The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-08 00:00:00

THE SUN,

biessed judgment that we resolved to direct the at-
tuition of the British public to the preposal,
after remaining for some time altogether alone in the
advocacy of the undertaking, we were gratified at
let to observe rile spread of similar opinions among
some of our more observant contemporaries, and ulti-
mately even into the highest council- of the Ad-
ministration. The projector of the United States
line of railway between the two oceans—rendering
the central portion of North America the
channel of intercommunication between the Euro-
pean and Asiatic continents—arrived in this
country somewhere about the period of the Great In-
dteitrial Exhibition. Proposals for carrying forward
the rival scheme were addressed to her MAJESTY'S
Government meanwhile by the local administrators
in our North American possessions. Earl GREY
even had the good sense to accord to these proposals a
favourable hearing—insomuch that everything looked
propitious upon the advocates of the intended enter-
prise—whets, as ill luck would have it, precisely at
the juncture when the delegates sent to the mother
country upon the subject of Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick arrived in London—the RUSSELL Cabinet
had been abruptly induced to resign, and Sir Jour(
PAKINGTON bad been formally installed in power in
the position of Colonial Secretary. Between the
cup and the lip the old slip came, as
usual. Mr. CHANDLER and his companion were
compelled by untoward circumstances to return
homewards with the chagrin of having encountered a
very annoying, and doubly so because wholly unex-
pected, disappointment. So ended the negotiations
between Great Britain and her North American Co-
lonies, upon the subject of the great trunk railway
proposed to be constructed across those invaluable,
but hitherto almost entirely neglected possessions.
Untoward as these events have proved—we cannot
induce ourselves to believe, even now, that the mis-
take that has been undoubtedly committed in the
matter by the existing Cabinet is altogether irrepar-
able. The DERBY Ministry have resolved to open up to
British enterprise the abundant produce of the South
American Continent. We must still hope, therefore, that
upon more deliberate reflection they will resolve to
accord similar advantages to the commerce of the
United Kingdom by unlocking the equally abundant
stores of the North American Continent—stores
doubly valuable because our own, and because by
thus going in quest of them we should become in the
end carriers of the merchandize flowing to and fro
between Asia and Europe, between Canton and Lon-
don, between England and Hindostan.
Allusion has here been made to the apparently
abandoned project of the British North-American
Railway, because we regard that project as again
forcibly thrust upon the national attention by the
exigency, already referred to, as more than
ever visible in the increased emigration to
the gold districts of Australia. Abundant
convict labour might at once be found in
the carrying out of the before-mentioned enterprise
—and one of our most interesting and valuable colo-
nial possessions would be at once relieved from the
curse of remaining a penal settlement, while in the
very act of removing that curse another of our colo-
nial possessions, scarcely less interesting and scarcely
less valuable, would be afforded the blessing of a
grand and systematic development. In the course of
an ingenious work showing the analogies subsisting
between Art and Faith, and the Harmony connecting
Science with Scripture,* Mr. GEORGE TROUP, the
author, refers to the very scheme here particularized
as one calculated in an eminent degree to prove
fraught with a very peculiar beneficence. " This
proposal," he avers almost with the solemnity
of prophecy, "will be accomplished," (ch. iv.,
p. 76). He proceeds—" The Halifax and Quebec line,
6'oo miles long, will be its first great stage ; the se-
cond will extend to Montreal; the third will reach to
Kingston ; the fourth will bring the traveller near
the copper regions of Lake Superior ; and then through
a country, reputed to be of easy access, although now
almost nameless, the course ot the line will be directed
towards the Pacific coast, at a point opposite to Van-
couver's Island, the great coal depilt of the west."
Further on he remarks—" This railway will form the
north-western passage, which we have paid dearly in
men and money to seek in a quarter where, if found,
it would be useless. Objections are taken to the out-
lay of money requisite for its completion. It would
not be more than the past expenditure on the efforts
to crush ships through ice by a route whici, no mer-
chant could ever use for transmitting goods."
Mr. TROUP considers the enterprise as certain
to prove in the end profitable in a twofold
capacity—extending the knowledge of Christianity
while diffusing the products of Civilization. For a
multiplicity of reasons, therefore, we are still san-
guine that the British North American Railway may
be ultimately sanctioned and fostered by the DERBY
Government. It should be remembered by that Go-
vernment that aided by this enterprise we might se-
cure an adequate field for convict labour, we night
relieve Australia from remaining a penal settlement,
we might connect together by indissoluble bonds of
union the at present scattered fabric of the British
empire, we might develope the uncultured fruitful-
ness of vast tracks of country like the Hudson's Bay
territories, we might render those territories the scene
of the perpetual interchange of the commodities of
Europe and Asia, blending together the now separate
commerce of the Pacific and Atlantic—and while se-
curing these and a multiplicity of other and scarcely
less important advantages, we might in the most effec-
tual manner be aiding the development of civilization
and the propagation of the divine truths of Chris-
tianity.

A volume, almost in those very words, so entitled
and recently published by James Blackwood, of Pam.
nosier-row, pp. 408. London, 1852.

"It is important for the cause of good govern-
ment, and for the future welfare of England,
that there should be a People's party in Eng-

land."—So writes JOSEPH HUME, the veteran
Reformer and economist, in a letter to Mr. COL-
LINS, editor of the Bull Advertiser, which has just
been published. He adds, what we believe, " I have
been long anxious to see that party formed, and I
have, at the commencement of two new Parliaments,
attempted to form one; but you may as soon make a
rope out of the sand of the sea shore. There is no
common principle of adhesion among those who have
hitherto been denominated Liberals to join in the
efforts which I hive made to form a phalanx that
would, early and late, and on all fit occasions, take
the popular course, and support measures having the
public welfare in view, and tending to increase the
power of the people in the House of Commons."
This, we fear, is only too true. There is a want of
union among the Liberals. There are material, for a
strong Liberal party, but there are no means of bind-
ing them together in anything like unity of action.
The Liberals, like the bundle of sticks in the old fable,
would be enormously strong, if they had this union•
Without it they are reeds. There are divisions and
subdivisions, jealousies, and ambitions, and so
their strength is gone, because their force
is scattered. There are the true, honest
Liberals, headed by Mr. Hums. There are the
" Manchester men," led by ConnEsf and BRIGHT.
There are the Metropolitan Economists, beaded
by DuNcomßa and WILLIAMS. There are the
Church Reformers, with Sir BENJLMIN Hs.i.r, at
their head. There are the Law Reformers without
any particular leader. There !Ire the office-hunting
Liberals, of whom Lord JeaN is the commander.
There are the Irish ultra-Liberals against, all things
in general, and the Church and the landlords in pal- F.
titular. United, all these would make a strong party

—broken up into sections, they can do next to nothing.
No Wonder, then, that a veteran Reformer, such as
"sErn Rums, should bitterly complain, after his
forty years' trial, " You may as soon make a rope
out of the sand of the sea shore as bind all these par-
ties into one," No common principle of union can
connect them—no one leader can command them.
They profess to have a common purpose, but
they certainly do not combine to obtain it. Not
yet, even if they did unite, could they gain a ma-
jority in the House of Commons; but, such a party,
if compact, could control any Government, and pre-
vent bad, if unable to carry good, measures- Why,
then, do they not unite ?

Mr. Hums, who certainly ought to be authority
upon every topic connected with the Liberal cause,
with which his whole Parliamentary life is identified,
does not hesitate to give his opinion very boldly and
openly, lie says, " After 'repeated trials :and after