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

not in directly menacing, at least in very ominous
and significant, language.
After speaking of his various demands from the
SULTAN, he says—
"On putting this ultimatum to the Porte, we parti-
cularly informed the Cabinets of the Great Powers of
our intentions. We may especially name France and
Great Britain, whom we had engaged not to complicate
the difficulties of the situation by assuming an attitude,
or prematurely taking steps which, on the one hand,
would have the effect of encouraging the Porte in a
course of opposition, and, on the other, might involve
t hem further than they then were in a question relating
to the honour and dignity of the EMPEROR."

This intimation of his sovereign will and pleasure
he seems, or pretends, to have considered all that
could be required to insure compliance. He
could not for a moment suppose that other Powers
would have had the audacity to interfere between
his rebellious vassals and himself any more than
the former would have ventured to refuse his
ultimatum. He thus gives expression to his
disappointment :

" I regret to announce to you this day, that this
double inducement has been unfortunately tried in vain.
" The Porte, as you will perceive by the subjoined
letter of Reschid Pacha, has returned a refusal, or at
least, an evasive reply to my note.
" Further, the two Maritime Powers have not thought
fit to accede to the proposition which we had recom-
mended to their serious consideration. Taking the ini-
tiative, they have thought it necessary to forestal, by a
prompt and effective step, those which we had merely
announced to them as contingent (eventudlee), inasmuch
as we subordinated their effectual carrying out to what-
ever might be the final resolution of the Porte ; and
further, at the moment I write, their execution has not
yet commenced. They have precipitately sent their
fleets to the very shores of Constantinople ; they
already occupy the waters and the harbours of the Otto-
man empire at the mouth of the Dardanelles. By this
forward movement, the Two Powers have made a threa-
tening demonstration towards us, which, as we had
already forewarned them, must add new complications
to the crisis."
And adds :

"In the face of the refusal of redress by the Porte,
upheld by the manifestation of support from France and
England, it has become more impossible than ever to
modify the resolutions which the EMPEROR had attached
to that refusal."

Under these circumstances it is that he has been
compelled to order his troops to cross the fron-
tiers, and to occupy the Principalities. He still
disclaims every idea of conquest. or extension of
territory. But he adds to his previous conditions,
not only the concession by Turkey of all that he
has hitherto demanded, but that she shall " take
order to remove the pressure exercised by the
attitude of the two Maritime Powers." This he
pretends to be one of the causes of his invasion,
although Besika Bay is more than 150 miles from
Constantinople, and in waters open to all the
world. As well might the Ribandmen of Tip-
perary complain of the establishment of a police
force as an insult to their honour, or an undue
suspicion of their objects.
It is unnecessary to offer further comment on
this extraordinary production. We trust it will
excite into activity those who have hitherto ex-
hibited such deplorable apathy and carelessness
in matters where the best interests, as well as the
honour, of the British nation are so intimately
concerned.

It cannot be denied that Government has taken
a course with regard to Jamaica at once concilia-
tory and hopeful. It has recalled a Governor
whose six years' term of office was expired, and
thereby at once removed one of the parties in the
quarrel, without giving a triumph to the other
party. It has appointed a new Governor, Mr.
BARELY, who has proved his disinterestedness, his
firmness, and his powers of conciliation also, in
another of the old slave colonies, Guiana, where
the difficulties to be encountered were of a pre-
cisely similar kind ; and it has held out to the
Assembly pecuniary inducements, which, though
great to Jamaica, will cost us next to nothing, to
enter upon a satisfactory course of constitutional
and financial reform. It is no mean testimony to
the merit of the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S proposals
that both Earls DERBY and GREY concurred sub-
stantially with them, and only offered a little
friendly criticism on some points of detail.
With such a Governor as Mr. BAnKLY, and
such a disposition as that evinced by the
leaders of all parties here, the House of Assembly
has an opportunity, such as can hardly be sur-
passed, of burying all byegones in oblivion, and
of devoting itself afresh to the real interests of all
classes in the Island. If it will do so, we think
with Lord WHARNCLIFFE that, in an island where
nature has done so much, and where there is a
tropical population capable of great energy, if it
be fairly summoned into action, there is no reason
to despair of the future for our beautiful Queen
of the Antilles.
Jamaica has never had a fair trial. Slavery
and monopoly were long its bane, and during the
reign of these adored but impoverishing tyrants, the
cry of "distressed planters" was raised periodically
almost as regularly as that of " distressed agri-
culturists." The almost sudden extinction of
slavery, and the lingering death of its commercial
monopolies, especially the latter, told most dis-
tinctively on its prosperity. The whites
could not endure to look upon the blacks
as fellow-freemen ; it was morally impos-
sible for them to lay aside coercion for
persuasion, the whip for wages. They unfortu-
nately repelled the negroes from free labour by
the double folly of offering very low wage; and
taxing vindictively, and therefore heavily, all
such imported articles of consumption as were
most needed by the negroes. To this they added
demanding high rents for their cabins and gardens.
Some men of moderation succeeded better with
their former slaves ; some called in the missiona-
ries as arbitrators, and settled a satisfactory scale
of wages ; but the generally dogged temper of the
dethroned planters, the high rents, and the taxes
on provisions, drove great numbers of the negroes,
who otherwise were slow to leave the estates, to
become squatters wherever they could. More-
over, with little labour, they could provide them-
selves with house, food, and clothing for a tropi-
cal climate ; and kindly-intentioned persons here,
co-operating with the missionaries and other island
philanthropists, advanced considerable sums of
money in the purchase of land, which was very
cheap, to be retailed in small allotments to the
emancipated slaves ; a step which whilSt it me

cases of arbitrary conduct, and tended to create
a class of independent and respectable peasants,
yet also tended to lessen the number of labourers
for hire, and to draw the best hands from the
labour-market by the prospect of respectable inde-
pendency. The Hill Coolie immigration, if it
furnished a partial and rather costly antidote,
yet worked great mischief through driving the
native population, which after all is the real labour
power of the island, more and more to seek their
support by any means in preference to working
for wages ; and thus in every way the temper of
the former slaveholders injured their natural sup-
ply of free labour. Of course the emancipated,
on their part, were not in the temper to find free-
dom less remunerative than slavery.
Not less prejudicial to the exertion, on which
all legitimate prosperity must depend, has been
the gradual destruction of the monopoly duties on
sugar. First, by equalising the duties on -East

and West India sugar, and then by admitting
slave-grown sugar to competition ; while even
till the last session of Parliament they have been
deluded by " Planters' friends," with the hope of
something again in the shape of protection. That
hope was, of course, buried for ever with the im-
mortal minority of 53 ; and to unrestricted com-
petition the unfortunate and long-beguiled whites
of Jamaica must now submit. Although, how-
ever, they no longer doubt this, yet, of course,
their temper is not improved by finding that hope
deferred has ended in hope completely baulked.
The quarrel which has lasted for some time be-
tween the House of Assembly and the Legislative

Council has, in consequence, come to its climax:
the former resolve that they will transact no

business with the latter, and the latter refuse to

give way. The result being of like effect, with
an irreconcileable quarrel between our House of
Lords and House of Commons ; all busi-
ness is at a stand-still, and the taxes,
which are voted annually, having ceased, the
revenue has ceased also. The Council, however,
bears no resemblance to our House of Lords. It
consists entirely of salaried- government officials,
its salaries dependent on an annual Tote of the.