The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-14 00:00:00

THIS EVENING.

There will be acted the Military Spectacle, The FALL of SEPAS-
TOI'OL t
With the WONDERS OF' THE CIRCLE ;
Mr. J. H. Cooke's FLIGHT OF THE BRIDGES, and other
entertainments.

opan fryn F.levon Fonr. Star 4,3 Manager, Mr. W,
1)i ?Sr. W. Cooke, ion.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

Tdlg DAY—Morn. 19 min. aft. 4 —Evming 41 min. aft. 4
T..)..),lonnow—Morn. 3 min.aft. 5 —Eveaing27 min. aft; 5

TFIE WEATHER.-Snr OFFICE, Nov. 14.
THER3IOIIETER, IN TIIE SHADE.

49 —high!st since noon yesterday.
44 --lawest this morning and during the night.
47 day at 1100:2.

BAROMETER, 30'03.
WIND, N.E.—Light, with cold dull weather.

•

rfei

51111,,

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1855.

It should be continually impressed on the pub-
lic mind that the Bank Charter Act of 1844, the
terrible cause of so much national embarrassment,
only exists on sufferance, and that it may be ter-
minated at twelve months' notice, given any time
subsequently to the Ist of August, 1855. The
remedy rests in the hands of the people, and if
the Currency Reformers be only true to themselves
and to the best interests of the country—if they
maintain a vigorous and energetic agitation on the
all_important topic, keeping it prominently before '
the community, the greatest nuisance that ever
afflicted a nation will speedily be abated, and the
circulating medium—" the life-blood of industry"
he placed in a sound, and healthy con-
dition. Not at one time flushing with railway
speed, producing and fostering undue speculation
and bubble schemes, at another creeping slug-
gishly along, and scarcely sustaining a mere
vitality. Something between fever and atrophy is
required. But that cannot be obtained under the
existing law, which renders inevitable the alterna-
tions of plenty and want.
Similar to the condition
.1 savages, who are either gorinandising or starv-
Jag) indulging in brutal repletion, or en-
during the most stringent privations. It is
surely timo that we should resort to a
more enlightened system, one more in accordance
with the advanced intelligence of the age,
and
better calculated to provide for all the reasonable
exigencies of the commercial, manufacturing, and
working population of the country—the bees in
the national hive.

We have recently had some valuable admissions
from the bullionist organ, which should not be
lost sight of in the discussions that must speedily
ensue. The Times has virtually confessed that
bullion is only required for our foreign trade, but
that for all domestic purposes a paper currency
cc worthless rags," as they were once accustomed
to
style it, "for which the butcher would not
baker his loaf"—would be
give his meat or the
(c supposing," said the Times,
amply suilicienu•
in its City Article of the 26th altimo—" Sup-
posing this circulation to be required solely
for internal commerce, no necessity could
exist for gold being held against any portion
of it► A deposit of Government Stock, or the fact
of its b • eing receivable for duties, would at all times
keep it from fluctuations in value." The ground
is thus materially cleared, and it is manifest that
all the perturbations of our domestic trade are
occasioned solely by the desire to avoid a very
trifling difficulty to those engaged in the foreign
trade of the country. It
might easily be demon-
strated that the trade in gold could be carried on
as easily as in other articles of foreign production,
and that an ample supply for every demand could
be maintained. The notion that we could not
being compelled
foreign trade without
carry on a
to deal in geld-at an alarming sacrifice; is of the-
gkost chimerical character, and one that only

quires a little rational consideration to remove
altogetl ier.
But were it even otherwise, and that the
struction and difficulty were much more serious
and formidable, should we sacrifice the interest of
our own people to those of other nation? The
home 'demand is far more extensive thiit that of
all the nations of the earth put together. If these
matters should necessarily be put in competition
there can be little doubt to which side the scale
should incline. But, as the one may be rendered
perfectly independent of the other—as there
need be no clashing whatever, we may look, in
the first instance, to our own affairs, and let other
points be accommodated, as they speedily would
be, to the altered and greatly improved state of
affairs.

Looking, then, to a currency perfectly adequate
for all domestic purposes, the questions that natu-
rally arise are-Ist. Through what agency should
that currency be supplied ? 2d. By whom should
the profits arising therefrom be realised ? The
first point is that of paramount importance,
for however desirable it may be to gain a million
of pounds sterling per annum, and to be enabled
to afford proportionate relief to the overburdened
taxpayer—the mere question of profit is alto-
gether secondary to that of procuring a safe and
comparatively steady measure and representative
of value, by means whereof the whole internal
commerce of the country might be carried on.
We may again resort to the columns of the
Times to discover the correct solutions of these
interesting problems, the proper answers to
the questions—lst. 'Who is justly entitled
to the privilege of sending out a legal tender
currency ? 2dly. How could that currency be ren-
dered certain of unhesitating and universal ac-
ceptance amongst the people and inhabitants of
Great Britain ?

On the first point the Times itself may be th•
judge. It has laid it down, ex cathedra, that
" the power of creating money is an undisputed
prerogative of the Crown." Any others who
obtain so great a privilege can only do so as the
delegates of the Crown and on certain conditions
previously arranged. The Bank of England has
obtained that right for a time, and has largely
profited thereby, and if the National Exchequer
can supply, not only as good, but a far better
article, there can be no reason why the people
should not keep the profits, estimated by the
Times at a million sterling per annum, for their

own use.

Now, what is the security given by the Bank
of England for the redemption of by far
the larger portion of its issue ? Simply
a charge en the nation itself, the pos-
session of a certain amount of the public
debt. That debt may be practically " inconvert-
ible." Under circumstances of peculiar pressure
it may not find purchasers, save at such a depre-
ciation as would leave the " Old Lady " literally
bankrupt. But that could not be the case with
a national note, based not merely on all the rea-
lised property of the country, but on the industry
of its active and energetic citizens ! Surely there
can be no comparison between the two. One
may, the other must be sufficient for every legiti-
mate purpose. We have thus reached an
important stage in the argument. We have
seen that the privilege belongs to the Crown, i. e.,
to the nation, and that the national note would
be even better than that of the Bank of England.
We then repeat the interrogatory put forward by
the Times in April, 1854 :—" Why Government
should make a present to any corporation of the
profits derived from the issue of twenty or thirty
millions of paper money, when, it would be just as
easy to appropriate the sum thus created to its own
use, and thus cancel by a stroke of the pen some-
thing like a million a year from the charge of the
national Debt ?"

Her MAJESTY'S ship Resolute has been picked
up in Davis' Straits, of the Atlantic. This wits
the ship that Sir EDWARD BELCHER insisted that
Captain KELLETT should desert, and Captain
KELLETT, it should be said to his credit, has en-
tered his protest before a Parliamentary Commit-
tee against so wanton an act. The drifting of the
Resolute is the most extraordinary instance of
drifting on record. Loosened by nature from its
icy prison in the pack ice off Cockburn Island, the
island next akin to Melville Island, the land on
which the cache, called Parry Sandstone, the Post-
office of the North Pole exists, the Resolute m aces
its own way into Davis' Straits. By what Pas-
sage ? This must ever remain a mystery. The
most likely route is that of Barrow Strait, but Sir
E. PARRY has placed it on record, and it remains
uncontradicted, that there is no current in that
strait. Has the Resolute, then, drifted into the
Atlantic through Jones Sound or Smith Sound ?
Has it passed through that magnificent sea of
3,000 square miles, just discovered by Dr. KANE,
the American ? What an interesting tale the
Resolute could tell us if a single human being
had been on beard. And while wo are on the
subject of Dr. KANE, we may mention that Sir
EDWARD BELCHER not only deserted the Resolute
and four other of her MAJESTY'S ships, but he put
a positive veto on the offer of Dr. MCCORMICK
to make the survey which Dr. KANE has just
made. Just as Captain Austen put a positive
veto upon the proposition of the enterprising Capt.
PENNY to ascend Wellington Channel, who would
thus have anticipated Dr. KANE in that direction.
It was from the Parry Sandstone help was sent to
the discoverer of the North-West Passage, he
himself having given up all hope, not only of re-
ward for his great discovery, but of his own
natural existence. It was from this well-known
cache—aye, and from this very ship, that Lieut.
BEDFORD PIM sallied forth on his arduous journey;
unparalleled in arctic travelling, at the low tem-
perature it was undertaken, and thus saved the
gallant discoverer of the North-West Passage from
the death that a ffaited him. The late Admiral
BaoLarocirdisoift
,n.
s
..
h'eirplGaEcOendGsEideCobeyKu usiadN was not far wrong when
he
to his will the memo
-
years of his 18 year B
the Admiralty, that con
s t ietxupt ee
rdi eau: et
ha:
would never serve the purpose of a great naval
power. Day after day some new feature arises to
confirm this opinion. The recovery of the
Resolute is but another
proof of Admi-
ralty inefficiency. The Resolute is the first
recovery of tho five ships deserted by Sir
EDWARD BELCHER. It will not be the last.
Her consort, the Intrepid, was so close when she
was deserted, that she may very shortly be ex-
pected in her wake.

Our Government must beware lest friend and
foe alike distant e us in the mechanical inventions
of war. We Imre just had to record the great
success of the Frelch floating batteries at Kin-
bourn ; they fully nswerei their purpose ; they
carried metal heavy ei:cuf,Yh to render them real
breaching batteries, awl the solid as well as
hollow shot rattled off the massive iron shell
which protected the gunners as the musket balls
from the cuirasses of the EMPEROR'S cavalry at
Waterloo. They appear to have been " a great suc-
cess." Respecting our own batteries, of like con-
struction, we have heard no more. What is become
thex ylikardly 4uow,,sava that, one was burnt

and rendered utterly useless. If in anything we
might have been supposed likely to surpass our
ally it would have been in shipbuilding and iron
works of any kind. How is it we had not more stich
batteries at Sweaborg than the French at Kin-
bourn ? Is it, as Field-Marshal H.R.H. Prince
ALBERT would have it, the fault of constitutional
government ? Had he a carte blanche as Impera-
tor, should we see differences so the reverse of
all expectation between England and France ?
The other day a letter in the Pays told us of
an American who had gone straight to St. Peters-
burg with a new cannon, which is to carry an
unheard-of distance, and no doubt to annihilate
our three-deckers at long range. Straightway he
is taken to the EMPEROR himself, the foundry
placed at his disposal, and a model sent to the
distant Ural, to have a cast of it made. Only
fancy an inventor being introduced at once to her
MAJESTY, or even to Field-Marshal H.R.H. Prince
ALBERT ! Or suppose him even courteously received
at Downing-street by my Lord PANMITRE. We read
also of horrible new rockets, which are to burn our
ships at fabulous distances, of muskets that will
almost need a telescope to take aim with, and of
infernal machines which are to accomplish what
last year failed in. Inventors and inventions are
rife in Russia—and by Russian policy, as by
French policy, they are encouraged. An inven-
tor is sent for, in these countries without consti-
tutions, by Royalty. That is something to most
men. It might be worth while, now our consti-
tution is on its trial, to try whether the Royal
branch of it might not be worked with greater
efficiency to encourage inventors in England.
Her MAJESTY could at least depute her Field-
Marshal and Royal Consort to represent her in
these matters.

It is truly mortifying to think howmatters stand
in this country of mechanical skill and invention.
No doubt an inhabitant of the great Slave Re-
public naturally prefers Russia to the land of
the free, still JONATHAN would stop at London
on the road to St. Petersburg if he thought it
would pay better. Dollars are everything with
him ; for them alone is he content to buy and sell
bodies and souls of men. No ; he knows that
Russia is the best market for him. Weeks and
months of official snubbing be must endure in
England ere he could get a fair hearing ; and he
is too 'cute, as well as proud and vindictive, to
stand that. Why, here is Lord DUNDONALD with
his invention—its efficiency attested by the safest
judges, naval, scientific, and engineering. If the
man would turn traitor and take it to the CZIR it
would be in operation next summer against us,
and he would be made a Prince of Holy Russia.
Liverpool, and perhaps London itself, might soon
show how—A T•EXANDER or CONSTANTINE had learned
their lesson from our sparing Odessa. Lard DUN-
DONALD'S experiment would cost perhaps half a
million. More than four times that sum was spent
this year in sending superfluous ships to the
Baltic. A trial of Lord DUNDONALD'S plan would
have cost far less than that of Sir C. WOOD'S has
done. It could not have effected less.

Much as the inexorable necessity for the pre-
sent War may be deplored, and great as are the
evils immediately resulting from it, the fault will
be our own if to the mad ambition of our adver-
sary we have not hereafter to ascribe an awaken-
ing to our own interests and a discharge of
imperial obligations which have added mate-
rially to the welfare and stability of the empire,
and been productive of incalculable blessings to
untold millions of our fellow-creatures.

Our colonial dominion, as every one knows,
embrace a great number of territories scattered
over the face of the globe, some of them of amaz-
ing fertility, and next to inexhaustible resources,
and all of them, as every one should know, capa-
ble of being made subsidiary to our greatness and
wellbeing to an extent which as yet has been,
comparatively speaking, unapproached. Look at
India, for example. Set aside as mere delusion
the romantic stories that at one time abounded
of the barbaric splendours, suggestive of boundless
wealth, to be witnessed there, and come to facts.
Inquire into its capabilities, and, fresh from the
perusal of a mass of indisputable testimony to its
multitudinous resources, take into consideration
how far we have availed ourselves of them. There
may be had nearly everything we import from
foreign countries essential to our prosperity, and the
supply of which is necessarily stopped to a greater
or less extent by hostilities, and yet we suffer our-
selves to be dependent for these articlesof daily need
on the caprice of mobs or of despots. We are at
war with Russia, and the cry instantly is, What
is to become of our supply of hemp, tallow, (Czc. ?
An ambitious President, eager to be re-elected,
puts himself into a warlike attitude and talks big
to our Minister at Washington, and the cry
goes forth, What is to become of our supply of
cotton ? An adventurer rises against the Impe-
rial Tartar of China, and the deepest anxiety is
expressed with regard to our supply of tea. Some
harvest turns out deficient ; corn does not come
in well from the Danube ; there is nothing for us
but enormous supplies from America—which pos-
sibly can't send them—or starvation. Some
beneficent scheme is in contemplation which calls
for a large amount of iron, and it must be thrown
aside because of the high price of that metal.
Yet all this while, instead of being victims of
circumstances, our necessities and anxieties are
the consequences Of our own neglect. An im-
mense colony and more than a hundred millions
of suffering people have long been waiting our
counsel and the employment of our capital to en- ,
able them to make us independent of foreign sup-
ply, and relieve our enterprise fro.rn the burden of
local pressure. All the hemp we need, and of the
stoutest fibre we can require, is to be had in India.
All the cotton our manufacturers can consume,
and all the silk also, are to be had there. Tea of
a quality and in an abundance China never
succeeded in producing ; rice that might
feed our entire population ; iron that
might serve to make the island bombproof,
all are to be had in the regions of India, if we go
the right way about it.

We would by no means have it inferred that
nothing has been done towards the development
of the resources of
Inhas been effected ofladtia. oyesDarne,thbue
tcoinntnraoryp,
rmopuocrh.
tion to what remains to be done. Railway commu-
nication is merely in its infancy, and the great
rivers, those natural highways, are more or less un-
navigable, while not only are there immense areas
:
uncultivated, and mineral riches untouched, but
the knowledge required for successful cultivation,
and the means to render the mineral riches avail-
able, are to a great extent wancing. If we would
reap the benefits which India is capablo of be-
stowing upon us we must cultivate the soil and
sow the required seed. Among other things
European agents should be despatched to the cot-
ton and hemp districts, to instruct the native po-
pulation in the growth and preparation of cotton
and hemp for our markets ; and, at thesam
e
shouldtprise ,
whether
be givendirected
by
Go-
tviemrleevnetry encouragement cuoruorpaegaeneennter
to the extension of internal communication
or to the more direct development cf the various
resources of the colony. India may Imo= the