The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-27 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY. EVENING, JULY 2r, 1855.

accepted in the country. If a long session were still to
come, the discussion would have been satisfactory enough.
for not more than one or two members out of the forty
who voted against the committal of the bill had the
courage to declare themselves opponents of the prin-
ciple of limited liability. Public opinion has silenced
epen opposition, although. the secret hostility of the
capitalists is not the less active. Even while affecting,
to bow before the principle, they reproduced all the old
threadbare arguments against it of rash and reckless
speculation, the encouragement to fraud, the redundancy
of capital, &c., &c., which have been demolished again
and again. But the latews of the session was the great
topic, and four mortal latirs were wasted in proving
that the house had no time to waste. At this rate there
is no hope of any good being done before the Tecess. It
is only by economising every hour that time can possibly
be found for the discussions absolutely necessary before
the bills can be reduced to any useful shape. No less
than seven amendments of the most ireliortant kind
stand for consideration. Perhaps the best of them is
that of the honourable member for Belfa.st, who pro-
poses to strike out nearly the whole of both bills, and
to substitute an entirely new set of clauses' of his own.
Then there is Lord Goderich's motion to strike out
the clause by which the privilege of limited liability'
is restricted to companies in possession of at
least 20,0001. of capital. This is an essential point,
upon the settlement of which it depends whether the
Limited Liability Bill shall be a real working measure
of relief, or a mere idle mockery of the popular wish. If
the bill should pass with any such restriction as it now
contains it would remain a dead letter, just as the Irish
Anonymous Partnership Act broke down, mainly from
the same cause. In the interval of more than a century
since it passed scarcely an instance has occurred of its
powers being resorted to, owing to the exclusion of
associations with small capitals, and the addition of
vexatious requirements that the wealthier bodies would
not submit to. If the proposed restriction 15 iffithitained,
the same fate will doubtless attend the present mea-
sure, which seems to be framed very much in the
same spirit as its Irish prototype. We are at a
loss to conceive how Lord Palmerston will be able to
reconcile his opposition to Lord Goderich's amendment
with the terse summary he gave of the question in
the course of yesterday's debate. When he said that it
was a contest between the opinions and prejudices of the
few and the interests of the *Any, that it was part of the
great conflict between Monopoly and Free Trade, and
that all that was wanted was to set free small capitals
locked up by the existing laws, he exhausted all that
needed to be said on a subject now so thoroughly sifted,
and gave his full adhesion to the doctrines at which the
corintry long since arrived. But, if this is the true state
ment of the question, where is the pretence for refusing
the relief to associations having less capital than 20,000/.?
As Mr. Henley pertinently asked, does Free Trade stop
at 20,0001. ? Can there be a more glaring violation of
the principle of Free Trade than to give a monopoly of
commerce, in one peculiarly favoured form, to such
partnerships and societies only as are able to start
with a joint stock of a very considerable amount ?
Either the noble lord's argument is insincere
claptrap or it is meant as a prelude to the with-
drawal of all further opposition on the part of the
Government to the amendment proposed by Lord
Godur:ch. The last alternative is too good to be believed,
but if Lord Palmerston think 4, as he appears to do, that
a pointed speech will be accepted by the country as a
substitute for comprehensive legislation, or that by dex-
ter -tusly attacking those members who waste hours he
can redeem himself from the charge of having wasted an
entire session, he will find that he is greviously mistaken
whenever a .general election shall let the people's voice
be heard. We have long ceased to have much confideree
either in the house or the Administration. But they will
sink lower than they have done in public estimation if
they conclude the se, sion without passing a single mea-
sure of public utility. If, on a matter of which the
principle has now become almost a settled doctrine in
the country and the details alone are left to be arranged,
it is found impossible to get a bill through Parliament In
a session of six months, the sooner we look for some
better law-making machinery than we possess at present
the better. Wherever the fault lies it must be mended,
if the Legislature is to retain any higher position than
that of the first debating club in the country.

(From the Morning Post of this day. )
From the discussion which took place yesterday on
the Limited Liability Bill, the public, we suspect, will
draw this natural and irresistible inference—that the
opponents of the measure, finding that they have no
valid arguments to urge against a principle which the
people of this country and their representatives in Par-
liament, by repeated majorities, have approved, at length
have been compelled to speak against time, in the vain
expectation of achieving a temporary but ignominious
triumph. In the great battle of large capital against small
capital which was yesterday fought in the House of
Collisions, those honourable gentlemen who have the
good fortune to possess a large share of the former, and
no sympathy for their less prosperous brethren, managed,
by the most wearisome repetition of long-exploded fal-
lacies, to protract the discussion to a length which ren-
dered the progress of the bill in committee utterly
imps esible. The House of Commons, which at the pre-
sent moment does not stand in remarkably good odour
with the public, cannot afford to indulge in these splene-
tic and foolish attempts to stop the progress of measures
which are not only useful in themselves, butare anxiously
desired by the great miss of the people of this country.
Mr. Muntz, Mr. Hastie, and other gentlemen who led
the opposition, may not like the comparison ; but yes-
terday they stole a leaf out of the book of the defunct
Irish Brigade, and sacrificed a whole day in the most
inexcusable and reckless manner. They bad, strange .So
say, several auxiliaries (Mr. Cardwell, for instance), who
professing to be friends of the principle of limited lia-
btlity, still voted in support of the Fabian policy of alb
honourable member for Birmingham. The public will
rejoice to see that the noble lord at the head of the
Government, in spite of all opposition, is determined
to force on the two partnership bills, and that he is
not to he turned aside from the plain path of duty by
the shallow artifice of speaking against time or any other
equally unworthy measure. The noble lord read the
advocates of monopoly a well-deserved lecture—one
which, we trust, the public will bear in mind, as giving,
in a few brief and emphatic sentences, the real nature of
the contest, and his opinion of the strategical operations
by which Mr. Muntz and his supporters still hope to
keep fettered down the capital and industry of the coun-
try. The noble lord said, " My own opinion is, that both
these bills are of the utmost importance. There is
nothing which, I am persuaded, would tend more to the
general advantage of the public than setting free, as these
bills would do, small capital to he turned to profitable
employment. The present law prevents that. A great
multitude of small capitals are locked up, which,
if these bills were passed into law, might be employed
with great advantage to those who possessed them.
and for the great benefit of the community at large.
This is a quostion of free trade against monopoly, and I
can assure the house that I feel so strongly on this ques-
tion that I will urge the house to go on day after day,
and morning atter morning, and if it is attempted to
talk these bills out by long speeches, the country shall
at least see with whom the fault rests,' and who it is
who deprives the nation of the advantage which I con-
tend these bills will afford." The noble lord added,
,6 Of course, at this period of the session, if hon. gentle-
men will waste time in making long speeches, and pre-
venting business being done, we may have to sit here
until September. I can only assure the house that no
determination shall be wanting on the part of the Go-
vernment to give the public the benefit of these changes
in the law during the present session of
altr Parliamenmatters
t."
Grouse-shooting to be ignored for such py
as the Partnership Bills is. surely high treason against
the pleasures and amusements of hon. sportsmen !
Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Cairns both asserted that the
Government, if it had chosen, could easily have given
an evening between Whitsuntide and yesterday for the
discussion of these bills. The answer is quite plain.
The Tenants' Compensation Bill and the Scotch Educe-
tiou Bill, and the never-ending Maynooth debate,
stopped the way, to say nothing of the motions made by
Mr. Disraeli, Sir Bnlwer Lytton, Mr. Roebuck, and Mr.
Layard, on the Vienna Conferences, the Sebastopol
Committee, and every possible topic connected with the
war abroad, and the administration of military and civil
affairs at home. We look upon the application of the
principle of limited liability to the commercial concerns
of this country as providing new means of development
for the resources of the nation, which will tend sen-
sibly, though perhaps not immediately, to compensate
the people for the pressure which a great war must
necessarily entail. We do not for a moment ima.
gine that the recognition of the principle of limited
liability will lead to the formation of trades' unions—to
that pernicious system which places in hostile array the
workman and the master. Neither do we beliducement eve that
t
to
it will add, as some suppose, a single in
formation of bubble companies, or to the perpetration he
of wholesale and systematic fraud. The joint-stock
mania of 1824 and 1825 occurred when unlimited liabi-
lity was, as at present, the law of then and ; and the rail-
way mania of 1845 occurred under pecisely similar cir-
cumstances. All the abortive schemes which were pro-
jected at tibe latter period were " wound up " upon the
principle of unlimited liability, to the absolute ruin and
beggary of thousands of innocent persons, who, if they
had dreamt of the extent of their liability, would have
paused before they made shipwreck of their fortunes.
Limited liability, and perhaps no human legislation
can sufficiently provide against these periodical accesses
of madness which affect wealthy and enterprising
communities ; but experience shows that liability to
" the last shilling and to the last acre" has not had the
salutary effect which its advocates so loudly proclaim.
If the privilege of limited liability, purchased by large
capitalists in the shape of expensive Acts of Parliament
and charters of incorporation, has covered our country
with railroads, canals, and great public works--if it has
sent on every sea magnificent fleets of steamers, why is
the small capitalist to be debarred from the same privi-
lege in the investment of his capital ? The monopolists
say No—but the People and Parliament of England say
Yes.

( Front the Morning Advertiser of this day.)
Major Reed put his question to the Premier last night
in terms of the notice he had previously given. The an-
wer of the noble lord to the cil.?etioh of the pilot

gentleman was such as many, persons.expeeted—that is
to say', it was noauswer at all. Lord Palmerston evaded
tbe subject. Instead Of ansvvering "aye " or "no " to
the cpiestion which the hon. and gallant member for
Abingdon put to him, namely, whether, in the event of
hostilities ceasing, the noble lord would feel it to be his
duty to call parliament together before ratifying terms of
,peacei—he made a miserable attempt to shuffle out of the
unpleasant poSition in which the gallant gentleman
place 4 him, by replying that if any circumstances should
occur during the recess which, in the opinion of her Ma-
jesty's GovernMent, would render it desirable to call
parliament together sooner than the usual period, they
would, of course, consider it their duty to do so. It was
not with the view of getting an unmeaning• answer of
this nature that Major Reed put his question.
The answer, ii by courtesy must so be called, created
a laugh in the house—an object which the noble lord
evidently had in view when he gave it. It is truly dez,
plorable to see, a man in the responsible position which
Lord Palmerston occupies, and at a time, too, when the
public mind is filled with anxiety and alarm, labouring
as zealously to produce a laugh as if he were sustaining
the principal character in an Adelphi farce. Such con-
duct is an outrage on all one's ideas of propriety. It
is MI ungracious and ungrateful return to that country
which has placed him where he is. The noble li.rd may
rely on it that he will find some day, and that soon,
that he has carried his propensity for indulging in jocu-
larity a little too far.
Major Reed, as we prepared our readers to expect,
was not to be put off with the unmeaning answer of the
Premier. He feltthat the noble lord had given no an-
swer at all to his momentous question. If Lord Pal-
merston had not opened his lips, he would have said
quite as much as he did in reality. The gallant officer,
with a patriotism and promptitude which cannot be too
highly praised, started to his feet, and said, that seeing
the answer of the noble lord was altogether unsatisfac-
tory, he would enter on the journals of the house a
notice of a resolution on the subject, which he would
bring forward on the earliest day which should be open
to him. The resolution of the hon. and gallant member
for Abingdon is the following : —" That this house, parti-
cipating in the national anxiety that no pacificarrangement
should be concluded with Russia which does not appear
best calculated to secure an honourable, just, and lasting,
peace, wishes to impress upon her Majesty's Govern-
ment how great a satisfaction it would be to the house
and the country to receive an assurance that no treaty
or conditions of peace would be finally settled without
having previously called Parliament together."
This is adopting the right course. This is acting with
the promptitude and decision which the occasion re-
quires. Such spirited and patriotic conduct will every-
where elicit expressions of approval and gratitude.
Never did a member of Parliament more fully repre,ent
the universal feeling of the country than Major Reed is
doing in this instance ; and he may rely on it that the
nation will, as with one voice, cheer him on in the
course he is pursuing. And with the country's cordial
sympathy and hearty support, he can laugh to scorn any
of those despicable expedients to which the liveried oc-
cupants of the Treasury benches may resort, with the
view of diverting him from his purpose.

(Front the Morning Post of yesterday.)
While evvery square foot round Sebastopol has be-
come the scene of historic events, we must not forget
that this immense war is also raging on the other side of
the Black Sea, and includes within its sphere of activity
the once famous regions of Asia Minor. Indeed, here
its fury was exercised for more than a whole year, while
the Crimea was still wrapped in the grim tranquillity of

expectation.
Some time since, General Mouravieff, advancing from
Alexandropol, laid siege to Kars. We learn from the last
despatches that he has raised this siege, but yet raised it
in a manner, according to all appearance, so little com-
pulsory, that it was supposed be meditated the surprise,
of Erzeroum, considerably in advance of it, if we count
from his point of departure, and to the rear of it, if we
reckon from the Turkish. Now, we can well believe that
some contemplated adventure was attributed to the Rus-
sian commander, and yet, at the same time, that mero
necessity obliged him to abandon the operations which
be had already undertaken. The Asiatic part of the
war is so peculiar that we may be pardoned for devoting
to it a few remarks, which will not only explain the
seeming contradiction of this reflection, but enable the
general reader to seize at once its real bearings.
It is commonly assumed that Russia had but two ap-
proaches to Constantinople—one by land, over the
Balkan hills, and one by sea, across the En xino. But
such has been her enormous increase, and by so many
devious paths has she circumvented the destined prey,
that there was a third, and even a broader path. A few
years more, and nothing could have withstood the enemy
on this side. Descending from Scythia, as the Turco-
mans and Turks themselves descended from it, the modern
Russians pursued a thfferentline into the same regions,and
therefore had a different kind of communication with their
own basis and their own resources. Circassia and the Cau-
casus, though nearer, are a less safe and a less practicable
medium than tint more Eastern route by which the Tar-
tars of the Ural formerly swarmed down to the conquest
of Asia Minor, and then of the European dominions of
the Lower Empire. We cannot develop this distinction
as fully as it merits. But it is enough to say that the
Russians, taking the shortest way down, found it the
longest wav home. They interposed " the Mountain of
Languages" (a name which Professor Max Moller thinks
is so significantly applied to the country of the various
Circassians) between them and their supports ; a region
never subdued from the time of Darius, from the time of
Alexander to our own. Better for the Russians had
they made a larger circuit eastward, than to have left
straight behind them the " Caucasian and Albanian

Gates."
We need not pursue this—the scholar will understand
us ; but it is not necessary to be a scholar to appreciate
the position ; any diligent reader must also comprehend
it at once. What we have said is the true reading of
the power of Schamyl, and of the paralysis of all the
Russian forces in Georgia, whenever there has been a
fresh rising in the Caucasus. The fact is that, since our
irruption into the Black Sea—the waters of which would
have otherwise rectified the original error of the Rus-
sian advances through Asia Minor—General Androni-
koff, General Prince Bebutoff, and (uow) General Mou-
ravieff, have had to depend upon the precarious cow-

munications of the Caspian.
These communications failing, they have been forced
to make " war feed war ;" and thus the very occurrence
of a disaster, instead of inducing them to retreat into
the flames of the insurrectionary conflagration raging
behind them, has been but a reason for some desperate
foray, or onward razzia. Were the Russian occupancy,
or aggression, in Georgia at all adequately supported—
were its best supplies not intercepted by the Allied
expedition—were it not dislocated, so to speak,
in its communications—it could strike the most
fatal blow of all against the life of Turkey,
and could knock only too imperiously at the door
of Constantinople. Let us imagine what a great
Russian General, not adequately resisted, could accom-
plish. Suppose Anatolia once swept clean of its long
disorderly defenders, whom neither Kurshid Bey nor
General Williams could put in the condition they wished.
Suppose (happily this is no longer likely) the " Castles
of Asia and Europe" in the enemy's hands, nothing that
was then out of the Black Sea could get into it—nothing
that war; in it could get out of it—except by that enemy's
permission. This was the quarter in which the present
possessors of Constantinople mustered to enter it—that is
the quarter from which its newfoes, if undisturbed by our
expedition and by our fleet, had the soundest hope of seiz-
ing it; and, strange to say, it was here, in their own conge-
nial legion (for the Turks have been derided as degenerate in
Europe, but still heroic in Asia), that they, nevertheless,
displayed the least of their hereditary prowess. Here (and,
indeed, in the exact neighbourheed referred to by our last
despatches) they were ignominiously beaten over and
over again by inferior numbers, at the very time
when Omer Pacha. in his immortal Danubian campaign,
was furnishing strange illustrations to the current and
favourite platitudes about "Turks in Europe, Turks no
longer," &c. The truth is that a great general always
makes history. In Asia the Turks were at first badly
officered, and badlyled, being originally badly disciplined
besides. At Kars, in the autumn of 1853, they were de-
feated ; at Akbalzik, on the 18th November, they were
routed ; at Gumri, still earlier in the same year, they
were shamefully beaten—everywhere vanquished. Why
did not the Russians pursue their advantage ? No one
who has carefully weighed our preceding remarks will be
at a loss for the solution of this problem.
But we go still further. We consider that Russia is
baulked of the fairest of all her fields of aggression in be-
ing rendered incapable of effective operations in Anatolia
—and the paralysis of her power in Asia Minor would,
of itself alone, amply vindicate our Crimean expedition.
The " silent highway" to the north of that important re-
gion brings her no help. And, curiously enough, when
her generals show themselves the most aggressive on the
frontiers of Imeretia, it is but a proof that they are un-
usually uneasy about their own rearward communica-
tions. We may return to this subject, and look more
narrowly at General Mouravieff's present position.

CRICKET.—THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND V. THE
PLAYERS OF ENGLAND.—This match was concluded on
Wednesday at Lord's, and the following was the score:—
The gentlemen 226 and 43 ; players 222 and 49. The
players thus won by seven wickets.
THE LATE JAMES COLQIIHOUN.—James Chevalier de
Colquhoun was the only son of Dr. Patrick, at one time
Lord Provost of Glasgow. Dr. P. Colquhoun was one
of the first authors who applied himself to the develop-
ment of the statistics of the British empire. He founded
and carried out gratuitously the present system of
Thames police, and suggested in his work on the me-
tropelitan police the adoption of an improved system
for the protection of public property, subsequently car-
ried out by the late Sir Robert Peel as an original idea.
The late James Colquhoun, asHauseatic plenipotentiary,
signed commercial treaties with Great Britain, the Otto-
man Porte, Mexico, and Liberia, and negotiated several
others ; he also signed a treaty as Saxon plenipotentiary
with Mexico. He leaves a family of two daughters and
three sons, the elder of whom, Dr. Patrick, the altb?r
of a voluminous work on Roman Civil Law, following
his father's steps, signed, as Hanseatic plenipotntialy.,
at Constantinople and Athens, commercial treaties sv
the Sublime Porte, Persia, aud,Greece.