The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-05 00:00:00

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Sun,

LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1864.

The battle has now begun in earnest ; Mr.
DISRAELI'S opening speech calling up on the
Ministerial aide a speaker no lass eminent than
Mr. GLepereee. That right hon. gentleman en-
deavoured, With his customary ability, to turn the
aside the force of the direct charges against the
Government, by deselling upon the official hopes
of the Opposition as a party. With that jocularity,
which appears to be a favourite weapon with our
Government at this crisis, he
related to the House
the anecdote of an old lady and gentleman who
were murdered by their servant, and their epitaph
suggested that the murderer had done them a
kindness by saving them from the.. discomfort" and
" inconvenience"of a natural death. " It is only very
recently," said Mr. GLADSTONE, " that I saw
this
epitaph, and it now strongly occurs to me that the
right hon. gentleman is anxious to perform for the
Government the kind office which the domestic
servant performed for that old lady and gentlemen."
Without pausing to dwell upon the appropriate
nature of Mr. GLADSTONE'S comparison between
the Government of which he is a member, and " an
old lady and gentleman," the House was, of course,
convulsed with laughter at the anecdote. Mr.
GLADSTONE might have remembered, however, that
with reference to every Government, as was wittily
said of the Czars of Russia," their natural death is
a violent one." No such anecdotes and no such
laughter, however, no adroit imputation of party
motives or of personal ambition, can avail to set
aside the plain statements and direct charges ad•

yenned against the Government. " I have shown
you," said Mr. DISRAELI, "that the position of
England is most embarrassing, is intolerably
difficult, is full of humiliations." And who
shall gainsay the truth of that exposition ?
The lamentable fact is only too patent to all. The
leader of the Opposition, again, alluding to the
Premier's taunting inquiry as to his (Mr.DISBAELI'B)
policy, happily remarked last night—" My answer
is, my policy is the honour of England, it is the pea eu)
of Europe, and I say the noble lord has betr dyed
both." To which remark the house naturally
responded with " loud cheers." To indicate
what should be the foreign policy of the
nation—that, said Mr. DISRAELI, "is the
duty of no one but the responsible Minister
of the Crown. Weil, then, that being 130,'' con-
tinued the right hon. gentleman, " we will tell the
noble lord what is not our policy. We will not
first threaten and then refuse to act. We will not
lure on our allies by expectations we mean not to
fulfil. And if ever it should he the lot of myself
or of any public men with whom I have the honour
to act to carry on important negoaiations on behalf
of this country, such as the noble lord and his col-
leagues have had to conduct, I trust it will never
be thought by us to be our duty to come to Par-
liament to announce to the country that we have
no allies,' and then declare that England can never
act alone.' These, sir, are words which should never
have escaped the lips of a British Minister. Sir,
I repudiate and reject them. I remember
there was a time when, with not a tithe of her
present resources, England, inspired with a patriotic
cause, triumphantly encountered a world in arms.
And I believe that should the occasion arise—
should her independence or her honour be assailed
or her empire endangered, England would arise in
the magnificence of her might and struggle triune.
phantly for those objects which are dear to human
life, and for which men live and nations flourish.
But, sir, I for one will never consent to go to war to
extricate Ministers from the consequences of their
own indiscretion. It is in this spirit that I have
drawn up this address to the Crown. I have
drawn it up in the spirit in which the Royal
Speech was delivered at the commencement of the
session. I am ready to vindicate the honour of
the country whenever it is necessary ; but I have
drawn up these resolutions in the interest of peace."
In the interests of Peace, interests dear to us all,
but also with a keen sense of the paramount
importance of Duty and Honour, the people are
now anxiously watching the proceedings of our
Parliament. With an eye to the coming elections,
the members have a difficult task. They have,
however, only to consider well the old adage that
Honesty, with Fidelity to all our pledges and pro,
mixes, is the best policy, and the only one likely to
tell with the English public.
" Not once cr twice, in our tough island story,
The path of duty is the way to glory."

The removal of a good many of our metropolitan
toll gatea last Friday was a source of general satis-
faction, and it is only to be wondered at that our
patience did not sooner give way before such an
infliction. Whether from sharing SHARSPERR'S
opinion of keeping to :he evils that we know, or
from the proverbial horror o ratepayers to an in,
crease of the rates, it is certain that turnpike trusts
and toll gates have long outlived their day, and that
they belong to a system and an epoch altogether
gone by. They are not in the least in accordance
with the spirit of our general legislation, and it
amounts almost to an absurdity that when so much
is being said about relieving traffic and facilitating
communication these establishments should be pre-
served. They are undoubtedly a very serious
hindrance to the passengers and tend greatly to
promote confusion and collisions by inducing heavy
vehicles or, indeed, vehicles of any kind that can
a ord to lose time, to go out of their way to avoid
the obnoxious toll, and sometimes, as in the case of
the bridges, this produces over-crowding of the
rival ways. The good work has not, however,
been done all at once; and even now the inhabi-
tants of the southern metropolitan districts are left
lamenting not only the inevitable bridge toll but
the turnpike on the high road as well. The
report just issued by the select committee
appointed to inquire into the matter of the
abolition gives, however, some encouragement
to these ill-used citizens and to the victims
of turnpike trusts throughout the country. Scotland
and South Wales have greatly the advaninge of
England and North Wales in this respect, and for
the superiority of the southern part of the princi
pality, its inhabitants may thank the shade of
REBECCA and her followers, which is perhaps not a
very good moral. The extreme inconsistency in
the number of the county tolls in some parts is
easily explained. There is no longer sufficient
traffic on the highroads to pay for the expenses of
maintaining the road since the diversion of the
through traffic by the railways, and consequently
the trustees are forced to increase the number of
their bars in order to obtain sufficient returns to
keep the road in older. It might be fair enough in
the old days for travellers to the north to contri-
bute to the maintenance of the great highways
thither, but in oar time those who habitually travel
much about the country pay a tolerably heavy
charge towards maintaining another roadway in
order, where the tollgates are the stations, and they
are not therefore forced by any law of social equity
or common sense to contribute to a highway they
never use. The whole burden of keeping the roads
in good repair and discharging the duties of the
turnpike trusts falls therefore upon t'ne local in-
habitants, who would find it more convenient as
well as more sensible to pay the amount required
with their half-yearly rates instead of doling it out
in twopences and threepen'aes every time they pass
up or down the rord. We are told in the
report that ratepayers often have to discharge
the double duty, ':ind to contribute to the mainten-
ance of the roe as, as well as paying the toll. " Cases
are not rare of trusts in which the whole produce
of the tolls, after payment of the establishment
changes, is absorved in the payment of the interest
the debt, while arrears accumulate, and the whole
burden of the maintenance of the roads is thrown
upon the parishes.' The establishment charges
which are referred to here are often very heavy.
Mr. WRIGHTSON, a gentleman who has given the
committee much information on the subject, esti-
mates the cost of each gate at £2.5, and he thinks
there are at least four gates in every trust, which is
a low estimate, so that, as the number of trusts is
more than 1,100, the cost of collection is very great.
.Another gentleman etates that in the Leominster
trusts, it takes one half the revenue to pay the ex-
pauses and establishment charges, while the repairs
are put upon the perishes. In some districts in the
North Of England and elsewhere there are excep-
tional instances in which the retention of the tolls
may be considered advantageous, but as a general
rule the sooner
they are abolished throughout the
country the better. The committee, having the..
roughly investigated the matter, have arrived very
decidedly at this conclusion, and pronounce the abo-
lition to be both beneficial and expedient, especially
if the system now general in Scotland and South
Wales were adopted. Road boards are appointed, ,
who, by the assessment of counties, or the consoli-
hue greatly lessened the
dxtion Nraricas truth,