The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-12 00:00:00

1:. JOHN BRIGUIT'S- GOOD MANNERS.

(From the Times. )

Manchester is the centre, as we ail know, of an
enormous manufacturing industry. It may be
considered the founder of free trade, and the
metropolis of political liberality. No other town
or city in England exercises an influence com-
parable to its own on the public mind. No other
community is so well calculated to speak as the
organ of British industry and commercial progress.
We rejoice to find this great emporium following
the example of Liverpool in doing honour to the
new American Minister. The feeling is just,
was excellent.
tyfher.poßliricgy is
ht,swNivsoer, the occasion otccastheiodinnsuinetrable. We have
Only one thing Manchester lacks—her good man-
ners are of the scantiest. Manchester has not
yet learnt those little diplomatic arts which con-
stitute the charm and safeguard of society. Her
sincere and ardent politicians know no reserve,
wander at will over every subject, and spare
nothing that militates against their convictions or
their interests. They are too sincere to be polite,
and too outspoken to be hospitable. When Mr.
Ingersoll accepted their invitation, he thought,
no doubt, that he was about to witness a repeti-
tion of the amenities of Liverpool, where, if any
of the differences which separate the institutions
of the United States from those of England were
touched upon, it was only either to compliment our
guest at our own expense, or to show how the
two nations, starting from opposite extremes, had
contrived to found governments solid in their
wisdom and durable in their moderation. Mr.
Bright says that it was vain for the Manchester
men to think that they would " do" the American
Minister, but we cannot help suspecting that his
Excellency was considerably done," nevertheless -
for, of all topics on which he could be prepared to
:
hear speeches made, the last which he could have
expected to listen to was an invidious reflection.
on the policy of the Government which ac-
credits him to this country. The American
Minister represents a Government here, the last
depositary in America of the principle of
Protection—a Government about to give place in
a few months to one of diametrically opposite ten-
dencies—a Government, the last remnant of a
party which recent political occurrences have vir.
tually expunged from the map of American politics.
Nothing could be in worse taste than to revive
such a controversy in the presence of such a man ;
and our sense o ithe impropriety of such a step is
increased by our conviction of its superfluity.
America is evidently about to remodel her tariff,
not out of deference to the opinion of Manchester,
or a servile imitation of English policy, but
from the just and deep-seated conviction of a great
majority of her citizens that the principle of Free
Trade is just in theory and has been eminently
successful in practice. We have no occasion to
spur a willing horse or to violate the courtesy of
public hospitalities in order to read our neighbours
a lesson which they seem to understand quite as
well as their preceptors.
This false move produced its natural result. Bad
manners generated worse political economy. The
Bishop of Manchester, feeling the solecism of taste,
sought to remedy it by a solecism of reasoning. Free
trade, according to him, is the strong meat for vi-
gorous men ; the young and the weak must grow
up under the aliment of protection. America may
not yet be strong enough for free trade ; the bishop
only hopes that the time will soon come when she
will be able to bear it. Strange must be the condi-
tion of that country which can flourish under a
scarcity, but would sink under abundance ; which
can afford to tax one part of its citizens for the bene-
fit of another, but cannot afford to remit that taxa-
tion, to which to be bound is prosperity, and to be
free adversity. Protection is, as everybody now
knows and admits, a contrivance for the waste
of capital by diverting it from it from its most
profitable employment. It is a curious discovexy
that a poor nation should be able to afford
this waste, and that a rich one cannot. It is
only due to Mr. Bright to say, that while avoid-
ing these unpalatable topics, he contrived to
pay a graceful, and, in the main, a just compli-
ment, to the institutions of the United States.
Mr. Bright is not satisfied with Lord Derby's pa-
rallel between the House of Lords in Eng-
land and the Senate of America, apprehend-
ing that scanty justice is done to the latter insti-
tution by placing it on the same pedestal as the
former. We have already expressed an opinion as
to the causes which prevent the House of Lords
from realisina the glowing picture of its functions
drawn by Lord Derby, but Mr. Bright will not be
content with this. For himself, he declines the
peerage, and cannot be satisfied without letting
the representative of the United States know in
what small estimation those who think with him
hold our Hereditary Chamber. Here is another
breach of good taste and good manners. No posi-
tion could be more embarrassing for a foreign Mi-
nister, anxious to preserve the dignified and impar-
tial neutrality of his position, than to hear English
politics discussed under the pretence of praising
American institutions, and, after an eloquent peer
has taken the opportunity of his presence to praise
the House of Lords, to listen a day or two after
to a vigorous Democrat refuting the arguments of
his antagonist under the pretence of a compliment
to the country he represents. The truth is, as
it appears to us, that Mr. Bright over-argues
his case when lie speaks of the stability of the
American Senate as infinitely superior to that
of the House of Lords. We may concede to
him that the American Senate will exist as
long as that federal constitution of which it is
the soul and essence, and we may also grant that it
is quite possible that a time may arrive when a
majority of the nation will participate in his own
impatience of an hereditary peerage. But these two
admissions, which are all that he asserts, by no
means decide the question of stability in favour of
the American Senate. The question still remains
—which of these two contingencies is the more
probable,—the abolition of the House of Peers or
the disruption of the American Union ? Both, we
trust, are fax distant, but we are not without data
for
(H)f
otucile
Peers, of ir
Reform
g he
Bill
b relativeuta
it
n outcryh a
s grown pr 0
wasbab
fainter
raisediet and
dt
against
fainter,
f e
tv
he r
fit wrnhoe
dread
Ime
America,nor
syftroe
from
imminent
et
mttr
the contrary,
external
nvomore,violence.
lnpe
ne r
peril,
remissnessea d the P
andee
ir sn
ah ac
t ivoen mt
ar ne
e
haaTnsdh ef
sFe
cleaudt
eetnrhat
this
syUmbnoei
moment
nne
n ino
tf
only preserved by the Fugitive Slave Law—a des-
perate expedient, which seeks to make the Aboli-
tionists of the North gaolers for the slave-owners of
the South—which raises a riot as often as it is en-
forced, and leaves behind it an indescribable feeling
of indignation and bitterness. By this frail thread
hangs the American Union, and with that Union
the American Senate. Surely there is little to be
said for its stability, even as compared with that of
the English House of Peers.
We have freely criticised the errors of the Man-
chester banquet because we fear that repetitions of
them must ultimately deter the representatives of
America from accepting these hearty and well-meant
which might lead to their discunousndt—inuturi:awnteite:hf
demonstrations of public feeling, which make so
marked a distinction between their position in this
country and that of the other representatives of
foreign States. We admire the spirit which -origi-
nates these festivities, and would not check anything
hers,We
regard America
is asiniaotbleudisbtiviyfridbeeonsd and surest ally.
We cannot show too much honour to hera hreopnroe
and
dr prosperitythe last
barrier
Anlbeserishcaonwninsbtyityijogin'sd,
com-
mercial restriction—is about to fall, to rise no more
t
atabtsitvinesen;
cbeufrtotmhactrihtiocnisonisur
is
and by not infringing the respect due to
guest by drawing him into the honoured
guest of English
party politics.

FATAL BOAT ACCIDENT A.7—"--SOITTII.A.MPTON.--A sad
which a Custom-house
waterlosthisSouthampton yesterday morning, and an-
her. The wind
ward at the time Witt a tide surveyor, went off
chored off Hythe.
he was returning',
ca sized via 9
Afterblowing very hard from the west-
_ the Customs lug sail boat to board
or boat very about phuatutinpgasotn
eight,board when
•nofhihsis
boatmen
asantdhhe with his two men, named James and
Johns,
ureoawr,nanindtoththeye
wwearteera.
eoThopelreeowf asminleosvfresosmel
the shore. All three officers being swimmers, they
struck out to swim and save themselves. James,
although a good swimmer, sunk almost immediately.
Johns swam towards the brig's boat, which was coming
to his rescue, and he was just in the act of sinking from
exhaustion when he was laid hold of by the Mecklg:
burghers with a boat-hook. Mr. Witt stripped
inenue-
cutter's boat, which came to his assistance,
ifje and one
water, and swam until he was picked up by tbearoreevs
was
a very worthy young man, and has left 7,..dvia
afternoon.
child. His body was not recovered yes a with great
The captain of the Mecklenburg brig bet
i conscious-
his brig he soon enabled him to recover
cei Was seen from
ness and strength. Directly theasa
sent out to the reve-
humanity towards Johns ; and after heatblisim
Southampton a medical officc:i-eiry
assistance. on board
ORDER OF LA TRAPP.—
unfinished monastery now
nue cutter in the river to render
Trappists have taken
and yet nem
building for them in the
spot
called Notre-Dame-du-Desert,
Garonne and Hautes Pyrendes.
borders of the four departments the Gers,
nearly on the bore
'monks made a great sensation in the
autedepartment of the Gers. It. is
apowssiledssiaonnd ofdeasenile
the
eThe clergy assembled from man miles
lie eet t ern. The Trappists will finish building round to m
I and 'll
house themse yes, via pass the winter in stables
the
and hovels scarcely sheltered from the weather, thus ex
hibitin,„, an endurance of hardships and privations which
ThTa:ehaarrniudv:Gloaoolfd•otn.h
the rules of their order enjoin them to seek rather than
avoid.