The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-11 00:00:00

P er.P THE WEEK. NOTWITHSTANDING the confident announcements in Ministerial journals that the French and English Embassies were to be forthwith withdrawn from the Court of the King of the Two Sicilies, and that the allied squadrons would appear in the Bay of Naples, no decided step has yet been taken. We may hence infer that the Emperor of the FRENCH is reluctant to commit himself to the Liberal policy of Lord PALMERSTON'S Administration, and probably some means may be found of composing the quarrel, and of satisfying the dignity of the Allied Powers without coming to a direct rupture with the Neapolitan Court. That the British Foreign-office is bent on a hostile demonstration against Naples is well known, and its wishes and intentions have been somewhat impudently trumpeted forth to the world before it was certain whether those intentions could he fulfilled. In what a position is this country placed now ? All over the Continent it is notorious that our Government is restrained from proceeding to extremities against Naples only through the reluctance of the Emperor of the FRENCH to sanction such a proceeding. It is, then, his Majesty the Emperor who imposes bounds to the action of Lord PALMERSTON'S Cabinet, and who prevents the British flag from appearing in the Bay of Naples ! What is to be the end of this untoward attempt at intervention? Will the pertinacity of Lords PALMERSTON and CLARENDON triumph? Will a signal be given to the Neapolitan Liberals by the allied Western Powers to rise against the Government of the King of NAPLES? Or will her Majesty's Administration, after all its boasting, submit to be overrulel by French influence, and remain quiet? The situation is perplexing, and for England humiliating. Our foreign policy at the present moment appears meddling, but impotent. How great is the contrast of our present attitude to that assumed by Lord CASTLEREAGH, as brought to light by the Frankfort Journal! Never did the policy of non-intervention, as propounded by, that great statesman, appear more noble and dignified ; never did the policy of intervention, as propounded by Lords PALMERSTON and CLARENDON at the present time, appear more inconsistent, vexatious, and contempti ble. The King of NAPLES is threatened, and the King of NAPLES stands at bay. All our Ministerial journals declare that a British squadron is ordered to enter the Bay of Naples ; but before it can sail, the consent of the Emperor of the FRENCH must be obtained. His Majesty hesitates, and the order to the British Admiral is held back. Now, does not every one know what the tone of our Independent- Liberal-Ministerial press wi I be whatever turn the affair may take ? Should the Emperor of the FRENCH decide on a rupture with Naples, there will be a jubilant shout of triumph. No matter what the subse quent results ►nay be, though Naples be occupied by French and Austrian troops, and the King be kept under their tutelage, the Liberal policy of our Foreign-office will be magnified to the skies, and the principle of intervention against despotic government, and in favour of Liberal institutions, will he declared to he confirtned,land to establish a new and glorious epoch in our political annals. On the contrary, should the Emperor of the French decide against attempting to coerce the Neapolitan Court, advantage will be taken of any slight conces sions the King may consent to make, and we shall be told that we are happily clear of the whole affair. Our Liberal contemporary, the Daily News, the most rabid of all assailants of the King, has begun to take this tone, on the faith of a report that the King is willing to refer the demands made by the Western Powers to the Conference about to open at Paris. Mark our contemporary : A promise extorted from the fears of this caitiff King is not to be trusted. There is one effectual step to purge the Neapolitan State from the evils that desolate it, and that is to put away from the throne he has dishonoured, the incorrigible perturber of the commonwealth of Europe. But after an infinitely deal more abuse of the same kind of this " royal madman," this "cowardly oppressor," this " Bourbon desecrating his throne," the Daily News comes to the conclusion that "it is on all " grounds more desirable that BOMBA should have yielded (if he have " yielded) to the menace rather than to the actual manifestation of " armed intervention." Bah ! all this means that our Liberals are quite ready to draw in their horns if the Emperor of the FRENCH should shake his head. We are loth to use hard terms. But this bul lying of our Liberal newspapers is discreditable to the national charac ter. A firm consistent tone would command our respect,though it did not meet our approbation ; but this readiness to scatter dirt, and to eat it afterwards, this mixed exhibition of bullying and poltroonery, is too offensive and impudent to pass unchastised. It deprives us of all in. fiuence on the Continent, and exposes us to the contempt of Europe. It is quite time that the whole subject of our foreign policy should be discussed in Parliament, and that a decision should be taken on the principles which are to guide our intercourse with other nations. We are curious to see whether in an assembly of English gentlemen, there will be one person found to adopt the miserably ribald tone which disgraces our Liberal press. The speech of Major BERESFORD at the North• Essex Conservative gathering was manly and honest. The Gallant Major is one of the most earnest members of the Protestant party; and if any one could be found to endorse the notion that anti-Maynoothism could be made a party-cry, we might expect that he, from his zealous convictions, would be the man. But Major BERESFORD has thesense to perceive, and we hope some of our Protestant contemporaries will take the lesson to heart—it is vain, we fear, to hope that they will take it to head—that the question never can be made a party one. lie sees that it is impossible to make it a basis of party organisation. This is what we have insisted on. It must be, as it has been, one of those open questions on which members—Liberal and Conservative, Church- THE PRESS. S ATURDAY, men and Dissenters—must be left to vote according to their con victions. What we have protested against is, the impudence of bringing it forward as a party question. Major BE RESFORD must allow us to correct the exaggeratioa of his language when he asserts " that THE PRESS has presumed to censure and to assail " every man who ventured to oppose the endowment of Maynooth, and " to vituperate in no measured terms every attempt to disturb or " alter that endowment." As politely as we can, we beg to inform the honourable Member for North Essex that he has misrepresented us. We have not censured and assailed every man opposed to May nooth, and, as for vituperation, we hope that it is foreign to our columns. We have, indeed, spoken of " Spoonerism," but the cham pions of a movement are not in general insensible to the compliment of having the movement identified with their names. It was only when the Maynooth agitation took an intolerant shape that we ven tured plainly to express our opinion that it was not for the interest of the Conservative community that any attempt should be made to elevate it into a party question. To that opinion we adhere. It is one of those pitfalls into which our adversaries would gladly lure us. If once caught in it, the great Conservative connection would be powerless for any good purpose, and the Liberals would have reason to exult in having secured a monopoly of power, and the opportunity of nomi nating Roman Catholics to all the high places of honour and influence in Ireland. We would save the Conservative party from the enormous blunder of making a confession of political impotence, and we aro happy to think that our efforts have been so far successful as to prevent attempts being made in future to give to the question of the Maynooth endowment any party sign►ficance. As to the teaching of Maynooth, it is a question of what may be called Educational Police, which educational reformers of all kinds are fairly entitled to look into The Rev. CHENEVIX TRENCH, at one time confidentially named as the new Bishop of Gloucester, is to be recompensed for his disappoint ment by being made Dean of Westminster. We believe it to be quite true that Mr. TRENCH was the choice of the Premier for the vacant see. His family believed the appointment settled, as after the announce ment in the Times, the brother of the Reverend Gentleman wrote to cor• rect an error made by that journal in its biographical notice of the new bishop, and took the fact of the appointment as granted. But there was one individual whose pleasure had not been consulted, before the appointment was virtually made. The QUEEN, we are assured, first learned the nomination of the Rev. CHENEVIX TRENCH to the vacant see of Gloucester through the columns of a public journal, and de clined to sanction an appointment on which her pleasure had never been taken. The consequence was that Mr. TRENCH missed his in tended elevation, and that Dr. BARING was raised to the vacant bishop ric in his place. The lesson we hope will not be lost on the Premier : it is obviously indecorous that the QUEEN should be first informed of her nominations through a newspaper. It is singular to mark how commonly in speculating on the conse quences of events we miss the results which, when evolved by time, seem the most natural. When the gold discoveries were announced, there were all sorts of conjectures of what would be done if gold became as plentiful as iron. A glut of gold was confidently predicted, and as a consequence a great rise in the value of money securities. No one anticipated that one of the most conspicuous results would be a scarcity of gold, yet such scarcity, after seven years of more ample pro duction than any one at first ventured to anticipate, has come upon us; and now it has come, it seems so natural that we wonder how no ono had the sagacity to predict it. The first effect of the gold production was to stimulate the commerce of the world, and to open new channels of trade. A rise in the price of commodities naturally followed. Such rise is no longer matter of dispute. It is experienced everywhere— in Spain, in Italy, in Turkey, as well as in St. Petersburg, Paris, and London; but the rise has of course been most felt in those countries which, as compared with England, were remarkable for the low prices of their commodities. Assuming the gold circulation of the world to have been one thousand millions previous to the working of the Californian and Australian mines, a general rise of ten per cent. in the value of the marketable commodities of the world would absorb. for the necessities of commerce, the hundred millions or more which the new mines have produced, and with the higher rate of prices, gold itself would, of course, be as scarce as heretofore. But, further, through the extension of the currents of trade, new channels have been opened, and old channels have been expanded for specie to flow in. The streams of commerce have been agitated, there has been a greater movement of the precious metals, and from that movement the commercial capitals of the world are now suffering some inconvenience. We believe that it I%ill but be tem porary, and that it is entirely unconnected with political causes. Should it be seriously felt in France, a suspension for a time of cash payments by the Bank of France, as immediately after the Revolution of 1848, would be only a prudent measure of precaution, and, with the prudent management for which that great Corporation has heretofore been famous, need not be attended with any inconvenient results. When the public mind is reassured, the pressure would most likely cease. It is observable, that notwith standing the monetary pressure, the rates of agricultural produce keep up There is no reason to expect that they will ever again, except from purely natural causes—as a succession of abundant har vests—be ever greatly depressed in this country. The gold discoveries have counteracted the effects of free trade, and have raised the agri cultural markets of the world to our height, instead of beating down ours to their level. We hope our agricultural friends will mike the most of their " good time," and look to the future, as the prospects of agriculture were never on the whole; brighter in this country than they aro at the present time. 972