The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 1, 1864.

petted this year. The largest portion of the crop
goes to Liverpool and Smyrna, and the rest to Mar-
seilles and Constantinople. Some little injury has
been caused by hail, but the crops look well. From
Janina the Consul reports that in 1863 cotton culti•
cation was for the first time tried at Epirus, and
although, on the whole, the experiment failed,
partly through ignorance, there was sufficient to
inspire confidence, and to induce greater exertions
this year. Considerable progress has consequently
been made, the services of experienced growers from
Salonica have been obtained, and it is confidently
expected that the results will be such as to consti-
tute cotton a staple product of the country. The
plains of Arta and Musakia offer the most favour-
able spots, and the small quantity grown last year,
about 18,0001 b., was sent to Corfu. The scarcity of
labour is represented to be a difficulty which may
be overcome by the introduction of Bulgarian
peasants.

Railway and Other Companies,

GREAT NORTHERN.

The proposed scheme of the Great Eastern Northern
Junction has given rise to a discussion on its merits, and
Mr Edmund Denison, the chairman of the Great Northern
Company, has issued an address to the shareholders of that
undertaking, in which he discusses the question of the Great
Eastern northern scheme, and denies that the advantages
announced would be obtained from it. The real points at
issue between that company and the one over which he pre-
sides do not, he observes, appear so surprising as has been
represented, and he remarks that, as the Great Eastern
threaten to renew the contest next year, the shareholders
of the Great Northern may venture to hope that, as the
new lines will be in a forward state, Parliament will refuse
to sanction a fourth north and south scheme through the
county of Lincoln, especially when the objects of legitimate
competition can be gained without it. The late contest was
expensive, the Great Eastern case having taken 18 days in
the House of Commons, and the Great Northern seven. But
this was the only heavy case in which they had been en-
gaged during a session in which there were so many bills
that the house had at last decided to relieve itself of part
of the labour of committees by appointing referees to do
their work for them. The success of that particular plan,
somewhat hastily devised and adopted in the last days of
the session, seemed extremely doubtful, but it might be the
first step towards the adoption of a plan he himself
proposed in 1853 to a committee on the subject while he
was a member of Parliament, viz., the establishment of a
regular court of well-qualified judges cf private bills, inde-
pendent of any Government board or control, from which
the only appeal could be to each house at large, not trying
the case over again, but acting, as now, on the report of
their own committees. An appeal from such judges as these
ought to be, or any judges, to a committee of four or five
gentlemen, whose only judicial qualification should consist
in their being members of Parl.ament, would be fatal to the
existence of a court beyond a year, and would probably
make it impossible to constitute it properly at first, Par-
liament would not exercise less but far more real control
over bills sent to them by a court outside than it does now
over the decisions of committees, with which, however un-
just, foolish, or inconsistent with each other, almost inva-
riably refuses to interfere ; and if the salary of the judges
were as high as any in Westminster Hall it would be saved
many times over by the greater simplicity and quickness of
the proceedings.