The Government has been again asked to find funds for
the Gurney prosecution, and the Home Secretary, on grounds noticed elsewhere, has finally refused. We regret to perceive that he had the full support of Mr. Gladstone, who, on Thursday, expressed a view which is fatal, if persisted in, to any plan for appointing public prosecutors. He said that a prosecution would be most injurious "to the future prudence and self-restraint of a generation greedy to gain without. toil," by investing money in concerns of which they know nothing. They ought not to receive exceptional favours from Parliament on account of their thirst for money. Mr. Gladstone clearly regards the chance of robbery as one of the natural and useful checks to speculation. Very good ; but let us be logical, and abolish the police. Without them capitalists would be sure not to speculate in any enterprise which they could not protect with their own right hands. We had always thought that nothing checked wild speculation like the legal checks on fraudu- lent misrepresentations ; but, on Mr. Gladstone's principle, the more there are of them the better.
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