THE JUSTICE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
CERTAINLY the Peers are a very high-spirited body, only it unfortunately does not seem to be altogether public sfirit. They can, one and all, shrink from the performance of a painful duty, but they find it quite intolerable when any oue " rdgrets" that they did shrink. This state of mind is by no -means uncommon, but there has not often been a more naive exhibition of it than Lord Redesdale's last Tues- day. He is chairman of a Committee which has to recom- mend "such a retiring pension as it thinks fit" for an officer of the House who has Bent in his resignation. He admits that there was a general impression that the officer in ques- tion "had resigned in consequence of certain pecuniary transactions" in another public office which he also filled. He does not seem to have supposed that these transactions amounted to actual dishonesty, but that they were probably flagrant irregularities which could not be overlooked. It is quite clear that Lord Redesdale was aware that there was somethinea suspicious about the affair, for he suggested delay to the Committee until some member of the Govern- ment should be present, and after the report had been agreed to he allowed it to lie on the table for a whole week before it was presented to the House. But neither Lord Redesdale nor any other member of the Committee thought it his duty either in Committee or in the House to put a distinct question to the Government, who alone, says Lord Redesdale, were able to give information on the subject. Now this is not a very dreadful delinquency. It was not the personal duty of any member of the Committee to put such a question, and it is a very disagreeable thing to be the first to take hostile measures, to volunteer, as it were, against a man with whom you have been in friendly intercourse for the last twenty years. Nobody would think any the worse of the members of the Committee for the course they took, bat than nobody can regard them as a public-spirited body of men. And most certainly they have no right to feel aggrieved when they are told by another committee that it regrets that they did not question the Government. Lord Redesdale and his colleagues all knew—no, not all, Lord Hardwicke is the Abdiel of the Edmunds scandal, and knew nothing,—that the Government ought to be questioned, and all had a strone° feeling that he wished some one else would do it. That is not an heroic frame of mind, not a frame of mind in which a Peer looks at all dignified ; and if he cannot rise above that, he should cultivate that bluntness of feeling which will enable him to
endure with complacency the regret of his countrymen. And yet Lord Redesdale had an example before his eyes that night in the demeanour of the Chancellor. Lord Westbury is not thin-skinned.
It is, however, gratifying to know that Lord Redesdale's "feelings were satisfied" by the discussion and that the ex- traordinary doctrine, which he maintained and even Lord Eversley supported, that the Committee had no right to con- sider whether Mr. Edmunds was entitled to any pension at all, but only what should be its amount, was explicitly re- pudiated by the leaders of both parties, both by Lord Gran- ville and Lord Derby. And of course, when all the feelings of all the noble Lords were completely soothed, and everybody admitted the perfect purity of everybody else (whatever it may think of Lord Westbury's conduct, the House is unani- mous as to the cleanness of his motives), there was no difficulty about the small offender. Five columns of discussion were ren- dered necessary by Lord Redesdale's feelings, but one was enough for Mr. Edmunds's pension. There was some question raised as to his right to be heard by counsel, but it met with little encouragement. We are bound to say that we think the House was right. He has been heard before the Committee. The case against him rests on his own admissions, and put it as leniently as you will it is impossible that he can be found to deserve a reward for faithful service. As it is, he is very far from harshly dealt with. Indeed if the pension had not been revoked, the injustice to the public would have been most flagrant. A public servant so misconducts himself that he is compelled to resign his appointment. His successor of course must be paid the full salary, and the public is to find in addl.- tion a pension for the delinquent. The result of the mis- conduct of a public servant is that the public burdens are increased by 800f. a year. This is the latest decision of the Chief Judge in Equity. Fortunately it will not become a precedent, having been overruled by his colleagues and by the House.
So far as the Chancellor is concerned, we suppose he may walk delicately, and assure himself that the bitterness of re- signation is past. It is very difficult to get Whigs and Tories to agree, but when they do their unanimity is as wonderful as that of the stage. Nobody defends the Chancellor's conduct —not even his colleagues. Indeed for a neat, cutting con- demnation commend us to Lord Russell's speech, whose con- stitutional law we suspect that Lord Westbury is in Om:habit of correcting at the Cabinet Councils. But then nobody sees any reason to doubt his motives, not even Lord Derby or Lord Chelmsford. This certainly does seem startling. It is quite easy to understand how a statesman of high character should find himself in a very equivocal position, and be acquitted of evil by all the world. But how any man can be in an equivocal position, and yet there should be no reason to doubt his motives is not easy to see. The mere fact that Mr. Edmunds's resignation turned to the profit of the Chancellor's son certainly affords some grounds for sus- picion, and if it should be that the mode in which the Chancellor had distributed his patronage had already become a public scandal even before these " transactions," it is to be feared that any unanimity which thero may be out of
doors will be quite different in its result to that of the House of Lords. Of course the Peers have the advantage of personal knowledge of our Eli. And as Phinehas at least is a gentle- man of unexceptionable character, and as poor Mr. Edmunds, who is characterized even by the Marquis of Bath as a "stupid, indolent man," has in Eli's judgment "properly dis- charged all the duties of the office he held in the House of Lords," there is nothing in this appointment of Phinehas to be Reading Clerk which could throw any doubt on Eli's perfect disinterestedness. But the public has a habit of judging a statesman's motives by the whole tenour of his public conduct, and Eli placed both his sons in official situations, —not only the Hon. Phinehas, but the Hon. Hophni. Still it must be admitted that it would have been very difficult for either side of the House to have taken a harsh view of Lord Westbury's motives. The Committee who recommended the pension had, as we have pointed out, not taken an heroic view of their duty. The rumours about Mr. Edmunds were rife enough in the interval between the laying of the report on the table and its confirmation, yet the brave Peers of England had none of them courage enough to
discharge an unpleasant task. Lord Kingsdown and Lord Cranworth, two of the most respected members of the House, one a Tory and the other a Whig, had actually read the report of Messrs. Greenwood and lEndmarch before Mr. Edmunds resigned. The whole Cabinet knew the real nature of his de- linquency. And though we do not the least doubt LordRussells assertion that "if they had been consulted upon the grant- ing of the pension they certainly would have recommended that all the papers and documents connected with the matter should have been laid on the table," still their perfect con& dence in the Chancellor's purity of motive has led them .into a situation of considerable embarrassment. When patricians, as Mr. Disraeli calls them, are in an unheroic attitude, per- haps their best course is to take a charitable view of each ether's shortcomings. And after all, if Lord Westbury is like other men, he has not escaped altogether with impunity. For two or three hours on Tuesday evening the woolsack was only another name for a pillory. There are men, perhaps of over- me susceptibilities, susceptibilities, who would rather have resigned fifty Chancellorships than have endured in silence the mortification of that debate.
Lord Westbury no doubt had in that spirit of Christian charity which has (as he told his constituents some years tack) regulated his life, a support under the humiliation which could not fail him. The fixed look which during the whole evening he turned towards the ceiling was perhaps a pathetic reminder to the House of that celebrated confession of his faith. And certainly no one has the right to be sur- prised if patience under just rebuke from the very highest motives should be found to lead to the very conduct which would be dictated by perfect worldly prudence. The Chris- tian when he is harshly judged answers not again. The man of the world knows that when a puddle is muddy stirring is not the way to clear it. It is the felicity of Lord Westbury that on Tuesday last he was enabled so to act as to satisfy both rules of conduct.
• Notwithstanding the question of which Mr. Ferrand has given notice, the Chancellor's place is probably safe. It will be strange if his own self-love does not make him sufficiently circumspect to avoid scandal in the distribu- tion of his patronage in future, and it cannot be denied that it would be difficult to dispense with his services without injury to the public. If the Attorney-General becomes Chancellor, he could not be replaced; Lord Cran- worth and the Master of the Rolls both sanctioned Mr. Edmunds's resignation, though not his pension. Even the ele- vation of Vice-Chancellor Wood would have added another Chancellor's pension to the pension list, and it is not certain that as a law reformer he Would hare been as efficient as Lord West- bury. It is impossible to deny the Chancellor's great abilities, or that he discharges the legal duties of his office so as to give satisfaction to his colleagues and the country. To give such a man five thousand a year to do nothing will seem to an over-cynical governing class a sort of wounding one's nose to spite one's face. We admit that the public in taking that view of the subject will not be taking an heroic view. But we cannot with decency be more magnanimous than the House of Lords, of which it is supposed to be a chief recommendation that it sets us all an example of high-mindedness.
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