The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-05 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 5, 1862.

P U BLICATION S.

Now ready at all the Libraries, in 3 vols.,
A GREAT SENSATION.
By K HENEAGE HIRING, Esq.
" By far the most fascinating novel that has made its ap-
pearance for some time. It has all the charm of a picture of
fashionable life, given by one who is quick to discern as he is
competent to Beset ibe."--John Bull.
Hurst and Blackett, 13, Great Marlborough-street.

TWO SERIES OF FAIIIBAIRN'S USEFUL
INFORMATION FOR ENGINEERS.
The First and Se.3ond Series, in crown Svo., with illustra-
tions, price 10s. Gd. each Series,
USEFUL INFORMATION for ENGINEERS.
By WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN, LL.D., Corresponding.
Member of the National Institute of France ; President of
the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, &c.
Also by Mr. FAIRMAIRN, Vol. 1., Svo., price 165.,
TREATISE on MILLS and MILLWORK.
London : Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.

TOTICE.—A STRANGE STORY ; by the
Author of "Rienzi," "My Novel," Are., will be ready
on Satsrday next, at all Libraries and Booksellers in the
Kingdom.
London : Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 47, Ludgate-hill.

.THE ART-WORLD.
NEW ILLUSTRATED ART PAPER.

On Saturday, March 1, 18(12, containing 32 pages Quarto,
price Fivepence (stamped for post Sixpence), No. 1 or
THE ART-WORLD and INTERNATIONAL
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ing, Sculpture, Architecture, Ornamental Art and Manufac-
tures, Engraving, Photography, Poetry, Music, the Drama,
&c. Edited by HENRY OTT LEY, assisted by Writers of
eminence in the various Departments of Art.

Published by W. H. Lindley, at the Office, 19, Catherine•
street, Strand; where all Communications for the Editor,
Advertisements, &c., are to be addressed.

THE PRESENT DISTRESS IN TRADE
fully explained in J. GROSSMITIPS
" GOVERNMENT UPON FIRST PRINCIPLES."
The cause is there predicated of the monetary difficulties ex-
perienced in 1860. The Crisis is at hand. Anxiety in busi-
ness has now become the grim torture. Purity of motive.
intelligently exercised, must animate all Governments, or all
is lost, All denominations of Constitutions are carefully
examined in J. Grosemith's "Government upon First Prin-
ciples."

Kent and Co., Paternoster-row.

The Fourth Edition, Just Published, Bvo, in cloth, price ss.
by post free, ss. 6d.

ON TRUE and FALSE SPERMATORRHCEA ;
with the View to the Correction of wide-spread Errors
In relation to the Treatment and Cure of Sufferers from De-
bility of the Generative system, or Sexual Hypochrondriasis.
Translated from the German of Dr. PICKFORD.
" Dr. Pickford is known to English readers by his frequent
practical contributions to German medical literature. This
is the first time, he informs us, that he has addressed himself
to the non-medical reader. We trust that this may not be the
last, if he shall detect any other equally flagrant evil which it
may be in his power to correct."—London Medical Gazette.

" The editor has conferred a great boon on the sufferers
from this distressing malady by translating this little book,
and by laying bare the scandalous practices of unqualified
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know nothing, with no other object than to fill their own
purses. The difference between true Spermatorrhcea and the
various forms of disease which resemble it are accurately de-
scribed, and thus a safe guide is offered for the treatment of
the malady."—Medical Circular.

" We have dilated so long upon the contents of the preli-
minary chapter, that we have scarcely left ourselves space for
any notice of the subject specially treated of by Dr. Pickford ;
but the moderate price at which the •brochure' is sold, places
it within the reach of every one interested in the matter."—
Dublin Medical Press.

SPAIN and FRANCE.—" Excellent in quality
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Press. "A really good Sherry."—Morning Star. XERES
COMIDA SHERRY, soft, fine body, age and flavour, and
genuine, 18s. per dozen ; pale, 20s. per dozen. "Extraordi-
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Carriage.—Orders of two dozen and upwards carriage paid to
any railway station in England.—Vintage Wine Company,
Importers of Spanish Wines, West-end Offices, 14, Blooms-
bury-street, London, W.C.

GIVEN AWAY TO NERVOUS SUFFERERS.
HENRY SMITH, M.D., of the University of
Jena, has Just published, for the benefit of Nervous
Sufferers a FREE EDITION of his valuable work, THE
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medical work on the cure of Nervous Debility, Loss of
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neglected, result in consumption, insanity. and premature
death ; with plain directions for perfect restoration to health
and vigour. The book will be sent, post free, secure from ob,
servation, to any address, on receipt of a directed envelope
and two stamps. Address, HENRY Smrra, M.D., 13, Burton-
crescent, Tavistock-square, London. W.C.

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THE VIGOUR OF YOUTH RESTORED IN
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Dr. Ricord's Essence of Life is sold in cases, with full in-
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and will be sent to any part of the world, carefully packed,
on receipt of remittance or post-office order payable to Prout
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(Entered at Stationers' Hall.)

MR. BRIGIIT ON _AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

The anniversary dinner of the Birmingham
Chamber of Commerce was held last night at the
Plough and Harrow Inn, Edgcbaston, Mr. Bright
in the chair.

In reply to the toast or" The Borough 'Members,"
Mr. BRIGHT addressed the meeting at some
length. After some prefatory observations he said
it was matter for deep regret that there were so few
Chambers of Commerce in the kingdom, and that
their influence had hitherto been so feeble and in-
effectual. Those institutions had taken too timid
and hesitating a course, fearing to entertain many
questions of vital interest to the trade and com-
merce of the country, because they might be mixed
up with party polities, or because their discussion
might be inconvenient toa Minister. If a commer-
cial question w aswtoinbe sett oeaside merely h
etreelir c
y because it
had a
of Commerce dismissed ticii*Wetaries and turned
the key in their doors the better.' Nearly 25 years
ego the Manchester Chamber of Cominerce was not
deterred by such a bug)ear from taking up the
subject
; and the result of their en-
deavours of familiar history. There
of
matter
was not a family in England, from the palace to
fiscal changes thus achieved. One
cottage,en which had not received
t exciting great public interest
question,h theeu e
fih tusmf
rbaotl
me humblest
rhees
was the subject of maritime law and the rights of
neutrals. When a proposal was made on the ques-
tion States' Govern-
ment,
several yea
ofs
rb y the United Chambers of Commerce ex-
pressed an opinion in its favour. The proposal was
that peaceful commerce on the oceans should no
longer be molested by those who carried on war.
That was a principle which might have been ex-
pected to receive the approval of every man con-
nected with commercial pursuits. But the matter
had not been pressed, and no result was come to
with regard to it. It was said, indeed, that the rule
of exempting private property from capture could
not be adopted, because when nations were at war
it was desirable that they should do all the harm in
their power to the enemy in order to drive him the
sooner to sue for peace. But if there was any force
in that argument, why was it not equally applied
to warfare on land as well as at sea ? The extension
of that rule which civilisation sanctioned would strip
war of some of its worst evils. Some persons said we
ought not to give up the present system because
England was supreme at sea and was able to do the
greatest amount of mischief to her rivals in war;
but if she was supreme at sea, she was also supreme
in the amount of her property afloat. For we had
almost always on the ocean probabl—
y not less than
100 millions sterling. If therefore, unhappily, we
were at war with s maritime nation, such as
the United States, there was no manner of doubt
that our commerce would suffer infinitely more
damage than we could inflict on any other country.
Well, that was a question with which he thought
Chambers of Commerce ought to deal, and not allow
imaginary and speculative politics to bear down
their own honest convictions and intelligence.
Another point, which some thought wholly politi-
cal, but which was strongly commercial, was the
growing and extravagant public expenditure. When
Sir R. Peel, 20 years ago, brought forward his
tariff, he estimated the expenditure at £50,000,000,
and the revenue at £48,000,000. The deficit was
made up by the income tax. Last year our estimates
amounted to nearly £70,000,000, so that within that
period no less a sum than probably £300,000,000
sterling had been taken from the people in increased
taxes—an amount equal to all the dividends of all
the railways in the kingdom. (Hear.) Now, it
might be quite necessary that the expenditure
should have been increased, but the question was
certainly one which the guardians of the commerce
of England would be justified in thoroughly exa-
mining, inasmuch as the absorption of so much
money unproductively must necessarily cripple the
commerce of the country. Another question which
was at this moment exciting considerable interest
in the whole country, and an intense anxiety in the
district from which he came, related to the supply
of cotton. At this moment the peril which had
been so often foreshadowed had fallen. He alluded
to the various steps which he had taken in Parlia-
ment so far since as 1848, with the view to institute
inquiries relative to the obstacles in the way of
cultivation of cotton in India. Valuable informa-
tion had been obtained, and for the purpose of
turning it to practical account he had suggested in
1850 that a royal commission should be issued. But
nothing was done. Nothing was ever done here
so long as no great catastrophe happened. He was
told that his fears respecting an interruption of the
supply from a country where slave labour was so
largely used were groundless, and the President of
the Board of Trade opposed his motion. It had
required no great prescience to foresee what would
come to pass, because every man must know that
in a country whose constitution declared in its car-
dinal point all men were free and equal the insti-
tution of slavery must by some means or other one
day come to an end and the industrial organisation
of the South be paralysed, if not wholly destroyed.
He had not the smallest doubt that if after that
committee had sat there had been in every district
a real effective Government, giving a fair chance
to the industry of the most docile people
in the world, and to a climate and soil
most favourable to the production of every-
thing we required, any amount of cotton necessary
for the manufactures of this country might have
been obtained, even though the cessation of supply
from the United States had been more total and
more continuous than he hoped it might be. (Hear,
hear.) He did not wish to underrate the gravity of
the present crisis in Lancashire. Whatever might
be done in India, or in any other country, could
only be done by slow degrees; in no one year was
it possible for any Government to repair the neglect
of the last 16, 20, or it might be 60 years. There-
fore, looking at the slowness with which new sup-
plies would come in, and at the great uncertainty
of everything now passing in North America, no
question was worthy of more serious consideration
from the Government and the country than the pre-
sent position of Lancashire. They had, as was gene-
rally the case in all great questions that came before
the world, much nonsense talked upon American
affairs, They were told the blockade was a paper
one and totally ineffective, and yet at the same time
they were told that it was a grievous calamity be-
cause it was so effective—(a laugh)—and that it
was necessary to break it. Now, they knew that
while cotton was lying at New Orleans and could
be bought at eight cents, or 4d, per lb, if it could be
landed at Liverpool it would fetch readily from is
to is 2d per lb. They knew, likewise, by the ac-
counts from the South, that almost everything they
imported, if, indeed, there were any imports at all
in the country, was selling at five and even ten
times the ordinary price, and whatever they might
say of a ship escaping the blockade now and then, he
believed it could be demonstrated that never was in
the history of the world a blockade so effective as
that now existing, and over so long a line of coast.
That, however, was no particular advantage to us
who wish to have some of the produce of the Southern
States. He mentioned it only to show that the pre-
tences for interference on that ground were vain and
foolish. People did not appear to understand that in-
terference meant war. There was a general impres-
sion that, somehow or other, America had gone to the
dogs, and that this country with its vast fleet might
do anything it pleased with it. Supposing anybody
had asked in 1850 whether the United States was a
Power which it was easy to trample upon, every-
body would have replied " No." But at this very
moment the population of the States, still under the,
Government of Washington, was greater than the
population of all the States of the American Union
in 1850, and the white population of the strictly
Slave States was greater now than the white popu-
lation of all the Stales in that year; while, mom

over, 99 per cent., indeed he might say the whole of
whatever there was of maritime wealth and power
in the Union belong now, as it belonged before, to
the North, and not to the South. Therefore, unless

we went upon the principle that when we found a
man to whom you were very civil when he had not
met with an accident, and his limbs were all sound,
when we found him with a broken arm we might
meddle with him without danger to ourselves,
nothing could be more ignorant or foolish than the
idea that the United States, as at present existing
and governed from Washington, was a Power that
could be trampled upo❑ as though it were a few
disconnected provinces, a prey to anarchy, which
any one might insult and injure at his plea-
sure. He believed he spoke the sentiments of
the merchants, manufacturers, and workpcople of
Lancashire when he said that any of those extremes
of interference and war which certain politicians
anti newspapers advanced, would not only be peril-
ous, but absolutely fatal to the interests of that
county. If cotton be now ls. per lb., it could not be
obtained from America, through war, at less than

ss. a lb.; and if there were men and families—as he

owned there were hundreds, and perhaps thousands
—who scarcely knew where to-morrow's food was
to come from, still it would be the cheapest thing
that England ever did to subsidise those families
till better days came round, rather than we should
engage in an unjust and violent attempt to break a
legal blockade, to declare war against a people
anxious to be friendly with us, and who were only
engaged in an endeavour which would be here re-
garded as patriotic—viz., maintaining the integrity
of their Government and sustaining the permanence
of their nationality. (Hear.) He believed that the
interests of Lancashire absolutely at that moment
depended on a perfect and, he should say, friendly
neutrality on the part of our Government. So far
back as August last he said that the speediest and
surest mode of our obtaining cotton was through the
success of the Government of the United States. He
said so still. As affairs were advancing in that
country every one must see that the monster crime
of slavery had received a blow from which it could
never recover ; that, if it continued to exist, it would
no longer be an aggressive and political power, and
when it ceased to be that, we might rely upon it,
the moral sense and Christian feeling of that nation
would take care that it should not permanently en-
dure. (Cheers.) He referred to the fact that at
the meetings of the Liverpool and Manchester
Chambers of Commerce those bodies were in favour
of absolute neutrality on the question ; but he had
been told that the other day a newspaper
which professed to guide, to influence, and some-
times, he trusted, for the sake of human nature,
was found to insult public opinion, was even
taunting the people of Lancashire with the
idea that they were coming to Government
for subsidies in order that their people might live.
No such notion had ever entered the minds of the
men of property or of any other class in Lancashire.
Among the working classes there were numbers
who had not spent everything they had earned in
better years, while, op the other hand, there was
also great wealth and great liberality, and jan
almost incalculable amount of property which might
be called upon in case of extremity to assist the
suffering. At present there was a disposition among
the working people which everybody must admire ;
they knew the cause of this disaster, that it was not
the fault of their employers, nor of their Govern-
ment ; they trusted that this sore trouble would not
rest on them too heavily or too long ; and they be-

lieved that there would be an honest and honour-
able desire among all, from the highest to the lowest,
to help each other through the difficulty, and an
earnest endeavour, if possible, to prevent the recur-
rence of such a calamity. (Cheers.) The hon. gen-
tleman next, at some length, alluded to the duties
of Chambers of Commerce, and to their usefulness
if carried on in a liberal and pacific spirit; He
wished that those chambers were united in an asso-
ciation, which would give them a hundredfold more
weight and influence with the Government ; and
when that time came they might rely on it that if
there were yet battles to be fought and victories to
be won in that field those struggles would cause
much less labour, much less expense, and much less
anxiety than some of those conquests in which dur-
ing the last 20 years it had been, he acknowledged
—ho would not say his misfortune, but his pride,
to have borne a part. (Cheers.)
The meeting was afterwards addressed by Mr.
Adderley, M.P., M. Latour (French Consul), Mr.
Dawson (Chairman of the Liverpool Chamber of
Commerce), and other gentlemen.

PRESENTATION OF A TESTIMONIAL
TO TEE BIGIIT 110 N. T. 111. GIBSON, 111. P.

Yesterday an address and testimonial were pre-
sented to the Right Hon. T. M. Gibson, M.P., at a
public breakfast, in Freemason's Hall, iu comme-
moration of his services in procuring the repeal of
the taxes on knowledge. A large and influential
company assembled on the occasion, and the gal,
lery was nearly filled with ladies, who took a deep
interest in the proceedings. W: Ewart, Esq.,
M P., occupied the chair, supported by Mr. Sheriff
Cockerell and Mr. Sheriff Twentyman ; and among
the gentlemen present were Alderman Salomons,
M.P., Sir S. M, Peto, M.P., Sir C. Douglas, M.P.,
Sir F. Goldsmid, M.P., W. Crawford, Esq., M.P.,
J. White, Esq., M.P., E. Baynes, Esq., M.P., A. S.
Ayrton, Esq., M.P., Samuel Morley, Esq., C.
Knight, Esq., S. C. Hall, Esq., Robert Chambers,
Esq., Dr. Gray (of the Dublin Freeman),Thornton
Hunt, Esq., Lucas, Esq., Vizetelly, Esq., &o.
Mr. FRANCIS read notes from Mr. Cobden, Mr.
Thackeray, and Mr. Bright, regretting their in-
ability to be present.
The CHArRMAN having given the usual loyal
toasts in appropriate and felicitous terms, called
upon Mr. Francis to read the following address :
" Sir,—We meet to-day to commemorate the total extinc-
tion of the taxes upon literature and the Press, and to avail
ourselves of the opportunity to ask you to accept a testimo-
nial as a mark of our appreciation of your services during
the time you were president of the associations formed for
the purpose of obtaining-the repeal of those taxes. It may
not be inappropriate here to advert to the history of this
movement. Twelv6 years have now elapsed since systematic
efforts were commenced for this purpose.
"Two associations were then formed—one by gentlemen
connected with the Press, regarding the taxes from their
literary and commercial aspects ; the other known as the
"Association for Promoting the Repeal of the Taxes on
Knowledge," assailing these imposts more particularly by
popular and political arguments. This latter association
took from the first comprehensive action in respect to the
three taxes—the Press Association, on the other hand, de-
termined to direct its efforts to each tax in succession ; both
I associations, however, looking forward to the total extinc-
tion of Press taxation, as the final object of their labours.
"The advertisement duty was the first object of attack.
It was regarded as one of the fiscal errors committed when
the true principle of taxation was comparatively unknown
—as a barrier tbetween buyer and seller, and consequently
not only a burden upon literary enterprise, but an impedi-
ment to trade and labour seeking a market through the ad-
vertising columns of the newspaper. The representations
made to the Government and the House of Commons, as to
the injurious character of this tax, were at length effective,
and on the 4th of August, 1853, the duty upon advertise-
ments was repealed.
" The compulsory stamp became the next object of our
movement. The penny stamp was viewed as a prohibition
upon cheap newspapers, so important as agents of com-
munication, especially amongst the humbler classes of
society. The repeal was therefore urged as a matter of
justice and sound policy. It was felt that the abolition of
this tax would lead to the establishment of good penny
newspapers, and thus prove a measure of safety against the
issue of journals of a demoralising tendency. The result
has shown that the opinions held by yourself and thosewb.o
acted with you were correct. Notwithstanding the strong
opposition that was encountered both in and out of Parlia-
ment, the views of the friends of repeal happily prevailed,
and on the 15th of June, 1855, the second of the taxes Upon
knowledge was abolished, leaving to the friends of complete
freedom one final struggle.
" For years, literature of all kinds has been tending to
cheapness—to a large demand at low prices, instead of a
`small demand at high prices. But the tax upon paper
pressed most injuriously upon the fund for tin romuneratiou