The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-25 00:00:00

SCINDE RAILWAY COMPANY.

HALF-YE ARLY MEETING-THIS DAY.

The 15th half-yearly meeting of this company was
held to-day at the London Tavern; W. P. Andrew, Esq.,
chairman of the board of directors, presided.
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The report stated that there had been a gradual increase
and development of the traffic in every description of goods
for the past half-year, fully bearing out former anticipa-
tions. The average gross receipts of the half-year ending
June 30 last amounted to £2,016 per week, being an average
weekly increase 0f£640, 0r£16,683 for the half-year preceding.
The revenue account for the half year ending Dec. 31,
1862, has been submitted to Government, from which it
will appear that, alter deducting working expenses and
maintenance, the receipts yielded a net return of £7,141
ss. 10d. The receipts per mile were about £360 Os. 3d.,
and the expenditure £292, leaving a sum of £6B Os. 3d. per
mile to be carried to the credit of the net revenue account,
in part liquidation of the interest advanced by Government.
Major Malcolm, in his report to Government in March
last, stated that "making allowance for the steady increase
of traffic which may be reasonably expected to continue,
there are fair grounds for hoping that within two years of
the present time the Scinde Railway may return 5
per cent. plus an annually increasing contribution
towards the re payment of the guaranteed interest
allowed up to that date by the State to the shareholders."
Prior to 1862, a bale of cotton in transit was rarely seen
upon the Indus. But a considerable supply of this article
is being received from the Punjaub. The value of the
cotton exported for the past year was Rs. 1,43,93,483. or
about £1,319,402 12s. 2d.

Indian Branch Railway Company.

HALF-YEARLY MEETING-THIS DAY.

The second ordinary meeting of the directors and share-
holders in this undertaking was held to-day at the London

Tavern.

The report, which was adopted, stated that the opening
of the Nulhatde line had been delayed, from the roadway
which the Government undertook to deliver to the
company not having been originally provided with guff
cient openings tocarry off the flood waters of the district; the
Government undertook to supply the additional waterway
required, but the non-completion of one of the principal
bridges had up to Aug. 1 prevented the closing in of the
line, The chief engineer, however, expected to get a train
through at a very early day, and then a telegram would
be sent to the board. This announcement is daily expected.
Arrangements had been made with the Government for
extending the Nulhatee line 81 miles to Bogwan-
gola, a port on the Ganges, and the road which
the Government had to make and deliver to the
company was reported in May last as in a forward state.
All (or nearly all) the materials of the permanent way,
locomotives, &c., for the extension had been shipped for
Calcutta : there was, therefore, every prospect that the
whole of this branch line might be opened for permanent
traffic by the middle of next year. The negotiations with
the Government of India for the concession of the whole
system of railway lines in Oudh and Rohilkund were pro-
gressing satisfactorily.

The Withdrawal of the Confederate

Commissioner.

The Index, the London organ of the Confederates,
publishes the following as the text of the letter in
which Mr. Mason announces the termination of the
Confederate mission to England :
" 24, Upper Seymour-street, Portman-square,
Sept. 21.
" The Right Hon. Earl Russell, her Majesty's
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

g. My Lord—ln a despatch from the Secretary of
State of the Confederate States of America, dated
4th day of August last, and now just received, I am
instructed to consider the commission which brought
me to England as at end, and I am directed to
withdraw at once from this country.
" The reasons for terminating this mission are set
forth in an extract from the despatch, which I have
the honour to communicate herewith.
" The President believes that ' the Government
of her Majesty has determined to decline the over-
tures made through you for establishing, by treaty,
friendly relations between the two Governments,
and entertains no intention of receiving you as the
accredited Minister of this Government near the
British Court. Under these circumstances, your con-
tinued residence in London is neither conducive to
the interests nor consistent with the dignity of this
Government; and the President therefore requests
that you consider your mission at an end, and that
you withdraw with your secretary from London.'

" Having made known to your lordship on my
arrival hero the character and purposes of the mis-
sion entrusted to me by my Government, I have
deemed it due to courtesy thus to make known to
the Government of her Majesty ite termination, and
that I shall, as directed, at once withdraw from
England.--I have the honour to be yours, &c.,
(Signed) «J. M. MASON."

The same journal makes the following comments
on the foregoing document :
" We are permitted by Mr. Mason to publish his letter
to Earl Russell, announcing his recall as special commis-
sioner from the Confederate States of America to England,
and the termination of his mission. It will be seen by the
extract given in the letter of recall that it is placed by the
Confederate President on the ground of the persistent re-
fusal of England to enter into the relations of amity usual
between foreign Powers—a condition of things which, in
the opinion of the President, would make the continuance
of the mission neither conducive to the interests nor con-
sistent with the dignity of the Government of which he is
at the head.' Mr. Slidell, we understand, will remain in
France as special commissioner to that Government, nor
is it at all contemplated to terminate that mission; and
yet France, equally with England, has so far refrained
from entering into international relations with the Con-
federate States. All England will admit that the Govern-
' went of those Stales is in the hands of able, experienced.
and judicious statesmen; and we are sufficiently conversant
with Southern circles and Southern men to know that, with
other marked differences between the sections North and
South in America, there exists this—that in the South the
general feeling to England has been one of good-will and
respect. There must be, then, some over-ruling cause for
the difference thus made between France and England in
the termination of the mission to the one, and not to the
other. To those at all conversant with what is passing
in the Southern States this is no mystery. Mr. Slidell
has been received, and has been uniformly treated by
the Government of France, with every mark of con-
sideration and respect for the Government he repre-
sents. There may be grave reasons regarding policy or
public law why France, like England, may not deem it in-
cumbent as yet to recognise those States as an independent
political power ; but their representative has been freely
admitted to every form of intercourse with the Government
of France, to personal interviews with the Emperor when-
ever he asked for them, with immediate access to all or any
of the Ministry at first request. This would seem, indeed,
but an ordinary courtesy to a gentleman in his position—the
refusal of it would be more than a discourtesy, it would be
an actual indignity to those whose representative ho is. Ist
England Mr. Mason has been held by the Government in
the very opposite positron. His correspondence with the
Foreign office, laid before Congress at Richmond, we
know from the Southern press, produced a feeling of
deep and universal indignation. It showed that, with
the exception of a single and formal interview with Earl
Russell oR his first arrival, appointed at his residence, and
not at the Foreign Office, he had been admitted to no inter-
course whatever with any member of the Government;
whilst a second interview with Earl Russell, asked for some
months after the first, was by that Minister curtly refused.
It showed further that, to all outward or other manifestation,
the presence of a Confederate commissioner in London was
no further recognised than by brief replies to such commu-
nications as he was from time to time instructed to make
to the Minister of this Government. Whilst we sincerely
regret, therefore, the necessity which has imposed on
President Davis the duty of terminating the Confederate
commission to England, we are bound to admit that
his forbearance has been tested to the utmost.
Earl Russell has now succeeded in establishing absolute
non-intercourse with the Confederate States--those States
whore our commerce has found sources of incalculable
wealth and profitable employment for countless millions of
our capital, with like profitable employment for hundreds of
thousands of the people of England. We say absolute non-
intercourse, because we kno ,v through the press that of the
three British consuls who remained in the Southern States
exercising their functions by permission of the Government
there, Mr. Bunch at Charleston, and Mr. M'Gee at Mobile,
were recalled by this Government ; and Mr. Moore at
Richmond was dismissed by the Confederate Government
for contumacy. It remains to be seen hereafter what ad-
vantages France may derive from a course of policy more
consistent with her own self-respect and with national de-