The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-14 00:00:00

is not necessary to the discussion of a sy-tem of Govern-
ment, and so they occupied the attention of th• House. Now
here let us point to a distinction, the neglect o' which may
obscure the absurdity of this mode of proceeding. It
is true that when any important event has occurred, as
the lots of a colony, or even a formidable in-
surrection in a colony, or the loss of a ship of
war, or the like, the Parliament or the Executive, as
the case may be, is entitled to call for an explanation ; and
if the explanation is not at hand, to proceed to judgment,
without delay. And why is this? Because in such cases as
are supposed, there is a fait accompli of sufficient magnitude
to interest the country, and a fact which is certain and
irrevocable, constituting what our law calls a corpus de-
licti. But the CISC is very different where the alleged
offence or injury is cumulative, and to be deduced from a
lonr4 series of facts, in themselves unimportant, innocent, or
indifferent. To put a man upon trial, or to call for
judgment upon him, without first clearly establishing
the whole chain of facts upon which you found
your charge, is plainl3'.-,tirst, to • gratuitously make
a crime that may• have no real existence, and then
impute it. In the case of a man on the spot thus
accused, there would be good ground for complain-
ing of injustice ; but the thing is perfectly monstrous when
the man is at the antipodes. However, Captain Fitzroy
found able and efficient defenders; and the waste. of so much
breath, and the lose of so much time, have been-the worst
effoct of Messrs. Huller and Aglionby's proceedings. These
gentlemen have lost nothing in any one's estimation for can-
dour and generosity—for a reason.

PROM TEE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

GLOBE.—That the payment of Clerks of the Peace and
Clerks of Petty Sessions by fees, instead of by salary, is a
system fraught with mischiefs to the public, and calculated
to pervert the administration of justice in the inferior Courts,
especially in the country districts, we have shown not merely
by argument but by facts. Many of the latter we have
carefully selected from the provincial journals, who3e
reports of the proceedings at Quarter and Petty Sessions
we have referred to for the purpose. Intelligent cur-
respondents, in different parts of the kingdom, have also
supplied us with well authenticated case', by which the vices
of the existing system were exposed, and the necessity of a
change in the mode of remunerating these officers of justice
was enforced. We may therefore be supposed to feel grati-
fied on finding that the.Goveenment has undertaken to cor-
rect the evils so generally admitted to exist. The Bill which
Sir James Graham—as the Minister whose department is
specially charged with the general superintendence of the
public justice of the country—has introduced to the House of
Commons, and which was read a second time last night,
seems well adapted to remove the evils arising out of
the present mode of payment. Having taken a special in-
terest in the subject, we congratulate the country on the
interposition of the Government, and on the prospect
of a more healthful mode of remunerating the Clerks of
the Peace in counties, and the Clerks of Petty
Sessions, than that which has been found to work so
great an amount of mischief to the community. Sir James
Graham, in the speech with which lie moved the second
reading of the Bill, stated the principle on which it was
founded, and the means by which it proposed to secure
the purposes it WM framed to effect. The prin-
ciple of the Bill, as stated by the Right Hon.
Baronet, is in the nature of an axiom: "That, on the
whole, justice is better administered by public ser-
vants receiving salaries for the duties performed by
them, than by receiving fees for those duties." To adduce
proof in support of such an axiom might, indeed, appear to
be superfluous. The Right Hen. Secretary's remarks in sup-
port of this simple and eelf-evident proposition will be con-
curred in by all who have paid ordinary attention to the
Working of the system to which they apply :—" In the
first place, he was satisfied that not only the ends of
justice would be better answered by the payment
of salaries, bet ho entertained also a very strong
opinion that, in the end, economy also, and the inter-
ests of the ratepayer, would be considered, and advan-
tageously considered, by the measures they were then dis-
cussing." The cold and discouraging reception which the
measure met with from several country gentlemen, who
carped at rather than spoke against several of its provisions,
shows the jealousy with which the "great unpaid"
view any interference with what they regard as a
kind of hereditary jurisdiction. A poacher in their
preserves, and a Secretary of State who interferes with
their magisterial privileges, is alike the object of their anti
pathy. To transport the one, and thwart the other, is their
study. Who, but persons under the influence rof deeply-
'rooted prejudices, would have started objections so positively
puerile and self-stultifying as these which Mr. Egerton, Mr.
Darby, and Mr. Henley substituted for arguments in the de-
bate of last night ? The former gentleman paid but a
poor compliment to the county magistracy, as a body,
when he assumed that they would victimise the county rate-
payers by availing themselves of the power • vested in
them by the Bill to award inordinately. large salaries to the
functionaries who are now paid by fees, for the purpose of in-
ducing competent persons to undertake the duties which de-
volve on those officers. We know how dangerous it is to en-
trust any man, or number of men, with irresponsible powers,
more especially with power over the public purse: We therefore
recommend, as we have invariably done in similar cases, that the
amount of salary proposed to be paid to the functionaries
alluded to should be ratified by the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. But who would have expected
that a distinguished member of their own body, as the Hon.
Member for Cheshire is, should have objected to the payment
of clerks of the peace and clerks of petty sessions by salary,
lest the magistrates should award an extravagantly large
amount of salary to the officers of their selection ?
STANDARD.—The Property-tax Bill was, as our readers
have seen, read a third time and passed last night. Several
amendments were proposed and discussed at greater or less
length, but all reeected by considerable majorities. The
amendment of Sir R. Inglis, limited as it was by the Hun.
Baronet, to incomes of 500/. per annum et infra, shared the
fate of the rest—sufficient proof that the House was resolved
to carry the measure in its integrity, for if any alteration
could be permitted, that proposition had certainly the
strongest claims to consideration. Most, indeed, will regret
that the danger of allowing exceptions, which, once .ad-
mitted. would soon eat up the whole measure, rendered it
impossible to adopt the benevolent proposition of Sir Robert
Inglis. One or two points were raised in the 'successive dis-
cussions that are not undeserving of remark. Sir • William
Clay entered his protest against the Bill, as an attack
upon that most amiable and interesting class.
misers; and Mr. Benjamin Hawes hurled 'after it
his malediction with a spirit and energy, that gives us all
reason to be thankful that the Member for Lambeth cannot
yet launch thunder-bolts. Misers, says Sir William Clay,
are the great benefactors of mankind. Demosthenes thought
differently when he called them " instinctive traitors."
Bacon thought differently when he charged them as
the collectors of foniites of miseny and of moral con-
tagion. Lord Chatham thought differently when
he called them bloodsuckers. History tells a dif-
fcreet story of them, and history is not ill supported by the
experience of common life. However,-we concede, for argu-
ment sake, that misers are the objects of all that tender
love and deep veneration which Sir William Clay demands
for them, and we concede, absolutely, that men are not to
be persecuted on account of their wealth, or presented in the
Turkish fashion with a bow-string, as the acknowledgment of
their merit in accumulating money. But conceding all this,
we take leave to ask, how is the miser more injuriously
affected by a property and income tax than is any other
person ? If the State take more from the ricri man
than the poor man by a property and income tax, does
it not leave him more and protect - more for him
also? For example, the man of 150/. a year pays
to such a tax but 4/. 103. ; whereas the man of 1,5001.
a year pays 451. This, however, is but one side of the
account; turn to the other side. The State leaves to the
former 1451. 103., and protects it for him ; and it leaves
to the latter 1,455 L. and protects it for him—there is
surely nothing unequal or unreasonable in this as
they will tell at any insurance-office, where we always
find the premium bearing, ceteris paribus, an exact
ratio to the sum insured. As to the ability of the
parties to pay, it is a very simple sum, whether it is easier to
live and support a family upon 1451. per annum, or 1,45.51.?
There is, however, another view of the subject, at which the
Member for the Tower Hamlets appears to glance. Ile seems
to think that men will he deterred from growing rich, by the fear
of the property tax ! Let him dismiss all apprehension upon
the subject ; men will grow rich if they can, in contempt of
ell such dangers, witness the well-taxed Jews of the Ilth,
12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Nobody will refuse
.0701. because it is not a thousand. Well, if the property-tax
neither persecutes the lovely miser ells' nor deters men from
joining its ranks, where is Sir William Clay's objeetion?
We, for ourselves, though not altogether so much enamoured
of the venerable order of misers as Sir William Clay,' have
nevertheless the highest respect for the prudent, frugal,
saving order, and therefore we much desire to see that
order infinitely extended ; confident that some thousands of
prudent, frugal, and saying men, will aceum-elate more
capital ia a country than any possible number of
mere misers—capital, too, which may be collected upon
single objects of the greatest magnitude, as we have seen
it in the case of our great companies, and as we see it in the
case of railroads. But how is the order of prudent, frugal,
and saving men to be extended, if not by giving to almost
every man something to save beyond subsistence, and by un-
fettering the pursuits of industry ?—the precise objects of
Sir Robert Peel's financial reforms, of which the property-tax
is the essential basis. The difference between the Member
for the Tower Hamlets and the Premier is this—the
former would nurse and fondle a few Harpagons, extending to
t heir bags an inviolability from even equal taxation, the letter
would have a rich and frugal. iedustrions and progressive
people—not persecuting the Harpagnne, but not sparing to
call upon .them for an equal contribution. The ground
upon which Mr. Hawes hurried his malediction is
the opportunity which the propertytax gives to the Premier
to remove the taxes that affect industry and commerce—a
reason, in the full enjoyment of all the honour Of which
We shall leave the Honourable Member for Lambeth
unmolested. There is a remark of Sir Robert Peel's
equally profound and just, which goes to the 'root
of the whole question of the preference due to
direct or indirect taxation—a remark which will, we trust, be
seriously considered by the people. All depends upon the
social state of the country. In a new country, where
capi al is scarce and equally distributed, and where
the people live, as it were, from hand to mouth,
almost without capital, direct taxation must be
equally unproductive and oppressive •, and whatever
revenue the State requires must be raised from taxes on con-
sumption to which all mast contribute more or less, and to
which each may in some measure proportion his contribu-
tion to his means. Exactly the reverse obtains in a coun-
try where capital is redundant. In a country so cir-
cumstanced, " the pressure of contiguous wealth,"
unaided by the tax man, reduces the condition of the less
affluent below what it ought to be, and indirect taxation
affecting them (witness the failure of the 5 per cent. duties
in 1840) becomes unproductive, and unproductive it cannot
be without having been first most grievously oppressive.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.
HOME C'lRCUlT.—ltlairhstme, March 12.

CIVIL SlDE.—(Before Lord Chicf Justic,; DENmAN
awl a Common. Jury.)

RUTLEY V. THE SOITTH-EASTERN RAILWAY CODIPANY.

This was an action brought by the plaintiff; a carrier,
at Dover. to recover from the South-Eastern Railway
Company the va!ue cf certain perishable goods, consist-
ing of fish and meat, and which he alleged were de-

trt,yed by reason of their illegally refusing to allow
him to send them upon the railway after the tolls and
rates paid by the Act of Parliament had been duly paid.
There were a great many counts in the plaintiff's de-
claration, of which the above is the substance. The
Co:npany had put s:weral pleas upon the rccord, alleging
that the rates and talk 11,d not been paid—that money
was due frora t:e plaintiff to the Company, and also
that the waggon containing the goods in qnrstion was
not loadod in the form ttnd manner required by the Act
Parliament,
The circumstances under which the action was
brought were these. The plaintiff had, for a consider-
able time followed the occupation of a carrier very ex-
tensively between Dover, London, and the intermecruN,
p?ace, upon the route, but upon the establishment of
the ral vay he was, of course, compelled to give up
'aid system of business, and for some time: he, is com-
mon with other carriers, conveyed his goods. by the rail-