The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-08 00:00:00

sively proved. What was the market which, as it
was then said, had been the most glutted with cotton
goods ? The Indian market. Now, it is remarkable
enough that even at the present very high prices it
is India which is increasing her consumption most
rapidly. The Board of Trade tables for April show
the following remarkable return of export cf cotton
goods to India :

DECLARED VALUE OF COTTON EXPORTS TO BRITISH

INDIA.

April.
1862. 1863.
Cotton yarns .
„ Manufactures

£606,226 £1,242,652
showing (in value) a double demand as compared
with the demand for the same month in last year.
Indeed, while the total increase of the exports
for April 1863 over April 1862, is in value
L711,782-1;636,426 out of this belongs to our
Indian trade alone. There could not be a more re-
markable disproof of the enormous glut of cotton
goods which some had assumed in the Indian market,
nor a more convincing test of the conviction of our
merchants that the present high prices are likely to
be maintained for some time, since they would
otherwise certainly hold back their purchases for
India at the present prices. We conclude, then, on
the whole, and while there are ample reasons for
expecting almost an unexampled stimulus to the
cotton manufacture whenever the American supply
may happen to be thrown on the market, and good
reasons for expecting a return to a very fair trade
within another two or three years in any case, the
prospect for next winter wlll, unless the war comes
to a premature termination, be still very gloomy ;
that next winter will be a time of trial, even physic-
ally not much less severe than last ; morally, in con-
sequence of the great demoralisation of tie la-
bourers, probably much more severe. Mr. Villiers's
bill for promoting such works under the Board of
Health Act, may, indeed, considerably alleviate the
misery to be expected, but the outdoor employment
thus found for the operatives will necessarily be
very limited during the winter months, more espe-
cially if the winter should happen to be severe.
LONDON REVIEW.--The French Government
have talked so much about the affection of France
for the Emperor, and drawn so largely on it, that
they have killed their golden goose. M. Persigny
has exhausted the supply of Parisian loyalty for
the present, and must be content to subside into
the ludicrous position of a Minister who has exposed
himself and his Sovereign to a civic snubbing.
The success of the Opposition candidates throughout
the length and breadth of the capital will be a most
useful lesson to him and his successors in office not
to bore their countrymen. M. Theirs would pro-
bably never have been returned were it not for
official efforts to exclude him; for M. Thiers is

neither politically nor personally popular. But when
it came to being egged on, and pushed, and nudged,
and kept up at heel by M. Persigny, Paris could not
stand it any longer. It was quite insupportable to
the electors to have the Minister of the Interior, and
all the Prefects, and all the Mayors, and all the
Police setting up a chorus of loyal directions about
the way in which every Frenchman who loved his
country was to vote. To have the Constitutionnel
actually thrust for nothing under their doorsteps,
crammed surreptitiously into their pockets, and
flung into their fiacres in the Bois de Boulogne, was
nauseous and insulting. Se perpetual a fuss about
the Emperor's virtues excited the most sacred in-
stincts of the French nature. They resolved to show
that Paris was not the Provinces, and that they
were not going to be driven up to the poll like pea-
sants by M. Persigny and the Prefect of the Seine.
M. Thiers has accordingly been returned by a re-
spectable, and the other Opposition candidates of
the capital, by an overwhelming majority. In Japan,
the moment would now have arrived for M. Per-
signy to put in practice the august institution of
the Happy Despatch. Even in France it is felt that
his retirement is to be expected. The Paris world
are preparing to bid him God speed on his way to
St. Petersburg. It is quite clear that he has made
himself ridiculous, and the Minister who makes
himself ridiculous in the eyes of Paris, makes his
position there untenable. This serious and severe
lesson will not be thrown away upon so wise a man
as the French Emperor. It is not now a question
of a revolution or of a return to the barricades ;
and the soberer of the French know very well
that any attempt to cabal against the reign-
ing dynasty at present would be a failure
and a mistake. But the Emperor will see now
that a high-spirited city like Paris is not to be
overriden by a rather domineering and anxious Im-
perialist such as M. Persigny has shown himself.
The Parisians do not desire, by any means, to return
to the days of Orleanism, far less to the days of the
last Republic. But they have no fancy for being
continually lectured and tutored about how they are
to feel towards the Napoleons ; and how they are
bound to show their gratitude to the Emperor for
deigning to reign over them. They want to be left
alone and not to be worried by every excitable offi-
cial who chooses to inflict his pompous views about
Imperialism on them. The bow too long bent will
break, and by a long course of aggravation M. Per-
signy has succeeded at last in getting the French
eagle—which for some years has been the most
quiet and domestic of birds—to peck at his finger.
He has only to thank himself. If he had left well
alone, very possibly fewer of the Opposition would
have been elected. At all events, they would not
have been elected with startling eclat in the teeth:
of a persistent, notorious, and unscrupulous an-
tagonism on the part of every Government officer.
His imprudence has converted into a political disas-
ter what otherwise might have been passed off as an
electioneering mishap.
EXAMINER.—It is not unworthy of note that the
self-same day which in Berlin saw the publication
of the royal interdict against the press, witnessed
in Paris the rejection by universal suffrage of every
supporter of the system of rule founded on the sup-
pression of free discussion and maintained thereby.
No doubt Count Bismark and his accomplices nitta,
recklessly bid their master accept the omen, and tell
him, that as it has taken fifteen Seats for France to
recover from the stunning blow of the 2d December,
they fear no immediate consequences from a like act
of political garotting in Prussia. Reactionary
Prime Ministers are very apt to take little thought
far the morrow; and when admonished to consider
the inevitable effects which sooner or later must
attend their evil counsels. It is their wont to shrug
their shoulders and to say that things will last their
time. But others naturally take a different view.
The King of Prussia is long past the meridian of
life, and at the very moment when the camarilla
that surround him are prophesying peace and speak-
ing smooth things to him, symptoms of declining
health render it expedient in the judgment of his
physicians that he should seek an exemption from
the anxieties and cares of state, and betake himself
for some time to the waters of Carlsbad. And thus
at the very juncture, when the executive needs to
have all its energies braced to the highest point of
vigour, and all the weight of its damaged authority
concentrated in the utmost degree, the unhappy
king is declared to be physically incompetent to
perform the duties of administration, and advised
for a time to delegate his functions to some other
member of his family. Which shall it be ? The
Crown Prince cannot with any show of decency be
passed over; but as his tendencies and leanings are
not supposed to be in accordance with those of his
father, he will, it is said, be persuaded to decline
the odious and perilous responsibility of Regent.
His uncle, Prince Charles, is therefore looked upon
as the person most likely to be made use of by the
Ministerial conspirators on the occasion. Little is
known of his personal character in this country ;
but it is obvious that political experience he has had
none; and of his intellectual capacity nothing is
said. If he should prove to be possessed of that
rarest of rare qualities ironically termed common
sense, he may negatively exercise perhaps a salu-
tary influence over the mad and wicked course of
the Government ; for inasmuch as his authority will
necessarily be temporary and limited, he may fitly
refuse to sanction further measures of violence which
the anointed head of his house would have no
scruple in adopting. In so far he may thus prove
somewhat of a drag upon the wheels of misrule as
they speed downwards to the brink of ruin.
THE QUEEN.—To-day, let us hope that the
House of Commons will oblige us with another ex-
hibition of good sense, by refusing to pass the mon-
strous proposition to pay £484,000 for Captain
Fowke's hideous sheds and their site, which is to be
made them with all due gravity on this evening.
It is true that the sum to be asked for this year is
only .£172,000 ; but then there is to be a rice little
addendum of £312,000 to follow, for the completion
of the purchase-money, and "for repairing, alter-
ing, and eventually completing the building," and
even this does not include the annual hundred
thousand or so with which the country will have to
be saddled for paying all the officers and hangers-
on and other expectant participators in this awful
job. The whole proposal is, indeed, so impudently
shameless that it fairly takes away one's breath.
We will not echo any of the commonplace senti-
ment which is afloat about the wickedness of spend-
ing so much money at the time of the Lancashire
distress. Our views about that calamity, in con-
nection with our finances, teach us to believe that
if some of the millions which we are annually
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perpetuating that abominable sin against
taste, which we had to endure all last year with
averted eyes, in the face of the whole world, is
nothing short of a national disgrace. All
Europe raised a shout of derision at the fearful
structure when they beheld it, and now it is y
proposed to purchase and perpetuate it—and for