The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-07 00:00:00

TIMES.—We cannot wonder that a House of
Commons so notoriously favourable to the Danish
cause should view with apprehension the long de-
lays of the Conference, and be agitated by the
crisis which is apparently at hand. The refusal of
Lord Palmerston last night to enlighten his
audience as to what has actually passed at therecent
meetings gave occasion to a little demonstration, in
which baffled curiosity, mingling with a suspicion
that the Conference was about to prove a solemn
and pompous failure, caused some cuttiog things to
be said of her Majesty's Government. But though
the traditions of British official life do not allow
Ministers to communicate the results of each sitting
of the Conference to Parliament, there is no reason
why the country should be kept in ignorance of that
which it can do no harm to know. It has been
truly said that what is made a secret by Alinisters
in their answers to the House of Commons is no
secret to foreign Embassies or to the conductors of
the foreign press. Everything that passes at the
Conference, even to the opinions of the several re-
presentatives and their mode of advocating their
respective causes, is soon known with something
like accuracy by communities which are certainly
not more worthy to be w:?11-informed than our own.
We may, then, fairly put oar readers in possession
of what we believe to be the present state of the
negotiations, convinced that by so doing we confer
a benefit on both parties to the dispute, and aid in
the most efficient manner the efforts of those who
are labouring in the cause of peace. The meeting
of the Conference which took place yesterday,
though it has no striking success to record, has not
been entirely barren. Of course the greatest at-
tention was given to the matter of most immediate
importance. The permanent settlement of the dis-
pute may be delayed, but the question of the sus-
pension of hostilities is urgent. On Sunday next,
the 12th inst., hostilities will be renewed, unless
in the meantime a prolongation of the present
truce can be agreed upon. This matter formed
the chief subject of discussion yesterday. The
Danes showed through their representatives their
usual spirit of defiance and recklessness of conse-
quences. Apparently thinking that the chapter of
accidents may possibly bring a better solution for
them if the war continue ana they stand before the
world as a brave people struggling against two mili-
tary tyrannies, the Danes play a bold game. When
a renewed suspension of hostilities was proposed
they declared that they would only consent to an
additional term of a fortnight. Austria and Prus-
sia, on the other hand, desired a suspension of arms
for two months. It is easy to understand the rea-
sons which induce the allies to propose this ex-
tended truce. They are in possession of the
Duchies ; they hold the administration of them, and
are able not only to represent the opinions of the
people as they please, but even to create a certain
amount of feeling by skilful management. There
are districts where the Schleswigers are pretty
evenly balanced between partisans of the Prince of
Augustenburg and honest liegemen to the Dane.
To be able for two months to work upon the in■
habitants of such districts is no small advantage to
Powers which are intent on showing that nearly
the whole country is German by race and instincts.
Then the advance of the season would bring nearer
the time when the Danes must forego one of the
most efficient weapons of warfare—the blockade of
the German ports. It need hardly be added that
the lengthening out of the war will be unfavour-
able to the weaker State, which is less able to bear
a protracted drain of its resources, and that there is
more likelihood that the allies will be able to have
their own way when the neutrals become tired of
the Danish question through lapse of time, and
when the British Parliament is prorogued, than
now that the interest is general and the sympathy
with the Danes manifest on every side. This pro-
posal for a two months' suspension of hostilities,
however, met with so positive a refusal from Den-
mark that it was not pressed, and at last it was
agreed that the representatives of the belli-
gerents should refer to their respective Govern-
ments the proposition for a suspension of hosti-
lities. Tne matter was no doubt referred to
Copenhagen, Berlin, and Vienna by telegraph, and
the answer will come soon enough to allow the ques-
tion to be finally settled at a meeting of the Confer-
ence which will be probably summoned for Thursday.
It can hardly be supposed that a prolongation of
the truce can be rejected by either of the parties.
Although the Danes are described as eager for war,
and even the Jutlanders, having been plundered -of
everything, are urging the King to fight it out, yet
the dishonour that the Copenhagen Ministers will
do themselves by rejecting such a reasonable pro-
posal makes it probable that there will be no diffi-
culty interposed by either party, and that till the
middle of July, at all events, the land will be free
from bloodshed. There is all the more reason to
hope that this new suspension of hostilities will
meet no obstacle, as there is some chance at least of
a e'impromise being accepted. All accounts from
Copenhagen represent the Danes as indignant at
the notion of any concession, as being full of con-
sternation and shame that England should think of
taking away Holstein and a part of Schleswig from
them. To give up the line of the Eider, to give up the
Dannewarke and the town of Schleswig itself would
be intolerable. On the other hand, the German
papers are demanding every inch of both duchies for
the Prince of Augustenburg. They cannot conceive
bow any foreign conclave of statesmen should think
of demanding that he shoeld forego his birthright.
Is not Schleswig irrevocably !lofted to Holstein,
and does it not extend to the very frontier of
Jutland ? It is clear that the parties ar.i ;rrecon-
cilable in their demands, and to make either Skate
is one of the most difficult tasks which could be
attempted by a neutral. Yet the persevering
efforts of our own Government, supported by
France and Russia, have not been wholly urine-
cessful. The neutral Powers have, we believe,
proposed the line of the Schlei as the frontier
between an independent German State to be formed
to the south of it, and a purely Danish kingdom
to the north. This, in our opinion, is an arrange-
ment far more advantageous to Denmark than a
renewal of the political relations which have
heretofore obtained between the Kingdom and the
Duchies. Better Fart of Schleswig permanently
and completely incorporated with the monarchy
and forming a compact mass with it than two semi-
independent, but wholly discontented, provinces
Whatever may be the present irritation of Denmark,
there is so much of reason in the new scheme that
we cannot think it, or one even less favourable,
would be long rejected. But for the present the
allies refuse to give up so much. They concede the
principle of drawing a line across Schleswig; and
this, indeed, is the chief success which the Confer.
once has as yet obtained—that whereas a fortnight
ago they demanded the whole of the two Duchies,
they are now willing that the Danish population in
the northern part of Schleswig should remain united
to the monarchy. They ask that the line should
be drawn north of Flensburg, which they claim to
be a German town, and to have a German popula-
tion on the oouth and west of it. On this question
of detail, then, the neutrals and the two German
Powers are at variance. But it is certainly a step
to have obtained such a basis for negotiation as the
admission that the line must be drawn so as to
divide the two rival races. To have advanced thus
far gives a chance of peace, because it makes more
conspicuous the folly and inutility of the war. A
war for a province may seem respectable, but when
it is for a belt formed by two parallel lines less than
twenty miles distant from each other it can hardly
excite either enthusiasm or admiration even in
Germany.
HERALD.—In the debates in the Upper House,
and in the columns of the leading journal, the
friends of the working man have been ventilating
their last now patent plan for his moral and social
elevation. They would make him independent
by rendering him an object of universal suspicion,
and would foster habits of integrity by practically
forbidding any one to trust him. They agree
that the Lord Chancellor's Debtor and Creditor
Bill " involves a question of the highest
importance to the welfare of the working
propose to solve the problem
classes," and they P
by depriving a large class of creditors of their legal
remedy. Because 9,000 persona annually are com-
mitted to prison for refusing to pay debts which
they have the ability but not the inclination to dis-
charge, the Lord Chancellor would stop the credit
of some millions to whom such credit is an accom-
modation, and not unfrequently a condition of
existence. The noble and learned lords on the
Ministerial side of the house have propounded views
of our social system which to us at least have all the
charm of novelty. Tradesmen in poor neighbour.
hoods who read the parliamentary debates will learn
a great deal more about themselves and their power
than they ever knew. The tradesman, we are
gravely assured, is not dependent upon his cus-
tomes, but his customers upon him. He stands
behind his counter, not as an industrious struggling
citizen, but as a small autocrat dispensing favours
to a crowd of bondsmen, who must either take his
goods at any price he likes to charge, or go to gaol
if they attempt to free themselves from his influ-
ence. The remedy for all this is, in the Chancellor's
opinion, exceedingly simple. Because some men
betray the confidence of their creditors, he would
punish the creditor for placing confidence in his
customers at all ; because some tradesmen abuse
their legal remedy, he would take that remedy
away from all tradesmen whatever ; and because
certain Chancery barristers have blundered in
their application of the common law when sitting
as county court judges, he proposes not to re-
quire that the judge shall know the law, but that
the law shall be altered to remedy evils which
have arisen solely from the errors of the judge.

comprehend why the Legislature should adopt
diametrically opposite systems in dealing with
' debts under and above £2O; why the creditor's
right against one class should be enforced and
ignored against another; why the small trader
should be liable to all the process which the inge.
unity of lawyers has devised for the constraint of
defaulting debtors, but should have no such remedy
when he, in his turn, seeks to enforce precisely simi-
lar claims against his customers. Modern legisla-
tion has swept away the usury laws, because ex-
perience showed that they only aggravated the evils
they were intended to prevent ; and on principles
of abstract justice we have abolished the immunity
formerly enjoyed by the owner of real estate from
the payment of his simple contract debts. We shall
be going back a long way if we introduce into the
contracts of our humbler fellow citizens an element

whose operatiou will not greatly differ from that of
the old statutes of usury, or if we confer on a dis-
honest or shuffling artisan an exemption from the
burden of his legal obligations as complete as that
which the owners of real estate formerly enjoyed.

Mr, Lawson's Permissive Bill,

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A public meeting was held last evening at Exeter Hall,
at the instance of the United Kingdom Alliance for the
Suppression of the Liquor Traffic, in favour of Mr. Law-
son's bill, which stands for second reading to-morrow.
Lord Calthorpe presided, and the attendance was very nu-

merous, the large hall being filled.
Letters were read from Lord Brougham and the Rev. W.
Arthur sympathising with the object of the meeting, but
apologising for not being able to be present.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, drew atten-

tion to the enormous amount of misery, suffering, and even
death which ensued from indulgence in intoxicating drinkt,
and remarked that, as the Government and Parliament did
not seem disposed to do any thing for the suppression of the
liquor traffic, it became the working classes, who suffered
most from it, to act for themselves, and to agitate for such
legislative measures as should put an end to the temptations
to which from this cause those classes were exposed.
The Rev, Mr MOSELY (of Rochdale) moved the first
resolution, declaring that the common sale of intoxicating
beverages was the occasion of innumerable social, moral,
and plitical evils, subversive of public order, and an-
tagonistic :n national progress; and that it was, there•
fore, the duty oi' the citizen, magistrate, and the legislator
to put forth every effort to abolish a system productive
of burdens and calamities so inevitable and intolerable.
He observed that publichouses would always be necessary,
and when property conducted supplied a want and tended
to the comfort and benefit of the public, and while the sanc-
tioning of them rested in the hands of a body of persons
who were for the most part ignorant of the wants of the
neighbourhood, or might be susceptible of a job, they were
public injuries. There was no security that they were con-
ducted in consonance with public morality, or with the pre-
sent state of civilisation. Public-houses, as at present con-
ducted, were directly opposed to the spirit of the age in
which we lived. The Permissive Bill would to a certain ex-
tent remedy this evil; though it was not all that was re-
quired. The working classes were, he believed, almost to a
man not only in favour of the bill but of a Maine liquor law.
This was proved by the resolutions passed at. and the peti-
tions emanating from, the various town meetings held all
over the country, and the total absence of petitions against it.
The resolution was seconded by Mr T. CLEGG, of Man-
chester.
Some remarks from Sir NV. d Beckett, who was not able
to attend, were read by the Rev. D. Burns, in advocacy oi
Mr Lawson's bill.
The resolution having passed, .

irrLAwsoN, M.P., addressed the meeting, observing
that the resolution just carried described the character and
principle of the bill, which simply placed it in the hands of
the citizen to put down that which was often an intolerable
nuisance and an offence against morality and order. (Hear,
hoar.) He regretted to say, however, that the House of
Commons looked coldly upon it; and the reason was that
the House of Commons, not being elected by the masses,
did not sympathise with the wishes and feelings of the
great body of tho people. (Hear, hear.) He admitted that
the House of Commons in the present day had
.exhibited
more practical regard for the wants of the poorer classes
than at any pi evious period, but the mischief was that the
members of that house not being elected by the working
classes, did not know their sentiments on questions which
so intimately affected their well-being as the one under dis-
cussion. The present meeting would to a considerable ex-
tent enlighten them on that point ; and if those classes per-
severed, he had no doubt that ere long they would succeed.
Mr Hope, secretary to the Alliance, the Itev. ft.
Maguire, and others, spoke to resolutions in favour of a per-
missive law, to enable the ratepayers of any parish or to ern-
ship to veto the common sale of intoxicating liquors within
their district by a vote of a two-third majority, which would
be perfectly compatible with all the claims of justice and
legitimate commerce, and promising on the part of the
meeting to use every constitutional method to procure the
adoption by the Legislature of the measure introduced by
Mr. Lawson and Mr. Bagley, and adopting a petition in
favour of the bill.

- - - - - - -
A. vote of thanks to Lord Calthorpe concluded the pro-
ceedings.

DEATH OF MR. NASSAU W. SENIOR.—We have
to record the death of Mr. Nassau William Senior,
late master in Chancery and Professor of Political Economy
at the University of Oxford. Mr. Senior having gone
through the usual curriculum at Eton, entered at Magdalen
College, where he graduated in 1811, taking a distinguished
first class in classics. Amongst his college contemporaries
were Sir John T. Coleridge, the Earl of Delawarr, the
Bishop of St. Asaph, the Provost of Oriel, the Dean of St.
Paul's, and other gentlemen who have aised themselves to
prominent positions in the learned professions and in litera-
ture. In 1818 he was called to the bar, and in 1836 was
appointed a Master in Chancery, during the Chaneellorahip
of Lord Cottenham. In 1825 he was elected Professor of
Political Economy at Oxford, being the first incumbent of
the professorship which was founded in that year by the
late Mr. Drummond, M.P. He resigned it in 1830, and
was succeeded by the late Dr. Whateley, Archbishop of
Dublin. In 1847 he was re-elected to the same office
succession to Dr. Travers Twiss. For some ,e in
years he held
the office of Examiner in Political Economy in the Uni-
versity of London. He has written many works on the
science to the pursuit of which he devoted his life, and has
contributed to the Quarterly, Edinburgh, and other reviews.
Mr. Senior was 73 years of age,,