress of improvement has
been rapid. Still there remains much for his
Highness to finish. Something, though
Royal
certainly not too much, was effected for
the superior officers by some of the Duke's
predecessors, but the petty officers—we mean
those below the midshipmen and mates—
have been comparatively neglected. An ad-
dition to their number was made some y'ears
in it Captains of the Fore-
ago by including
castle, Tops, and others, who held only nominal
rank before. But though their pay and
prize-money were increased, they still re-
mained, in respect of general treatment, in no

better condition than the lowest of their com-
panions. They are in future, we learn, to receive
that attention which is due to their station, and
which is essential to give value to their injunctions.
They are not to be subject to punishment, unless by
sentence of a Court Martial (we have known a
master's mate brought to the gangway under what
may now be called the old regime), and they are to
wear a distinctive uniform ; both of them most ex-
cellent regulations. The third is equally good; when
their vessels are paid off, they are to be received, if they
please, on board the nearest flag-ships, where they
will continue to enjoy their pay and rank until they
are otherwise provided for. We can conceive no-
thing better adapted to raise the character of the
petty oflicers, and, by emulation, to raise the cha-
racter of the men who are under their more imme-

diate superintendance, than such regulations. Were
we to suggest any addition, it would be, that these
officers should, in future, mess with each other, and
not with the men; this might be accomplished by
the orders of individual Captains, but a general or-
der would, we conceive, be better, and carry more
weight with it.—New Times.