The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-11 00:00:00

/6 -a;

-TT)

rE-71-74T:Tri
tI eIt,AL-.40,11

[PRICE 4D. STAMPED SD•

complishment ; but, as surely as dawn succeeds to dark-
ness, and day to night, so surely is man entering on a new
era, and rising to a higher civilisation than the world has
yet witnessed. That is not the-language of exaggeration
or of enthusiasm—it is the conclusion at -which the
profoundest reasoners, the coldest calculators, have long
since arrived. Mark the effect of mechanism in super-
seding brute labour. In industrial matters the leading
feature of the age is the substitution of inanimate for
human labour. That is a change of which we have
hardly seen the beginning, far less the end; and though
its first results may be, and is, to unsettle and to disturb,
and for the moment rather to augment than to lessen hu-
man suffering, yet that first effect can in, its nature only be
temporary; the ultimate end must be a degree, not only of
comfort, but of leisure to the working man, such as our
present social arrangements do not allow, and the want of
which is the great bar to diffased intellectual progress.
But I am looking toe far into the future ; I return to what
is immediately round us, and I say to you all, as I feel it
myself, that it is your duty and mine, as, goad citizens, to
omit no act, private or public, that may tend, as assuredly
this -will; to cement and consolidate the union of
classes. It is your duty and mine, as interested in the
future fortunes of this great empire, to see that England
shall not lack, by any default of ours, the incalculable
strength that an educated people confers on a state. It is
your duty and mine—as God-fearing men, as lovers of
mankind, as having learnt that lesson of universal brother.
hood which for 1800 years has been recognised on earth as
,highest truth —to see that as we ourselves value more than
property, more than influence or power, more than the
opinion of those round us, that intellectual culture and
those great ideas which have formed all our habits, and
moulded 'our characters to what they are—so that boon,
almost the greatest which this world can give, and without
.which this world were little worth having, shall be spread
abroad as, widely,, and granted as freely, as those other
blessings of air and light which are denied to no living
creature on this globe. (The noble lord resumed his seat
amidst loud and protracted cheering.)
The Hon. and Rev. W. TALBOT, rector of Hatfield,
then proposed a vote of thanks to Lord Stanley for his able
and eloquent discourse.
The motion was put and carried by acclamation.
Lord STANLBT briefly acknowledged the compliment.
, The meeting then separated.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Times of this day. )
It would be most unfair to deny that it is a great hardship

to the House of Lords, and a damage to those national inter-
ests over which its influence is pre-eminently conservative,

that it should be called on to discuss the details of an impor-

taut innovation in the last struggling hours of the session.
With whom the fault rests it avails not to say, but if the

house of Lords, with its accumulated store of legal talent,

with ex, ex-ex, and ex-ex-ex Lord Chancellors, perpetual
Chief Justices, and other high legal and mercantile authori-
ties, will not initiate measures of its own, it must be content
with the laconic veto to which its powers threaten to decline.
When Government is unable to force more than a small frac-
tion of its well-considered and much-wanted bills through
the Commons, it is not the fault of that Government if the
Lords have occasionally little more than to say " Yea," or
" Nay," to a measure. The only equivalent in these cases is
that close attention and that full consideration which every
Peer may give, if he pleases, to the reported debates of the
Commons. Nevertheless, whatever the cause, whatever the
mitigation, the fact is one to be lamented. We would much
rather have seen such men as Lord St. Leouards, Lord Camp-
bell, Lord Redesdale, and Lord Grey bestowing a week on
such a measure as the Limited Liability Bill than compelled
to have out their say in a night; but there appears to be no
help for it, and it is either this or nothing. Our regret is in-
creased by the justice and truth, or rather the foundation in
justice and truth, which we must admit in some of the objec-
tions to the measure and its details. If there were time for
the Lords to take the measure in hand, to turn it over, to see
it on all sides, possibly their objections would assume a more
practical form, and we might get some good out of them.
As it is, some of their lordships appear to have importuned
for delay—derisively, with insult and menace, not caring to
conceal that, were the bill once in their hands up-stairs, it
would never see the light again ; or, at least, only reappear so
altered that its parents would be unable to recognise it, and so
incapable of doing harm that it would be equally incapable
of doing any good. Such a tone may serve to relieve the
severity of debate, and to soften the rancour of controversy,
but it is not likely to increase the public respect for the
Upper House, nor does it give much encouragement to the
Lower House to send up its bills in better time. Of course
when this was the temper of the Opposition, there was uo
alternative but to muster the supporters of Government, and
force the bill through the House with the least possible

delay.
But, having admitted that there was a foundation of jus-
tice and truth in the objections urged on Thursday night, we
must beg to explain that it was so for the best possible reason
—viz., that there was hardly an objection which did not
equally apply to all forms of conducting mercantile business
whatever. The complaint that wherever partnerships en
commandite are allowed—that is, everywhere except in this
country—there is a peculiar code of laws found necessary to
repress the peculiar abuses of the practice, is a matter of
course ; for there is no form of mercantile enterprise, from
the railway company with its 700 miles of line, its thirty,
millions of capital, its thirty thousand shareholders, and its
noble chairman, down to the little huckster who opens a
corner shop and sells a " dip" at a time till he gets money
enough to take out a license for the sale of tobacco or beer,
that does not require a whole code to check its inevitable
abuses, There does not not exist any way of conducting
business, either by one or a myriad, towards which, after all,
the creditor has not to use his wits, and not less his moral
instincts. Character is the only sound security, and where
this is wanting, or rather where there is no satisfactory proof
of its existence, every house that you trust with your money,
whether one man, or twenty, or ten thousand, or an unknown
quantity, is unsafe. It might have been supposed that the
noble lords who talked so sagaciously and so ominously of
the frauds likely to be perpetrated by partnerships with
limited liability, and of the corrective laws that Parliament
would in a year or two be called on to supply, had never
heard of a railway company declaring 5 or 7 per cent.
when it had made no profits at all ;—had never heard
of a solemn, old, pious, and respectable bank failing without
a moment's warning, and disclosing half a century of fraud—
had never heard of the groat attorney of the county, with the
estates of ten peers and the savings of 500 small people in his
hands, bursting like a bubble and found as empty of cash—
had never seen a Gazette or a list of insolvent debtors—had
never had a butler or cook, who lent the savings of his life to
some well-spoken shopkeeper and never saw a sixpence of his
money again—had never heard of a Building Society or a
Benefit Club on self-deetruetive principles. Of course,
there will be fraud everywhere. Dishonest men, and that still
larger and more dangerous class of weak, indolent, and stupid
men will always, in one form or another, contract obligations
beyond their means, and muddle the accounts they are en-
trusted with. There always will be men of these classes, so
decent, so plausible, and with such an excellent opinion of
themselves, and so well able to impress that opinion upon
others as to inveigle the unwary into unlimited confidence.
With the universality of these evils, showing itself, like at-
mospheric pressure or the morbid tendencies of the human
frame, everywhere, always, and under all circumstances, there
really was something ludicrous in these venerable noblemen
croaking sinister predictions of failure, abuse, remedial laws,
late repentances, and serious additions to the business of the
courts. Grant everything, what does it all come to ? Just
nailing at all, except a homily on the commercial existence
of evil, which we don't want a resurrection of dowager Chan-
cellors to persuade us of.
These high legal authorities appear to have fallen into the
very groat fallacy, though a natural one in this case, of view-
iug the question from the criminal side. Even that side of
the question, indeed, has its lesson, as we have just drawn
it out,—that, • as there always must be abuse of mer-
cantile confidence, the certainty of it is no more
an argument against one form of commercial enterprise
than another. But their lordships appear to have for-
gotten that, if fraud is be counteracted, that is no rea-
son why honesty and industry should not be set free,
and, if simplicity will always be imposed upon, that is no
reason why vigilance should not be left to the use of its own
eyes. We have a right, and we conceive it our duty, to start
from the case of the honest, the sensible, and the industrious,
and to assist them in using their money to the best advan-
tage. We are told, indeed, that they ought to leave their
money in the Savings-banks, or to invest in the Funds, or to
buy Railway Shares ; but, with all due respect for the excel-
lent security offered by the first of these, and the good interest
promised by the last, we still incline to the opinion that a
commercial business, conducted by persons whom we have
reason to trust, is a very legitimate and proper investment
for the savings of little people ; while, on the other hand,
this form of mercantile combination is likely to open trade,
to give fresh opportunities to clever tradesmen and ingenious
mechanics, and to explode adulterations and other fraudulent
manufactures. As to
,the warning that companies will be
formed for the express purpose of imposing upon us all, of
receiving stolen goods, or of carrying on some disreputable
business under a plausible form, are not these things done
already ? Is not every article of food, or medicine, or manu-
facture, adulterated till it can hardly be got genuine any-
where ? Are there not conspiracies of all kinds against the
health, the property, the morals, and the very lives of the
public ? We arc at a loss to see how any trade can be worse
conducted than it is very commonly now. Indeed, their
Lordships, in their eagerness to make out a case against the
bill, fished up objections of the most contrary and self-coun-
teracting tendency. Ono was, that there was no want of
capital now for any profitable trade or any respectable trades-
man ; another, that the bill would enable the capitalist and
the superior tradesman to crush the smaller ones ; ono ob-
jection was that servants and other people of that class would
be fleeced of their money ; another that they would combine
to got the custom of their masters ; one that private enter-
prise
would be certain to prevail ; another that it "milli be
extinguished. There is some truth in all these objections,
but they may happily be set against one another.
With regard to the amendments, we must say that it
_is.
unfair and unwise to proceed so confidently en thersnopriuo.
sition that these partnerships will be mismanaged,ro,__ts of
pose more checks than are found desirable in ovithieeco.losari""y to
enterprise. Of the amendments rejected it is_o,„„ted. Sup-
speak, so a word or two on those which were.be
c.aup
jeal without
posing half a dozen people wish to subscribe
on by only one of them, why are they t
committing their whole fortunes to a bousbi:ess
Supposing that, owing
ostensible scheme of 25 shareholders.
More thanY
to the beneficial character and ciomn
Iclus as to realise the fears
rent sudcricycesruseaotlofl yatlcimeanebilieielldyl ,
oard of Trade shall be alwa s
largely with the private
compn
j3ette
thesepartnerships
meobjectors,
tso
At whose cost is the a
new form of private te
auditing dealer i st itheproposeds that a tr
rh er
what
ois really nothing
audit
to be ? every bank, every a lc audit of
every railway company, every
in the assurance cora-
Why, too,
altheen is there not to be a public
that nobody kingdom ?
for the unlimited liability of As to
the 'clause providing
b tordiaril
f dishonest dividends, and of the • •
the case owinding-up of a
partnership i n a certain stage of e •
Pecuniary exhaustion, of
pany, and every other a
course it may be admitted
ought to undertake
the direction of a business unless he knoutsu-
and is content to be more than whatres
ph
oe
nissibalbe!_ut
whether it will ever be hit under theas to:
though, no doubt, many will --
at which a business shouldetrahetipo
be 2 woundll up, we should doubt
any more than it is in existin particular
practice. As the measure,
however, is a first step, and ing
its particular previsions do some degree an experiment,
respect, doubtless, the not signify very much ; for in one
fears expressed on Thursday evening
Till be amply realised,
awl not many swim, U one, will

._
pass without the- necessity of some amendment or othtkr ~-
the uniform fate, their Lordships will be pleased toremembekt„ - -4
of the best as well as the worst bills that ever passed tlarotth
OPtheir house.
•
- (Front the A I orn,•ny Heriii,l4 of this d,ciy.)
is sacrificing about 1,000 lives
4 -Mr. Gladstone is so good .as to remind us that we have got
lint it is not. possible to
inotoo,oiao,woaolo.l,wpheirchaninsumco,satniT As—England and France -
1,0„,„_.,the Great Exhibition
Per diem'; Doubtless these are, tre,vaendons ?acts ; facts cal-
in which to go
enlited `t9-make every one-itaill
Ilyvvearitis -a..fsteleiri*theeve.i7.granind
cament I' - By' whose fault is it that, i n some two or three
,greatest' wars of-modern times' a war, t"'''
, of 1851—England should have plungeLl into one of the
o:setnivai,:s6;fllOW e„%pie we into this
predi.
I forward; is to fcrco back the whole power of 'the Russian ens,
pire; while to retreat, is to confess Russia to be Europe's
master ?" .
Who plunged us into this war ? First of all, Ve must re-
peat the statement which we have often made, and which
I has never been contradieted, that 'the' criminal n'eakness of
some of the leading members of Lord Aberdeen's' Govern-
-1 ment led the late Emperor Nichob.s., tevenneit that; aggres-
sion which commenced the war. r- 7,„,
Before he took any step in the:vinatter the Eanperor
Nicholas not only conversed himself with the British ambas-
Calaugbinhietng of
reply, St. .James's,sanounting the-
sador at his own Court, but he instructed his -l'epreseirtative
in London to do what was of far more itoportsee;_ts souts_
the leading members of the English Government; and when'
aßnaszenrßhie-urnenceowiveddidwsaossaoucteltehses,
to this, " You may deal with Turkey as you like, we shall
give you no trouble."
Nicholas thus was led into the scrape, and hence his re-
sentment shown towards the British ambassador at St.. re_
tersburg. Had the reply of the English Cabinet in 1853 b,t,en.
prompt, firm, and decided, Menschikoff would not have boar).
sent to Constantinople, and not a Russian soldier would hear*
crossed the Prnth. ,
Such was the first act of folly on the part of Lord Ahier--
deen's Government. The second was a still more fatal-eke.
Feeling compelled by the public voice to coins to 'blows with
Russia, there were a dozen ways of dealing with that great
power, and of all these we managed to choose the very worst.
We might hare nt once closed up
the Black Sea. and. the
Baltic, and thus have kept Russia in confinement till she
asked for terms of Peace. This woad have coat US ilabolltfive
millions per annum, whereas we have already spent fifty mil-
lions, and-gained:no more than this five millions would. have

given Us, - ^

Or we might have landed a French and English farce suffi-
cient to protect Constantinople, and they we IWO& bays
assisted the. Circassiane to weaken the Russian dominiass is
that ,quarter. • •
Or we might have burnt or taken Odessa and Rerbelt, and
thus have starved Sebastopol.
Instead of any of these plans, we preferred to set down be•
-
fore Sebastopol. Let Lord Palmerston's nearest friend in the
press, the Morning Post, describe the peculiar absurdities of
this step :
" It has been well remarked that the' Innumerable sorties
of the garrison of Sebastopol are explicable only by the fact
that the fortress has remained uninvested from the beginning..
Restricted to no particular amount of reinforcements, unfet-
tered in drawing them along its line of communications, and.
placing them successively upon its ramparts—with a blank
cheque-book, in short, upon the whole Scythian race—the
town has been as prodigal in the expenditure of blood as in
that of ammunition. It was never forced to live upon its
own means—never confined to its own resources."

Thus, having got into a• quarrel by our own misconduct in
not warning Russia distinctly and in time, wo nest chose the
worst possible way of carrying on the war—the way in which
the enterprise would be most costly and most hazardous.
Now, let us ask, who are the men who are most to be blamed
for all this ?
Lord Palmerston, who has his own share of the guilt to
bear, was merely Home Secretary, The foremost men in the
matter were=

Lord Aberdeen,
Lord John Russell,
The Duke of Newcastle,
Sir James Graham,
Mr. Gladstone,
Mr. Sidney Herbert.

These were the men who first blundered into a quarrel with
Russia, and then, having got into such a quarrel, managed so
to conduct the war as to make it almost equally difficult to
carry it on with honour, or to get out of it without disgrace_
Who does not know that it is a first principle of general-
ship to take care that you shall be able to effect a good re-
treat ? Now, England and France have set down 150,000
men before Sebastopol, and where, we beg to ask, is their re-
treat ? It may be said that retreat is the last thing we are
thinking of. Aye, but what if a stay before Sebastopol were
impossible ? What if cholera were rife, and one-half of the
army were sick ? Would any one tell us what, in such a case,,
would become of the whole expedition'?
Well, this is the position in which Lord Aberdeen, Lord J.
Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Sir J. Graham have placed us.
And what are these " distinguished statesmen" now doing ?
One and all, they have run away ! Abscoiding from the
Cabinet, on one pretence or another, they now blame us for
being at war; and insist upon it that we ought to make
peace !
Upon what terms? Why, the two most distinguished men
of the whole clique—Lord J. Russell and Mr. Gladstone—tell
us that we are dreadfully criminal in not at once grasping at
the Austrian proposal, and withdrawing from the war, on
condition that Russia will kindly permit us to keep in the
Black Sea, of English, French, and Turkish ships, an equal
force to the Russian fleet at Sebastopol!
Why, what prevents us—what has ever prevented us, from
saying to Russia, " We shall keep in the Black Sea, not only
an equal fleet to yours, but a superior one. And we will not
only do this ; but if you are angry, and choose to quarrel, we
will keep every ship you have cooped up in Cronstadt and
Sebastopol till you are in a better humour."
We can say this to Russia whenever we please. All the
world knows that we have this power. If, then, after sitting
down before Sebastopol, and remaining there for nearly a year,
we withdrew because Russia had consented to allow us to
keep six ships in the Black Sea, the whole world would
see that all we really wanted was a pretext for decamping
from the Crimea !
But what do Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone mean
us to understand ? Will they put it deliberately on record
that they plunged into war with Russia, sent 150,001 men
into the Crimea, and spent of English and French money one
hundred millions, in order to force Russia to permit us to
keep six ships in the Black Sea ? Is this to be part of the
English history of the nineteenth century ? If so, assuredly
it will be a page which has never had its like before, and
which, we trust, will never have its like again !

(From tics Times of this day.)
The question of Sabbath observance is one commending it
se'f so naturally to a right-thinking people that neither sur-
prise nor regret ought to be occasioned by the controversies
which this subject has provoked. In the case of the Sale of
Beer Act the chief point at issue was probably the diminution
of intemperance ; but even here a great deal turned inciden-
tally upon the way in which the Sabbath should be observed.
Of course, the strict theory on such a point is that Sunday
should be a day of rest to all—that is to say, that the work:
of labour should everywhere cease, and that this interval of
repose should be devoted to the worship of that Being from
whom all blessings proceed. Neither would there be much
ground fur not applying this theory to practice under such
conditions of daily life as admitted of a sufficient admixture
of recreation in relief of toil. In this country, however, and
especially in this metropolis, it happens that the seventh dap
supplies the only period during the whole week at which a
large portion of the working population can obtain that
amount of fresh air, change, or relaxation which nature re-
quires. On this point we quote with great satisfaction the
words of Mr. Long, the magistrate of Marylebone, before the
Select Committee on the Sale of Beer Act. "An artisan,"
said he—
" Working six days within the confined atmosphere of
London is called on as a matter of duty, even throwing out
of consideration the pleasure he may derive from it, to sock
some relaxation of that kind in the country, and how he can
do it better than by walking up to such a. place as Hampstead
I do net know. It occurred to me that, no doubt, the Legis-
lature desire to encourage persons in performing their religi-
ous duties by attending divine worship. Under the Police
Act persons are not allowed to sell liquor before 1 o'clock.
That covers the period of morning service ; but then let us
look at what is the condition of the religious part of society
as to the residue of the day. There are afternoon services,
and there are evening services ; but I suppose they do not
expect that every man is to go to church three times a day;
the very man who seeks for refreshment in the afternoon of
the day may have attended service in the morning, and may
mean to attend it again in the evening, and may spend the
rest of his time in rational recreation, in wandering about
and enjoying the beauties of nature • and, if he does that
with a grateful feeling to the Author Of Nature, my opinion
is that he is spending his Sunday very wisely and very
properly."

In this view we think there will be many disposed to coin-
cide, and our readers will recollect, perhaps, a certain inci-
dent which we mentioned a few days ago. All places of healthful
resort are not within walking distance, like Hampstead, but
it was found that the Sunday excursionists from London when
carried by trains to a particular town, made use of their holy-
day by going to church there in such numbers that additional
sittings were very soon required, and the clergymen actually
made application to the railway company for assistance hi
providing the extra accommodation which their own excur-
sion trains rendered necessary.
In the evidence, moreover, to which we have made allusion
above it is alleged very decidedly that the opportunities of
change which railways now afford at a cost placingllthem
and
within the reach of the many have proved ere
di-
rectly instrumental in raising the charactegrcoeftheY working
classes, and in promoting, upon the whole,
a far better ob-
servance of the Sabbath than prevailed in times when
no such means of locomotion existed.rd WM e_ayne to t have alreadyie
quoted the testimony of Sir Rich
effect, and we now add that of the Honourable Mr.
Norton. "From your observation," he was asked, "of tho
working classes, do you suppose that those men who take
their wives and children forth on the Sabbath, when they can
afford such an excursion, aro thecstr
arstitdplarhtelodf theh commu-
nity?"t at their so
AIISIVer --4 The very host'
best. means of making them so." Again he
view the. facilities. of locomotion which
wgoaisnagsfkoedrtl,i—is,,thyeeu
given to the people in a very favourable point of
was the reply," and I think we ought to
have been gi
view 1" " do,
f them we can."
make every use )to the conclusion, not only that
We are fed, therefore,
a
amount of open•air recreation, or change of scene, is
certain
duo to
the requirements of the working classes on Sunday,,
but that the enjoyment of these very privileges does actually
operate in securing a substantially bettor observance of the
Sunday itself. Yet it is plain that Sunday cannot be made a
dt
ay of partial relaxation if it is to be made a day of universal
rest ; for relaxatioinme
pints suhesehnse attached to the word by an
overworked man,
lie
an amount of active enjoyment
as presumes the work
of othere
men in ministering to it. If
our artisans, for •
instance are to breathe the fresh air of the
country or the suburbs, they must be provided, when the
scene of resort is beyome
mere walking distance, with means
of conveyance, and
that a cert.am conveyances plying on a Sunday assume
number of men must be kept at work on a Sun-
day. To take a more special example—if a museum or other
place of innocent recreation is opened on a Sunday for the
admission of the public, it is clear that the attendants of the
establishment would be kept at work ; and yet such a thing
Would, in the opinion of many enlightened and philanthropic
men, be eminently beneficial to the community.
It is at this stage of the controversy that Dr. Cumming and
his friends step in, and argue with considerable force that the
real fault of our system lies not so much in a too rigorous
observance of the Sabbath as in a too rigorous employment of
the other days in the week. They say that if legislation is
required it is rather for week days than Sundays, for that if
six days out of the seven aro so utterly absorbed in the service
of Mammon it becomes almost impracticable to secure the se-
venth for the service of God. Life cannot be wholly divided
between labour and prayer. Some portion, at any rate, is
required for rest, for recreation, and for the use of those en-
joyments which Providence has placed within reach. Let
these conditions be attended to in the distribution of the six
days, and wo may then insist with greater reason on the duo
appropriation of the seventh. No one would deny the force
of this argument, hich is supported by the remarks of *rr-
n!__.
Wakley before the committee, when he was asked wemot
excursion trains did not, in his opinion, tend to both_r .a,
and pbytical improvement. " I hay* no doubt ft It_ wag!