The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-07 00:00:00

dom at the particular nature of the inquiries be-
fore he could obtain an entry within the magic
portal. At that time, not many years ago, a
single Muscovite would not have been admitted,
although his Master was our good friend and
faithful ally. But now, by a strange infatuation,
whole crews are admitted, not for a single visit,
but to go " to and fro" at their mere will or ploa-
sure, without let or hindrance, and to gather
valuable information to be rendered available in
due season.

KOFF. We all know how those haughty and dar-
ing demands were followed up by a yet more
flagitious proceeding on the part of the AUTO-
CRAT, by the marching of his troops across the
frontiers of Bessarabia, and the formal seizure of
Moldo-Wallachia by the Cossacks under GOETZ-
CIIAKOFF. It is an old tale that—a tale that
needs just now no detailed repetition. But how,
we ask, has the Emperor NICHOLAS conducted his
policy in reference to the Four Great Powers of
the European portion of Christendom ? How ?
Why, first of all, by duplicity—then by a flagrant
disregard of all their repeated remonstrances—
then by a lawless violation of an otherwise
universally recognised compact then by the
haughty rejection of the modifications re-
quired by the Porte (modifications which were
deemed reasonable by the assembled diplomatists
of the Vienna Clenference)—then by the throwing
down of the gauntlet against all the allies of
Turkey, whomsoever they might be, in that men-
dacious proclamation ending with the versicle of
the Royal Psalmist--in to Dwane speravi ; Non
Confundar 2n iEternum But the Four Powers
will not be insulted. England, France, Prussia,
and Austria will not be insulted. They
are, each and all, prepared to chew the
leek with exemplary meekness. Whatever the
Emperor of RUSSIA may say—whatever he may
do—whether it be by force of arms or by the
mouth of an ambassador—whether it be in his
own territories or in those of his neighbour—
England, France, Prussia, Austria have put their
heads together, and they have determined upon—
opening fresh negotiations ! Never was there
such fatuity. The war may not be " extin-
guished by timely mediation"—they acknowledge
that—but still (they lay this flattering unc-
tion to their souls, they hug themselves in
this craven day-dream of their own security)—it
(the Turkish war) " may be confined to the
dimensions of a Wallachian campaign." This—
after all the bluster about supporting the rights
of Turkey, after the parade of the Camp at Chob-
ham, and of the reviews at Satory, and of the
maritime display at Spithead—after the advance
of the combined fleets to Besika Bay, and their
passage through the Dardanelles, and their
entrance into the sea of Marmora, and their
advance to Constantinople ! How now about
the " dignity " of the great Powers of
Christendom ? And what shall be said when we
couple with this hysterical announcement of a
new alliance between those Powers, and a new
Conference, and a new Proposition—the know-
ledge that the CZAR has proclaimed, once for all,
his definitive determination upon War, and his
equally fixed resolve to listen to no further nego-
iations whatsoever ?

organisation, but municipal government is the
very soul of civil life. Whatever course, how-
ever, be taken with the counties, as the towns are
in so clear a position for extended suffrage, there
is_no reason why the latter should wait upon the
former. A uniform borough and county suffrage
is, we agree, a great desideratum, and we see. no
reason why it should not be made so. It must
be, however, not at the cost of liberty in the
boroughs, but at that of exclusiveness in the
counties.

But most extraordinary of all ! most mon-
strous, strange, and incredible is it, that British
Policemen should be employed to capture six
miserable serfs who had been forced into servi-
tude, and who, under an erroneous impression as
to British generosity, had flung themselves on
our protection while endeavouring to escape from
the wretched thraldom in which they were de-
tained. Most astounding is it that they should
be carried back to their prison on board an Eng-
lish vessel, to have the Russian knout soundly ad-
ministered under the shadow of the polluted
Union-Jack. This must be inquired into—this
must be closely scrutinised, and it must also be
ascertained how it was that the writ of Habeas
Corpus signed by Mr. Justice WIGHTMAN was so
grossly disregarded, not merely by Russia, but
by English officers, or that instructions should
be required from the Admiralty as to whether it
should be attended to or not. These are matters
that cannot be neglected. They are of the most
vital consequence to the maintenance of the na-
tional honour, and must receive the consideration
which they so eminently merit.

To those who wish for a substantial Reform
Bill, and yet love to build on fact and precedent,
amongst whom we may, it is to be hoped, range
many of the present Ministry, the Municipal
Franchise seems to offer a really firm standing-

ground. We assume that no statesman pretending
to look beyond the hour would venture to consign

the working classes to oblivion in a second Reform
Bill, or rather we may say we have proved it,
if proof can be needed. In truth, with a singular
exception or two, there seems a general conviction
amongst all who write on the subject of Reform,
with any profession of liberality, that it is essen-
tial to widen the basis of our constitution, as well
as to remove some of its decayed portions. With

the vast majority of our present law-makers, how-
ever, the widest basis, manhood suffrage, finds no

favour whatever ; and, whether it be right or not,
their ears are quite deaf to the mention of it. It
is an untried thing, at least in this country; and

France, and even America, do not appear to them
guarantees for its success in England. They
want something which has stood the test of actual

working here.

In so serious a matter as settling

the Representation of the nation, they like to feel
the ground beneath them at each step ; they
_ . .

hardly care to argue about political rights; they
may even be not unwilling to acknowledge them
in theory ; but if they can only be reached by a

flying leap, they would rather not hazard the neck
of the old Constitution, but wait till a gate can be
opened, or even a bridge be built.
Now, all this large, and on the whole honest,
though timid, class of Reformers, would appear to
have in the municipal suffrage the very thing they
desire. It is a suffrage already established by
Parliament itself—it has been on trial ever since
1835, nearly as long as the Reform Act itself ;
but, unlike that, it has given very general satis-
faction ; indeed, large towns have spontaneously
sought the advantages of the Municipal Act, and
just now one of them, Manchester, is being held
up as an example of creditable management to the
Great Unreformed Corporation itself. At the
time the municipal constituency was created some
of our wisest legislators regarded it as far more
important than the Reform Act itself, inasmuch
as it was a school for training the burgesses to
self-government, and teaching them by that best
of all preceptors—their reaping themselves the
fruits of their prudence or their folly. It was
conceived at the time, therefore, to be a training
school for the electors themselves under the Re-
form Act ; and it seems to have been extended
beyond the ten-pound householders, as if it were
designed to be the very next step in the enlarge-
ment of the Parliamentary suffrage. Well, the
burgesses have had now nearly twenty years' trial
and training. No doubt, in some instances, they
have not proved themselves wiser than Parlia-
mentary constituencies, but it is notorious that,
on the whole, they have done their duty well,
indeed, so well, that Parliament has itself several
times acknowledged their merit. The working of
important measures has been confided to them,
sanitary measures especially, and thus the general
government of the country has unequivocally set
its seal to the competency of the municipal con-
stituencies.

Are English laws and English customs to be
abandoned in obedience to the ukases of the
AUTOCRAT ? Are we about to surrender the con-

stitutional principles on which we have acted from
time immemorial at the bidding of the CZAR-to
capture fugitives, who, in implicit reliance on our
generosity, had sought refuge on our shores—to
yield up the slave to his tyrannical master, to be
tortured, perhaps murdered, on board a British
man-of-war, under the national standard ? Are
we to permit the venerable Judges of our Supe-
rior Courts—the most important process of law
on which the liberty of the subject is based—to
be treated with contempt and derision by those
who, while in a state of actual war, have been
allowed the use of our chief arsenal to refit and
render them capable of carrying on hostilities
against us ? We thought that England had al-
ready sunk sufficiently low in the scale of nations,
1 under the Administration of the " excellent ABER-

DEEN," and of " all the talents." We could not,

however, have conceived that the crowning point
of her dishonour was to have been so speedily ac-

complished—that the captain of a Russian frigate
would so soon have been permitted to beard the
British " Lion in his den"—to disregard a writ
of habeas, issued by a Judge of the Court of
Queen's Bench, even in the Royal Dockyard at
Portsmouth. These things, a short time since,
we should have deemed incredible. We should
unhesitatingly have contradicted the degrading
imputation. Now, we are compelled
.to inquire
anxiously into the truth of these statements—to
demand that a stringent and searching investiga-

tion should be instituted into the conduct of per-
sons holding rank and station, and of English
policemen, to ascertain whether there is any foun-
dation for the extraordinary assertions that have
been put forward; and, if so, whether any, and
what, explanation or justification can be offered
for their participation in the very strange trans-
action.

Some of our readers may not know the Conser
vative limits of the municipal franchise. The
burgesses are adults who have occupied rated pre-
mises in a borough continuously for three years,
must have been inhabitant householders for those
three years within seven miles of the borough,
and must have paid all the poor and borough
rates for those same three years. It is clear that
this is by no means exactly even household suf-
frage. All the most fluctuating and shifty portion
of the operatives would be excluded by their hav-
ing evaded or been excused their rates, by their
being mere lodgers, by their unsettled habits, and
by their being perpetually in arrears. We happen
to have been very familiar with a borough, how-
ever, one of the wards of which was known as a
Chartist and Socialist one, and some noisy Chartists
were actually, on one occasion, returned by it to
the Town Council. But the effect was precisely
the desirable one which might have been antici-
pated ; the men were placed in an assembly of
their superiors in business habits and intelligence,
as well as in property ; they found their level ;
they became, indeed, conciliators of their brethren
and advocates of peace and order. Messrs. NEW-
TON and COWELL, too, would, we fancy, cut a very
different figure in the House of Commons, should
they ever get there, from what they do in their
" dram and jerry shops," one -very much to the
improvement of their modesty, and of no small
benefit to their dupes.
It will not be denied that it would be a very
great advantage to save persons the trouble of two
registrations, and also to have the single one con-
ducted in the comparatively simple and inexpen-
sive manner of a local Court and Judge. The
entire machinery of Registration Courts, so far as
boroughs are concerned, would be at an end, to
the great joy once a year of hundreds of busy
men. At the same time, it would be requisite to
simplify the principle of rating to equalise it
throughout the country, and to make the rate-
book what it might easily be, an efficient register
of persons who lived permanently in rated houses,
and not merely of those from whom the parish
overseer got the rates. These are all, however,
mere points of detail easily managed. Speaking
broadly—the municipal franchise would give us a
largely extended—yet a long-tried, a successful,
and a trusted suffrage—a suffrage trusted by the
Legislature itself which gave it birth, and to an
extent which shows that it was regarded as having
come of age—of age, we should say, to elect its
national as well as its local representatives.
Of course, these remarks apply directly to the
boroughs, but the principle of them might be
easily extended to the counties. The electors of
Boards of Guardians are much about the same
class of persons relatively, and nearly all the
country is now under the New Poor-law Act. It
is true the guardians' duties are limited com-
pared with those of town-councillors. Still, those
who choose them have had to elect
of adtheirminiconduct
strators
of the local funds, and to judge
in office. We have, however, not long since urged
the desirableness of extending the municipal prin-
ciplembeuret merely the
all
so r
lor t
ethe d
ocuoouen t
or
fy ,Paono dr l pa c gw
a t
tneorts
local and country business in the hands of the guar-
dians. We would, indeed, convert the unions
into municipalities, and train the whole popula-
tion of the country to take an interest in managing
their own affairs. There is no nation in the world
whose inhabitants have more of the faculty for
self-government ; to develop it ought to be the
object of every prudent statesman. Centralisa-
tion is, indeed, the grand essential or military

Our readers can be at no loss to connect these
observations with the statement that appeared in
The Sun of Monday, under the heading of " Ex-
traordinary Occurrence at Portsmouth ;" and we
must confess that, long as we have been connected
with journalism, it has never been our painful
duty to record or comment on a more extraordi-
nary or disgraceful transaction—extraordinary in
all its details, and, if well founded, exhibiting a
depth of degradation hitherto unparalleled.
It was extraordinary ! very extraordinary ! ! to
use the mildest form of expression, that Russian
vessels, Russian officers, and Russian sailors
should, under present circumstances, and at a
time when we are virtually at war with the CZAR,
have been received into our principal national
dockyards ; that the slips paid for by the country
and required for the use of English vessels should
be devoted to the use of Russian frigates, to be
made capable, at our expense, of waging war
against our own trade and commerce. We say at
our expense. If repairs were required, there
were many private establishments where they
could have been effected on fair terms, and where
might have charged the EMPEROR
tforhe. shipbuilder bde r
accommodation. But how could he be
charged for the use of a public dock, maintained
at a heavy cost by the English people ? So long
as war has not been formally proclaimed, we could
not punish British shipbuilders for completely
overhauling or putting into thorough repair even
Russian men-of-war. But such acts beyond the
commonest temporary repairs, merely sufficient to
enable the vessels to return home, ought not to
be attempted under existing circumstances by even
private firms, and are certainly exceedingly unbe-
coming in the national establishments. The first
point to be inquired into, therefore, will be how
it was that the Russians were permitted to avail
themselves of the facilities afforded by the public
dockyard at Portsmouth—more particularly, on
whose authority the dangerous and impolitic step
was taken ?
But still more extraordinary ! was the indis-
criminate admission of the crews of the two
frigates into the arsenal to pry about and see the
mode in which we carried on our work—to see
the manner in which English artisans carried out
their objects, and to learn all that could be
taught without the toil of serving a regu-
lar apprenticeship to the trade. PETER the
Great had to work personally for that pur-
pose. We suffer the officers of his successor
to inspect coolly and acquire information with-
out requiring them to go through so laborious
a process. NICHOLAS has, indeed, cause to be
thankful to the " travelled Thane" who carries
his courtesy to such an extent. In time of pro-
found peace when no cloud could be discovered on
serene,the po
no foreigner wotld l political horizon, and all was tranquil and
even bef
fora
admittedsingle
into
passing l e
Portsmouth Dockyard
visit, without an order' from a Secretary of State
—an order that could not in these old-fashioned
piping times of peace, have been obtained on
trivial or insufficient grounds. Indeed, we re-
collect the indignation of a burly Milesian whose
tongue gave unmistakeable evidence of his Hiber-
nian origin, and whose sleek and well-fed aspect
betokened an intimate acquaintance with the
roast beef and plum-pudding of the -United Ring-

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 7, 1853

MONEY MARKET

AND
COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

CITY, TWO O'CLOCK.
The sales of cotton at Liverpool yesterday were
estimated at 5,000 bales, of which 2,500 American
were taken for export and on speculation. The
market closed heavily, without change in prices.
The sales comprised 4,000 American, 300 Egyptian,
at 6d to 10d., and 800 Surat, at 21d. to 30 per lb.
Railway shares were firm.
At this season of the year, there is one market in
which special activity is expected, namely, that for
dried fruits ; and it is remarked by Messrs.
Witherby and Hanson in their report, dated to-
day, that the large public sales held recently have
not induced purchasers to come forward for cur-
rants. Fine old 1851 fruit is held firmly, however.
The 1853 Cephalonia fruit shows generally an im-
provement upon last year. High prices are evidently
acting in this case, as in all others, by checking
consumption. With respect to raisins, shipments
have commenced to Australia, but Valencias are
down 3s. to 4s. per cwt. within the last two or
three weeks. A feature arising from the deficient
crop is the demand that has sprung up for
black Smyrna raisins, hitherto scarcely known in
England, although a large quantity is grown in
Turkey • and the ports in the Black Sea, Trieste,
and Holland have always been buyers. The cost
of this description at Smyrna has generally been
about ss. to 7s. per cwt., whereas in September
last it rose to 16s. and 20s. per cwt. It appears
that the French distillers, in consequence of the
great destruction of grapes by the disease, became
large purchasers of black raisins as a substitute in
distillation for spirits of wine, which are 100 per
cent. -dearer than they were. Another effect will
be to make these raisins enter permanently into the
future consumption of England.
Bills dated 90 days were yesterday afternoon ne-
gotiated on lower terms as regards Amsterdam,
viz.:-11 l 5 to 16 ; Trieste, which was 11 36 to
40 ; and Frankfort, 1181 to Hamburgh was
• rather higher, 13 51 to 6 ; and Paris was supported
at 25272- to 30.
The following are the prices of bullion as given

by Messrs. Haggard and Pixley :
Doubloons—Spanish 77s. 6d. to 78s. 6d. per oz.
S. American 77s. Od. to 775. 3d. „
United States Gold Coin
Bar Silver
Ditto, containing gold—all
gold above 5 grains in the
pound to be paid for
Dollars—Mexican & South
American
Spanish Pillar
U. S. Halves
Five Franc Pieces
The English funds have been rather unsteady
again owing to the influence of the account, now
iled, and this being " pay day," and the telegra-
phic news that no absolute alliance of the Four
Powers has been. formed, but simply an agreement
to renew negotiations. There may be no more
truth in this statement than in others that have
preceded it, but it has an effect. Consols have been
96, and since 961 to for transfer. The prices
for January have not been higher than 96 and
since 961- to ±. Bank Stock is supported at 219.
Exchequer Bills are a little firmer, being 4s. to 7s.
premium, and India Bonds are par to 4s. premium.
The New 31 per Cents. have realised 97 to 1, and
the 3 per Cents. 951 to 8.
Foreign Stocks have been generally rather
weaker. Spanis h 3 per Cents. have been quoted
464 to Venezt iela Bonds are at 32, and Mexican
at 251. Equador have been firm at 5i13, and
Grenada Active Bonds have been quoted 21.
Peruvian have 11.ot been dealt in. The official re-
port of Admiral Moresby, to the effect that the
guano is not like ly to yield supplies for longer than
eight or nine yea ,rs, is likely to have an important
bearing on the i nterests of the foreign creditors,
the Government at Lima not having hitherto hus-
banded its finances. Sardinian Bonds have been
at 90, without the dividend. Portuguese Four
per Cents. have been marked 42. Dutch Four per
Cents. are 95k.
The Railway k ;hare Market has been quieter, and
prices are scared y up to the highest point of yester-
day There is, b owever, no decided change. Great
Northern, Lana tshire and Yorkshire, Midland and
Caledonian hay e been chiefly dealt in. French
Shares have be en rather higher, and Belgian,
though inactive, are firm.
The Gold IVR ie Shares are steady. In United
Mexican Mine t here is a fair business doing, but
not at the higher rt rates of yesterday.
The Land Con ipanies' Shares have been rather
duller.
The Shares of the Joint Stock Banks have not
varied.

ss. lid. per oz. standard

ss. ld. per oz,
ss. Bd. „

BRITISH FUNI )S THIS DAY AT ONE O'CLOCK
(.Pr om the Official List.)
Business done
Bank Stock
per Cent. Reduce( t Annuities 955 k
3 per Cent. Consols Annuities 94 '4
New 3i per Cent. knnuities 97A 7
Long Annuities, Ex pire sth Jan., 1860 5i 5-16
India Bonds, £lOOl )
Ditto, under £l.O CO par 4 p
Consols for Opening • 18th Jan 96i
Exchequer Bills, Id.
£lOOO
£5OO
Small

4 7 p
4 7 p
4 7 p

N