Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-06-26
THE LONDON TIMES ON MIR. PHELPS
High Praise From the Thunderer.
From the London Times, June 81

neSday evening in his Official character
before large assemblage of Englishmen.
He gave on that occasion abundant rea'
son for the British public to desire that he
may let it see much of him, and enable it
to become intimately acquainted with his
merits. In his answer to the Lord May
ors proposal of his health, he chose his
topics with the utmost judgment, and
treated them with perfect taste. 1t was
something of an ordeal at once for his au-
dience and for himself, and both emerged
from it with mutual satisfaction. The
succession to Mr.. Lowell could not but be
a trying inheritance. An infusion of Il
little literary crossgrainedness into his
predecessors diplomatic behaviour would
have smoothed Mr.. Phelps's entrance on
his ministerial career. Mr.. Lowell has
supplied him with no opportunities of sol
acing contrast between men of genius
and men of affairs. No legation
could have been conducted more
efficiently than that of the United
States during the past few years Its chief
showed himself to be as capable in inter
views atthe foreign office as he was brilliant
in the Abbey Chapter house. His success
or is known for excellent business quail
ties. He spoke on Wednesday with grace
of dictiOn and an elevation of tone which
prove him fitted to fill Mr.. Lowell's place
as well socially as in office. The two
countries want at the United States lcga-
ton in London one who will live with
Engishmen while he uegOtiates. The
Lord Mayor expressed Il natural hope
that very little might be heard of Mr..
Phelpss discharge of his diplomatic du-
ties. As Mr. Phelps said in his reply, it
is indeed matter for congratulation when,
as now. they require nothing to be said
hnp p,.f. 1,,tr ito Ia
lie anxiety it is not to be supposed they
either are supertluOus or are not being
performed. Between leading States like
the Union and Great Britain causes
of friction are ever liable to arise.
They may be rubbed into sores, or
sOothed into subsistence, much at the dis
erection of diplomacy. A sympathetic
American representative will understand
that for Englishmen to wish provoke Amer
lean ill-will is inconceivable. He will com
prehend their general disposition to
frlendlineSS, and something warmer He
will put to the true account the accidents
of local manner and expression. He Will
feel himself accredited to the British peo
pie no less than to the secretary for foreign
affairs To Englishmen it is at least as
important as to an American minister that
he should accept his functions in that
spirit Mr.. Phelps's sample of himself at
the Mansion House is testimony that his
Interpretation of his obligations agrees
with theirs.
A special connection with one of the
great divisions of English life and thought
tends to facilitate general appreciation
of the nationality it is an American en-
voys province to study. A member of an
American profession which is also an
English profession begins by not being a
stranger. Mr.. Lowell from the moment
he occupied the legation was at home. AS
a member of the vocation of letters lie
had key of the citadel of English hearts.
Mr.. Phelps is among the most eminent of
American lawyers, and has stepped on
shore into the midst of Il confraternity
which is scarcely other than his own. An
American minister who has spent as Mr..
| Phelps Worthily boasts, his best years in
the practice of the law is provided with Il
wedge warranted to open the hardest knots
of insular reserve. He speaks the dialect
/ in vogue, wherever lawyers are met and
where are they not ? Armed with the pro
fessOnal shibbOlethS he has, of his person
III right, as interchangeable Abundance
into the inmost recesses of English habits
as the author whose heart both sides of
/ the Atlantic are equally empowered to
| read. Not in literature itself, common as
it is to the two lands, is the national
inheritance of Great Britain and the
| United States more genuinely undivided
and joint than in law. There are Ameri-
can text books which have educated two
generations of English jurists. Judg-
ments of English Courts are cited at
Washington with hardly less technical
and almost more moral authority than the
decisions of American judges On par
ticular points, sometimes grave, oftener
trivial the Courts of the two countries
differ, In guiding principles and in spirit
they obey the same motives, and would es
TEEN it a serious discredit TO be convicted
of unexplained divergence. For both the
advantage is manifest and extraordinary
The absence of direct authority in the eX
positions from across the water, to which
Mr.. Phelps referred increases rather than
lessons their utility. A lawyer adopts
favor, or struggles against as tyrannical
tribunals. Without any sense of con
straint he consults conclusions arrived al
bG minds which, though foreign, are
trained like his own and acknowledge
identical principles in order to inform his
own intelligence, and to assist his reason
in It's voluntary operations. American
lawyers are in this impersonal way very
familiar already to Englishmen, and have
long, been highly regarded by them. In
dividually they are less well-knowI
legal vacation has enabled the professors
of this country to be. Mr.. Phelps will dc
much towards repairing the omission
He will be medium towards bringing
the English and the American Bars anC
Benches together in other modes than by
their partnership in law books and aXioms
Lord Colerldge Investigated minutelv dur
ing his American tour the American lega
procedure, and is believed to have per
suaded himself of its adaptibility in sew
eral respects to English needs. Mr.. Phelp:
can similarly compare the system in whicl
he is an expert with that from which i
has been mainly derived. He is hearth,
welcome to any transpOrtable improve
: ments he may discover. The one return
to be asked of him is that he shall not
: praise English law for its defects. II
quoted at the Mansion House an American
judges description of the two courses
h. open to disappointed American suitors
q They may either appeal the case or g
away and swear at the Court. With rea
: sonable professional feeling he seems t
8 regret that his countrymen are unlik
e Englishmen in inclining to the secon,
alternative. He is, as an American
though not as lawyer, ungrateful at an
late in seeming to reprobate the Americai
? disregard of the liberty of appeal. 1t /
T. devoutly to be wished that English lit
giants were slower to use it. Redundanc