The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-26 00:00:00

of the general honesty of all three. Nei-
ther does he, when beaten in A cause, look
round for the means of revenge on his judges or i
his adversary. His utmost wish centres ;in a
new trial, or an appeal to a higher but similarly
constituted tribunal ; and when his case is finally
adjudicated, he casts all retrospective cares to the
wind, and sits down content, if not gratified.
The cause of all this lies on the surface ; it is
the strong feeling of that perfect political
freedom which Englishmen enjoy, and the sacred
regard which every man is, in consequence, com-
pelled to pay to the rights of all the rest. It is
quite natural, with these sentiments, in regard to
legal decisions, and with the disposition to seek
relief from almost every grievance by an appeal
to a Court, which naturally follows, that an
Englishman should be friendly in principle
to a multiplicity of statutes, however, in a mo-
ment of spleen, he may rail against it. The same
protection to which he has recourse in one case he
would invoke in another ; and for the security,
often fanciful, that law affords, he will make sa•
crifice of any thing, even of that liberty which it
is the object of all good laws to preserve. In this
disposition lies the evil which it is sought to re-
move, and which, as we have said, we fear to be
without a cure. The more minute the details to
which laws are directed, the more refined and deli-
cate must be the shades of difference which they
seek to establish—the more circumlocutory their
language—and the more numerous and complex
their definitions. If we will have laws to regulate
every process of arts and manufacture—if not a
peg shall be moved in our domestic economy, with-
out the fiat of a.Court—if we will eat, and drink
and be clothed by statute—we cannot fairly com-
plain, that language, which has its limits,
should now and then fail under the burden of
our unlimited demands. We said, that we

thought a palliative might be found to the evil
of ambiguity in Acts of Parliament ; and in the
light merely of a hint of what might be done,
rather than what we hope to see done, we shall
state our opinions. Setting aside the great canse
which we have endeavoured to assign, there can
be no doubt that much of the evils spring out of
the hurry, often indecent, with which Bills of
great importance are pressed through Parliament.
To this hurry, which leads to acts of explanation
and amendment without end, the palliative we
allude to might be usefully applied. We would
make all Acts, in the first instance, annual. They

would thus receive, not only the criticism of the
whole of the public press ofthe country, hut, what
is more valuable, they would be tried as to their
working, and what defects were noticeable might
be supplied when the Bill was made permanent.
Another good effect of such a regulation would
be, that many enactments which, in the heat and
excitement of the moment, are placed on the Sta-
tute Book, and which are kept on it, not because
they are useful or desirable, but merely because
they are there, would never pass permanently.—
The additional information which a ti%elvemonth
would supply—the leisure given to consider both
the principle and the tendencies of the Bill—
would all be favourable to sound and judicious
legislation. The same rule in respect of private
Acts, as they are called, but which, so far as
the circle of their apparatus extend, are as much
laws as public Acts are, would render unneces-
sary the whole apparatus of checks by which it
has been attempted to give impartiality and
justice to their discussion, whether in Com-
mittee or in the House.—New Times.