The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-19 00:00:00

CALEDONIAN.

An extraordinary meeting of this company was how on
Tuesday at Glasgow—Lieutenant•Colonel Salkcld in the
chair.

The CHAIRMAN stated that at the last half yearly meet-
ing the shareholders were informed that the Edinburgh and
Glasgow and Caledonian Railway Companies were competi-
tors for a branch line to the North Harbour of Glasgow.
He was glad to say that an arrangement had been come to
between the two companies, by which the line of the Edin-
burgh and Glasgow Company would be adopted, giving the
Caledonian Company all the facilities they could desire. The
line would now be made at less cost, so far as the Caledonian
Company were concerned. They had also taken care
that proper station accommodation should be provided
for the Caledonian Company,
and h© believed that under
the arrangement they would enjoy the same Odic advan-
tages as if they had made the line themselves. He
concluded by moving a formal resolution approving a Bill
for sanctioning an agreement between the Caledonian and
Edinburgh and Glasgow Companies, with resFect to the
construction of branch railways to connect their under-
takings with Glasgow Harbour, and for authorising the for-
mation of a joint station there.
Mr. T. HILL seconded the motion, and it was carried
unanimously.
An adjourned Wharncliffe meeting was then held, and
after some discussion resolutions approving the following
andlso bill to
bills were carried I—A bill to enable the Glasgow and South-
`Western and the Caledonian Railway Companies to make
coeirntatinlinbreanbcehtweseeanndGolathsgerowworks in connection
a with their
j
enable the Portpatrick Railway Company to alter certain of
their works, to increase their caanpd Paisley;ital
and to make working,
arrangements with certain companies.

--
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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—In presiding yesterday over the dinner
of the Royal Literary Fund, the Prince of Wales
introduced himself to the discharge of one of his
moat appropriate and becoming functions. The
large number of distinguished men who mot him,
from various ranks and from every walk of litera •
ture and art, represented the universal 'welcome
with which he will be received in these compara-
tively new duties. Every one will rejoice at what
is almost his first appearance in the exercise of those
public acts which become him. The country cannot
afford to dispense with the presenee and influence
of one who stands next to the Sovereign in the
Royal Family, yet the sphere within which he can
gratify this loyal and natural expectation is of ne-
cessity limited. The field in which Englishmen of
name and rank moat instinctively display their in-
fluence or merits is one which he does prudently and
rightly to avoid. To the subjects of the Crown he
cannot act but as a Prince, while to the Sovereign
he is in the position of a subject, and to combine
these opposed characters in the exercise of political
influence without damage to one or the other is a
matter which at least it is wise to consider as almost
impossible. The exercise, again, of what may be con-
sidered the representative duties of Royalty cannot
appropriately be committed to any one tut the So-
vereign ; and however excellently the Prince and
Princess of Wales may perform the part tempora-
rily assigned to them, every one laments the
necessity which has at present withdrawn the
Queen from her most familiar duties. There
remains, however; one large field in which the
influence, the abilities, and the sympathy of one
person in the position of the Prince of Wales may
be most usefully and happily employed. We have
spoken of examples to ba avoided, but there is one
conspicuous instance of the perfect discharge of
every duty and every grace which can be attached
to the difficult position we are considering. His
Royal Highness referred last night with the truth
of affection to the complete example which he has
inherited from his father. The occasion, if nothing
else, could not fail to suggest these recollections, re-
calling, as it does, the very spirit and principle of the
work to the discharge of which the Prince Consort
set himself with so muoh patience and genius. There
are large and every day increasing interests, happily
now disengaged from all tinge and taint of political
passion, which yet concern the life and welfare of
the whole nation not less extensively and pro.
foundly than politics themselves. The happy cir-
cumstances of our country have brought us sooner
than other people beyond that stormy part of a
nation's history in which the struggle for liberty
and security absorbs all the energies and the pas-
sions of life. Political action and the laborious and
difficult duties of Government have ceased to be the
end, and have become the means of our progress.
In spite of the pernicious and retrograde incite-
ment applied to some classes by rhetorical politi-
cians, the great mass of Englishmen contentedly
enjoy the complete freedom, security, and justice
assured to them. They leave without anxiety the
guardianship and amendment of our Constitution
and laws to the authority which has so long mains
tained and exercised them, and devote all their
energies to the richer and more grateful fields of
commerce, science, literature, art, and religion.
These are the true interests of a nation. To these
politics, and government, and war, and diplomacy
are but the scaffolding and defences. Upon the
advance of these really depend the progress and hap-
piness of a people, and to further these by encourage-
ment end sympathy is a work far more truly Royal
than the most brilliant successes in statecraft or in
arms, To encourage these noble interests in all their
branches by his sympathy, while he helped them
by his advice, was the province which the Prince
Consort made his own ; and the Prince of Wales,
therefore, could not appear as the chairman of a
public assembly on a more appropriate occasion than
on the anniversary of a Society the scope of which
concerns almost the whole range of the peaceful and
beneficent energies we have described. The name it
bears of the Royal Literary Fund conveys somewhat
too narrow an idea of its scope, and is to be inter-
preted by the language of a time when the various
branches of literary labour had not reached their
present vast development, and when they occupied,
therefore, less apparently exclusive fields. 'What-
ever labour can be considered as spent iu the
increase of human knowledge, in any branch of
ramification may have a claim on the assistance cf
this Fund. And as human knowledge is coincident
with human power over that vast field of nature,
which the father of modern philosophy and litera-
ture opened up, the design of the Fund seems to
embrace the encouragement and assistance of genius
in every department of human energy. Its view
extends even further, for, as the Prince urged last
night, its help is not limited to Englishmen, but is
often extended to literary men of all nations. Such
a combination of all the " ministers and interpre-
ters of nature" for the assistance of the struggling
members of their brotherhood is a noble conception,
and the anniversary of its embodiment in this
society is a fit occasion for the gathering of all ranks
and interests. Ev-n the army finds its place, and
the Bake of Cambridge claims for it the use and
honour of being the guardian of the arts of peace.
It is a happy opportunity, therefore, which makes
such an occasion the first ou which the Prince of
Wales performs the duties which he seems able to
discharge so well. It is a happy augury that be
follows his father's example not only in the general
conduct we have described, but in this particular
instance. The Prince Consort presided at the
annual dinner of this very Fund the second time he
spoke in public in this country. Careers begun so
similarly will, we trust, coincide in all but their
end. There is ample work to be done in iostering
the innumerable branches into which the com-
prehensive unity of this Literary Fund divides,
add if the Prince will pursue the course he has
just begun he will earn the gratitude of the country.
Oae of the speakers last night contrasted the bene-
volent sympathy for each other which is contem-
plated by this Fund with the unfriendly feelings
which once prevailed
between literary men. The
present position of literature in all its branches
offers many contrasts to its position a celitury and
a half ago, but in no particular is the difference
more apparent than in the esteem which is now
shown for every branch of the literary profession,
The conventional prejudices which grudged praise
and recognition to all but two or three liberal
professions have yielded to the truly liberal
spirit of the age, and wen are gradually coming to
recognise all professions cr work to be alike honour-
able which fall within the scope of human intelli-
gence. The patronage of the Prince of Wales, after
the example of the Prince Consort, is but the
symbol and the expression of this larger and more
generous feeling, and its importance and value lie
in the sort of authenticity which it gives to this
growing impulse. Nothing can be of more im-
portance to the welfare of any branch of human
industry than that it should be assured of possessing
its natural dignity. The Prince paid an honourable
tribute to the memory of Mr. Thaekeray, who was
one of the committee of the Literary Fund. There
was nothing more characteristic of that writer than
the firm determination with which he always
asserted the same rights and the same duties for
the literary profession as for every other, and the
almost sternness with which he treated the tradi-
tional looseness with which the character of a
literary
man was for some time invested. The same
dignity is due to every branch, however humble and
obscure, of human intelligence and labour. But it
is part of the ingrained custom of English life to
associate this dignity with its public recognition
by the representative of all English honour; and
the Prince of Wales has the opportunity for the
preeett4and, we trust, for many years to come, of
illustrating the nobleness of those arts and energies
on which depend his own,. because his country's,
greatness.

DAILt NEVEt.—The Hospodar of MoMa-Walla-
chia and his Minister, M. Cogilniciano, have taken
a bold step--one likely to be attended with import-
ant consequences. It is well known that some time
since the Prince's Uovernment had prepared a new
electoral law, extending the franchise, and render-
ing it almost universal, but establishing the insti-
tution of election by two degrees. The bill was
laid before the Assembly, which, elected after the
manner laid down by the European Commissioners,
is a body composed of three-fourths Boyards, or
great landed proprietors. We have often depicted
the injustice of this electoral law, and the impossi-
bility ill which the Prince found himself of govern-
ing either with or without the Assembly. Full of
adherents of former princes, it systematically
rejewed every motion and every budget, and
brought representative government to a clod-lock.
()nee only was this state of things interrupted—
when the present minister, soon after taking office,
proposed a law for seizing the property of the
Greek oonvente, assigning the monks an indemnity.
.n.
This was' voted by acclamation, the liberalsiol
alras
in the cry from sincere approbation,
delighted at the prospect of putti
Russia.
at loggerhetifis with the Porte and
n g t hwnetihdirtehAssembly
r
The happy accord between P
was, however,
Irin.atio remonstrance
of abort dura9orince
conventual property lea
...o dip 0 The seizure of
scion or open quer-
indeed, but not to military oe:ul3dv war, and to a
rel. It gave rise to much WO) .'' which
frontier of
concentration of troops the latter
the Principalities; a mea:glre end arming them,
almost o
replied by mustering troops ~ers appeared on
while Hungarian and Polish oin, of the Powers
the secne, greatly to the onnoyance 4ignalitics.
interested in the suppression of those tut, "4 of
The enmity of Constantinople, of Vienna, a.
St. Petersburg to the Moldo-Wallichian Mini
ter did not induce the Assembly to rally to the i jss i

Prince. The Boyard party became again recalci-
trant, and resumedits old policy of throwing
every obstacle in the way of the Prince
and his Administration, The Hospodar had often
represented the disorganized state of the constitue
tion, and its bad working, to the several members
of the old Conference. He had often entreated them
to take the matter into consideration, and enable
him to promulgate a rational electoral law. The
request, of course, was made in vain. Despairing,
therefore, of help from the European Powers, Prince
Couza and his bold Minister have resolved to effect
the change themselves. The Reform Bill proposed
to the Assembly was related, and thereupon the
Assembly itself has been dissolved. The Prince has
appealed to the general vote of the people,abrogat-
ing the conatitntion, and setting aside the present
Assembly altogether. Now, strong as may have
been the provocation which Prince Couza and his
Government had received—however absurd and perr',
nicious the old system, and however fair and liberal
the new—this coup fl'Atat is of French origin, and
certainly not of French liberal opinion. It savours
of Napoleon, and is no doubt a Napoleonic idea. It
is the great political panacea of the Tuileries, to be
applied one day at Bucharest, and the next at,Kiel.
And its success in these places may at a future time
warrant similar experiments at Cologne or Liege.
We cannot but regard England as to blame for
allowing matters to come to such a pass. Had our
Government been more generous to the Principali-
ties, and more just to Prince Couza, he would in re-
turn have felt confidence in our counsels, and not
precipitated himself into rash and extreme projects
at the sole suggestion of France. But when he saw
England making common cause with Russia and
with Turkey against the fair requirements of the
Principalities, he turned exclusively to Paris for
political advice. And the result we find to be a
plebiscite. We cannot but think that the assembly
of diplomatists, which regulated the affairs of the
Principalities, did wrong in the first instance in
not acceding to the two chief demands of its in-
habitants. These were the union of the Provinces,
and the election or nomination of an hereditary So-
vereign. Had the latter request been granted and
the Prince been selected from one of the reigning
families of Europe, the intrigues against the Hosp.,-
dar would have fallen to the ground. The Boyards
would have rallied to a new dynasty. The Prince,
feeling that the fortunes of his family were con-
cerned in the stability of his new throne, would not
have needed to recur to such schemes as Prince
Couza has found it necessary to adopt, and in at-
tempting which he has had only a life interest to
risk. The Porte, too, accepting an hereditary
Prince, subject to its suzerainty, and not jealous of
him because in possession of its full rights, would
not have engaged in that idle antagonism which has
rekindled the old enmity between Christain and
Mohammedan, but would quietly and wisely have
allowed things to take their course in the Christian
Principalities. And the settlement would have been
permanent. But instead of this, to soothe the fears
and jealousies of the neighbouring Powers, the
Commissioners built up a merely temporary politi-
cal fabric north of the Danube, which it has so soon
been necessary to take down and rebuild, in order
to prevent its falling. A plebiscite is not a right
which in such hands is likely to lie dormant. If it
resorted to one day in order to sanction a constitu-
tion, it will be employed to eject one sovereign and
set up another the next. The election of a Prince
even by a Senate is bad enough, but periodical elec-
tions taking place amongst a rude people, surrounded
by unscrupulous despotic and military Powers,
would have results easy to anticipate, They would
prove permanent pretexts for interference, for in-
trigue, and for civil war. Even supposing the
most happy issue !_of the plebiscite now proposed,
we greatly fear that the introduction of such a
law and such a habit, instead of consolidating re-
presentative government, will shatter it. There is
far more to be feared than hoped from
so premature a development of popular freedom in
a country so little used to or prepared for it. We
fear it may foster a troublous spirit, and leave a
large opening for the treacherous agents of despotic
Powers to create disturbance. Should trouble occur
—and the Boyards will as readily lend their hands
to support it as Russia and Austria to excite it—
then these military Powers will have acquired a
pretext for armed interference, and for playing upon
the Danube the game which they played in the last
century upon the Vistula. 'We may deplore events
of this kind, which we cannot every day go to war
to prevent. We took up arms on one such occasion,
But that will prove a very strong argument against
our doing so again, when the countries that were
liberated by the valour and the blood of our sol-
diers shall appear to have been so neglected and
mismanaged by our statesmen and diplomatists that
precisely the old dangers and the old grievances
crop up again ; and when we find that this south-
eastern corner of Europo has profited so little in
respect of peace or independence by our counsels
and our arms.