Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-11-13
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
LEGISLATIVE INqUEsTs AND REPORTS.


mere news, the foreign journals which we receive,
we must be permitted often to repeat remark
which we have already made that the wise poll
tics of one free country almost continually offer
what should be instructive to those Of another for,
with certain local differences in their forms and APP
plication only, the great social problems which oc
cupy nations Of lberalized institutions are
rily much the same every where.
Thus, in Great Britain, whose Government is,
next to our own, the most enlightened, practical,
and popular in existence, the Art of Legislationof
doing by rule for the society those things which the
most need to be done-pursues that purpose by
methods often different from our own yet methods
presenting in that very difference, examples most
useful, now of what we should shun, and now of
what we might well initiate. One of these exam
pies strikes us, as found in certain observations of
an English paper (the London Morning Chronicle
which we shall presently put before our readers.
1t is well known that the British manner of pre-
pairing to legisate on matters of internal policy is
much more cautious and solid than our own. Their
Parliament very seldom proceeds to an important
step in law-makng, without regularity and ampll-
tude of inquiry which our Congress scarcely ever
has set on foot. Their practice (he British) is
always to move upon subjects of large interest by
nstituting Parliamentary inquiry, able and care
full in proportion to the importance of the business
itself. They raise large investigating committee,
which sits during the recess of the Legislature, col
ects all the information that be obtained calls
before it all such individuals known to be par
tcularly versed in the matter, examines them as to
all its bearings arrives at all the facts and opinions
which are of weight, and then reports them at large
10 Parliament, which is thus placed generally IN a
condition to act Understandings, if it chooses to act
on the object in question. To suppose that good
legislation can be done in such cases without this
sort of process, is to suppose Legislature blessed
with an extent and certainty of practical intelligence
as 10 all the great national interests, the like OF
which never yet was elected; and nevertheless our
good Congress has been almost invariably in the
habit of thus acting without any methodic inquiry,
and as if upon this supposition Of its unassis
ed sufficiency to deal-sometimes even almost sans
debae--in no matter what subject, or of how high
concern to the country.
In brief, then, we have legislation too loose and
rash, in general. Nor is that by any means all !: it
is often loosest and rashest on just those matters
where it should be most guarded and most deliber-
ate. For, Party taking possession, for its own
temporary purposes only, of those subjects which
can be made to enlist the widest feeling, because
they regard the largest interests they managed
with view to excite popular passion rather than to
prepare legislative judgment; and thus, when taken
up for legal action, are scarcely considered in any
better light than that which can be given them upon
the hastings SO that Congressional debate seldom
seeks to be any thing better exacter than popular
or party agitation from new point; and legsla-
tion even in its last STAGE is determined by methods
and considerations neither genuine, mature, nor
safe. Endless, of necessity, are the mischieis
which law-making itself, that should be the of
all public ills, is continually inficting among us
Instances we need scarcely recall; if we are right
in what we say, they will at once present them
selves in abundance to every body's recollection !:
but it is well, at least, to point to most
spicuous cases Of the public vice we blame, such as
the repeated Tariff Acts since that of 1924, those
in regard to the so-called Subtreasury, or the
marches and countermarches Of national policy in
respect to Internal Improvement.
But even the better system Of England seems,
from the complaint to which we have referred in
the Morning Chronicle, to have its attendant vices
those opposite to our American ones-the vices Of
an indigested excess of the information collected
with view to legislating. The Chronicle speaks
of the thing as follows:
sit has long been complaint with such would willing
y avail themselves of the statistical information which is from
time time collected by committees and commissions of
dry kinds for the benefit of Parliament and the country that
the ntenabe length which those documents renders
them comparatively useless. Looking for needle in
bundle of hay is too mild metaphor for expressing the DIFF
fcuy of hunting out any specific fact which is wanted
from these overgrown volumes No s,aesmans reading
pretend to keep pace with their appearance any than the
accomplished lawyer ater himself persuade the
public that he satisfactorily acquainted with the Statutes at
Large Indeed there exists fitting correspondence Of buki
between British legislation and British statistics. The
huge irregular shape and ndsnc features of reports and evil
dence duly preserved in the chaotic congees Of unwedy
of Parliament There cannot be better commentary
the character Of Blue Books and Government Reports gene
raj than the that being made Of them in the
Of debate in the House of Commons. No knows
acty what weapon available for himself his enemies, may
Turk in that infinite arnory Of paper. Searching through
out Of the question, except thirteenth labor Of Hercules
or employment for familiar spirit that is carry off the ma
gcan unless kept perpetually work. The only resource
thar L.. L..t H.