The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-04-13 00:00:00

THE DAY'S NEWS.

If what we hear of the doings of our notable
Foreign Secretary with respect to the neutrality
of Switzerland be true,—and there is no reason,
we believe, to doubt it,—the same huckstering
policy is being pursued towards the French
Emperor, as that which procured the wretched,
one-sided commercial treaty. Switzerland appeals
to us, as powerful parties to the treaties by which
that neutrality on the frontiers of France was
carefully secured, and all our Government dare to
do is to advise her to be quiet,—in the words of
an English correspondent at Paris, "to take
what she can get, and put up with the loss until
the whirligig of time shall bring in its revenges,
and Switzerland shall be authorised to take back
her plundered property." Switzerland, therefore,
must by this time have discovered on what a
broken reed she leaned in trusting to England's
help and support in the perilous position into which
Imperial aggression has brought her. And then
the nature of the bargain with him who is their
disturber and threatener. "On condition," it is
stated, " of our giving this counsel to Switzerland,
the Emperor will make some concessions to Eng-
land with respect to the Navigation Laws, and
our old and staunch allies are to be abandoned to
their fate that our shipowners may swell their
fortunes." No—rather that a mean Coalition
Cabinet may continue in office, by taking every
opportunity of pandering to some mercenary
feeling or other. Not but that our shipowners
are justly entitled to what is claimed from France,
and which ought to have been secured when the
commercial treaty was contracted,—and which
doubtless would have been, had not Manchester
intvrests been all-absorbing,—but sure we are,
that they would rather forego their claims to
consideration, at such a moment, than owe the
concession of them to any such sordid and mis-
chievous bargaining as that,
The rumour to which, a week or ten days
since, we cmieu 1— this place, of
having concluded a secret alliance with Denmark,
was formally and positively contradicted, it may
be remembered, at the time ; but it now appears
that the report was not altogether untrue, but
only premature. The Emperor, the story now
is, was spoken to on the subject of certain Danish
desires, by a statesman of Denmark, who is
known to be a retainer of the Countess Danner;
when his Majesty is said to have observed, that
if Denmark wished France to guarantee the
possession of Schleswig such a treaty of alliance
might easily be entered i.ntp," This evinces the
Imperial fondness for such treaties, at any rate,
as well as the Imperial desire to play a part in
every question of European policy. And although
the treaty may not yet be concluded, nothing is
more probable than that the hint may in due
time be acted upon.
The Times takes up, with much spirit, and, as
it appears to us, very proper spirit, the question
of the patent held by the Queen's Printer and
the Universities, for the printing of the Bible, of
which the report of the Select Committee of the
House of Commons, adopted only by the casting
vote of its chairman, Mr. Baines, recommends the
withdrawal. It appears that the reasons which
the report gives for recommending this change
are, considering the quantity of actual evidence
of fact bearing upon this question, very odd ones,
being principally the pure suggestions of the
imagination of ,the comiOtee-74. e 7, pf pne half
of it—consisting mainly of a series of hypothe-
ticqd "guarantees" for the same accuracy and
cheapness of printed Bibles under a system of
unrestricted competition that there is under the
present one. " The Report," in short, it is con-
tended, 1; does not only ignore facts, hNt struggles
visibly and palpably against them. It admits
that the Bible is under the existing system pub-
lished at a remarkably low price, and with great
accuracy,' but—the common answer—the existing
system has nothing to do with this ' cheapness
and accuracy,' And why has it nothing to do
with itt 9 gear the sage report on the article of
laq:waxy.' It is quite plain, says the Report,
that the tski,vtipg system has nothing to do with
, ,
the accuracy of our Bibles, because the patent
contains no injunction to accuracy," Now even
a committee of the House of Commons that can
dispute so absurdly as this, can scarcely expect
o have its decision much respected. The
questigrl with which the public are chiefly,
If not 'Wholly, concerned in this,—Can they
get bettor and cheaper Bibles than the
English under the present exriu'gegi.eo ? And
the leading journal uahesita,tiniy answer ,g--7
the plain and notorious fact is that they cannot.
The existing )3ible presses supply the demands
of the public a4equat4y and fully ; there is no
fault to be found with ,them, and therefore
nothing to be gained by superseding them on the
foregone conclusions of gr,.
The West India and Pacific mails have, on the
whole, brought pretty satisfactory intelligence,
With the exception of a dull and unsettled mar-