The Sun.
London, England, 1839-09-26 00:00:00

error, and entail hunger and slavery on themselves
if they do not second the middle classes heart and
hand in their project of procuring the immediate
and total abolition of all the taxes and prohibitions
on the production of food.

The few statistical notices of the United States
which appeared in our Journal of yesterday are
enough to convince our readers that the system of
banking there, which has been attended by frequent
failures, and is continually held up to us as a warn-
ing, has not been very injurious to the national
prosperity. It may have injured individuals, it may
have enriched some at the expense of others, but
the nation has not been ruined in its foreign
credit or in its internal prosperity. The United
States are now the great borrowers in all the money
markets of Europe, and notwithstanding sinister
rumours, no inconsiderable mismanagement, and
a greedy desire in its greatest banking establish-
ment to rival the Bank of England in wealth and
power, there is no country of which the general
credit stands higher. Without asserting that the
system of banking in America is what it ought to
be, we conclude from these facts that the partial
freedom it enjoys has been advantageous to that
country.

In England generally a very different view is
taken, and all sorts of evils are predicted of allowing
banking to be free. All sorts of pretexts are con-
jured up to keep us enslaved to the great monied
Corporation of the Metropolis. Some of these we
may occasionally examine, and shall now say a few
words on one.

Would you, exclaimed Lord MONTEAGLE
11; one of the last days of the late Session, allow
any person to coin money ? Lord MONTEAGLE,
a bank-note is not money. It has no resemblance
to money. It is a promise to pay money. If I
and other men choose to take it for money, what is
that to meddling fools, who cannot distinguish between
a promise and a performance ? Oh ! but, say the
Pharisees, particularly the landlords, would you allow
the poor, hard working labourer to be stripped of
hii all by a parcel of coiners of paper ? Generous
men ! Why you take care that the poor shall seldom
be in possession of the value of the smallest note
that has of late been put into circulation ; and your
pretended care of the poor is a mere pretext to hide
your own ignorance-begotten dread. Again, exclaim
the abhorrers of free banking, What, allow private
individuals to tamper with the standard of value
The banker, :as such, never meddles with it.
The Legislature declares a Mint price for
gold, which is generally a lie in the market, and
till the Legislature alters that the standard cannot be
tampered with. The banker may, indeed, increase
or lessen his promises to pay ; but individuals
now import and export gold and silver at their
pleasure, and actually make money, not promises to
pay it, plentiful or scarce as suits their convenience.
When the Legislature prescribed a standard price
for gold, it ought to have gone a step further,
and prescribed the exact quantity, to a guinea,
which is to be in the country, and the exact pro-
portionate quantity of silver ; and it ought to have
taken into its own hands, and guarded with the utmost
jealousy the importation and exportation of bullion.
There are many other pretexts on which free banking,
and the free issue of promises to pay are prevented,
but none of them are more false or more groundless
than the assertion, that the issuing of Bank-notes
is a usurpation of the Royal prerogative, that it
deranges the standard of value, and that it makes
money plentiful or scarce.

It appears from a Return made to an Order of
the House of Commons, that the National System
of Education in Ireland is working most beneficially
for the population of that country, however much it
may be decried and calumniated by the termagant
faction, whose feeling it has ever been to confine
education, as well as every other good thing, exclu-
sively to those who wear their own political and
religious livery. It is a fundamental principle of
Toryism that the people cannot be properly go-
verned unless they are kept in a state of ignorance,
and the Irish Tories are not behind the rest of their
brethren in giving it practical effect. They are, on
the contrary, rather in advance of the English por-
tion of the party in all the odious qualities whieh
characterize the general body. Simple Toryism is
bad enough in all conscience, but when Orangeism
is superadded to it, the compound may challenge
comparison with the worst ingredient of Pan-
dora's box. The Irish Tories are the curse of

their country. They stand, and have ever stood,
between it and civilization. It is, however, grati-
fying to the philanthropist to reflect, that the
sceptre has for ever departed from them, and that
the tide of improvement having once set in, will
roll on in spite of their puny efforts to oppose its
progress.

- The first great step in the regeneration of Ire-
land is the education of the people at large, and in
common. Schools for all, without distinction of
sect—schools in which the children of the Catholic
and the Protestant meet to receive together the
secular instruction which is to fit them for the dis-
charge of their duties as Members of the same
civil community, and in which they learn practi-
cally the all-important lesson—hitherto never
taught them—that religious difference and social
harmony are perfectly compatible with each other,
have been for some years in active operation in
every part of Ireland. These schools have been
opposed, tooth and nail, by the Orangemen there,
and their abettors here. Nevertheless they prosper.
Notwithstanding Orange persecution notwith-
standing the eloquent denunciations of a RODEN
and a PIIILPOTTS, Irish children continue to flock
to the National standard. Since the 31st of De-
cember, 1838, assistance has been given by the
Commissioners to one hundred and forty-one addi-
tional schools, and grants made towards the es-
blishment of forty new school houses, while there
were before the Board, at the time the return was
made (July 4, 1839), no fewer than 262 applica-
tions which could nut be decided upon for want of
funds. Of these applications 164 were for build-
ing new schools.

There are some other highly interesting facts
connected with this subject, which we shall take
another opportunity of noticing.

The state of affairs in the East at the present
moment calls for the most active vigilance on the
part of Lord PALMERSTON. During a period of
several months the Turkish and Egyptian question
does not appear to have advanced one step towards
an early and pacific adjustment ; and yet in that
time several circumstances have occurred which
prove that Russia has known how to turn the ge•
neral embarrassment to her own account. When
Admiral LALANDE committed the egregious, and
in a national point of view, most impolitic blunder
of permitting the Egyptian fleet to be betrayed to
the PACHA of Egypt, instead of retaining it under
the protection of France and England, it was
agreed that a Congress should be held at
Vienna by the Five Powers for the entire settle-
ment of all differences between the SULTAN and
his vassal. Russia intrigued in every way to upset
this arrangement. Her policy was to have the Con-
ference held at Constantinople, where surrounded by
her own agents in every garb, and of every rank in
the 'Turkish empire, the Ambassadors of the Five
Powers might only see with her 'eyes, hear with
her ears, judge from her evidence, and determine
according to her indirect dictation. Hitherto the
Western Powers have resisted the allegations of
Russia upon this point, but it does not appear that
they have displayed that degree of firmness neces-
sary to insure an ultimate triumph. French di-
in the first place to be blamed for this.
plomacy is
It is no secret that for some years past Admiral
ROUSSE,' and Lord PONSO2,r, the French and
British Ambassadors, have been continually bicker-
ing about trifles, to the great detriment of the na-
tional interests of both countries. Rouss rs is al-
ways too busy, and PONSONBY too indolent.
Everything worries the lively Frenchman ; but the
English Ppeer is only to be moved by some fresh
impulse of the tender passion, and, unlike the
French capital during the reign of Lours XIV.
and his successor, a lady's chamber is not the fittest
Fceplacerao to negotiate treaties in Constantinople.
, as we stated a few days since, has directed
the recal of M. RousslN from the Porte, judging
him disqualified to conduct negotiations upon which
it is of the utmost moment that the representa-
tives of the two countries should be perfectly agreed ;
and though, upon the whole, but little can be ob-
jected to Lord PONSONRY, we are satisfied that it
would he for the interest of this country to replace
him by some person less obnoxious to public suspi
cion, and, above all, to French distrust. In the
both as
Lotr to
new turn that affairs have taken in the
PONSONBY stands too far committed, East,
persons and things, to be employed usefully for the