The Sun.
London, England, 1836-03-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Commons to support it. The country gentlemen,both
Conservative and Whig, express themselves to be in
the highest degree repugnant to the principles by
which the future payments of tithe are to be regulated
according to this " conciliatory" measure, which they say
is open to many of the objections urged against the ex-
isting law of tithe, while the clergy are not a bit better
pleased with it. It is probable after all, as we said
when Lord John Russell first stated the nature of his
bill, in asking for leave to bring it in, that the equit-
able rule which was recommended. by the late Admi-
nistration, and by their adversaries sneered at and re-
jected, will yet become the corner-stone of the policy
about to be preferred by the Legislature.—Times.
The House of Commons have done well—the Go-
vernment have done well in agreeing to the motion of
Mr. Buxton last night for a Committee to enquire into
the working of the apprenticeship system in the Colo-
nies. Indeed our only surprise is that the Government
should have held back, as they appear evidently to
have done, to the very last moment, before they signi-
fied their intention of acceding to a proposition which
it was impossible that they could have resisted upon.
anything like a feasible pretext. If such an idea had
ever crossed their minds as that of refusing the Com-
mittee, they ought to bless their stars for the good luck
of having abandoned that. intention before the over-
whelming facts contained in Mr. Buxton's eloquent
statement had put them to rout and to shame. As it
is, the appointment of the Committee will go forth to
the West Indies as a proof of the determination of
this country not to be trifled with. We have no ob-
jection that the Home Government should treat the
Colonies and the Colonial Assemblies with all possible
respect ; but then it must be a respect consistent with
the determination—ay, and with the expression of the
determination to see justice done and contracts ful-
filled ,in their straightforward and honest mean-
ing, The planters,: be it remembered, have our twen,ty
nAlions of ,money.in their pockets. One part ofthe
contract. has, therefore, been performed. It is time
that they should perform theirs. •From the facts enu-
merated in Mr. Buxton's speech, it is clear that the
planters are willing enough to .postpone the complete
abolition of slavery, if the people and Legislature of
England will allow them to do so. We are, there-
fore, disposed to consider the appointment of this
Committee as an important manifestation, declaring
to the Colonies, and to the world at large, that there
must be no delay, no trickery, no juggling in the case ;
but a plain, straightforward, bona fide discharge of
obligations which cannot be violated without trampling
upon the plainest principles of integrity, to say nothing
of the other principles involved in the question.
Amongst the number of gratifying facts disclosed in
the speed; of Mr. Buxton, and repeated by many of
the speakers who followed that gentleman in the debate,
there are none more gratifying than those which refer to
the conduct, of the abused and misrepresented, blacks.
Instead of violence and bloodshed, their conduct has
exhibited nothing but patience-and industry. The in-
ference, from the whole history of this great transac-
tion, of the abolition law, is faNfourable not only to the
character of human nature, but to the cause of freedom
as a practical experiment. It is now manifest that the
danger of knocking off chains and discontinuing atro-
cities is not so great as the prudence of statesmen had
supposed. It is Manifest that the great difficulty at-
tending such important changes consists not so much
in preparing slaves for freedom as in preparing tyrants
. for moderation and humanity. We do not wish to
speak more severely, nor to criticise more minutely
than the circumstances of the case require, but we
cannot help observing that the Government appears to
us to have put the saddle on the wrong horse, when
they directed all their efforts to take security from the
blacks (by the intervention of apprenticeship) that
they wouldliot abuse their new-found rights, but for-
got to take security from the planters, who had be-
come demoralized 'under the same system of slavery,
that they would respect the rights of their fel-
low men, and keep their own engagements inviolate.
The declaration of the Marquis of Sligo—that.if the
measure should fail, it would owe its failure to the mis-
conduct, not of the blacks, but of the planters, borne
out as it has been,63i the events which have taken
place, cannot-fail to be attended with the most im-
tie,.te.....ieewpape----i-n-e---Tai'af-snbeeik of emancipation in
our Colonies may now be considered as certain. That
success will be the death-blow of slavery all over the
world. It will find its way into the Floridas and the
Carolinas—into the hottest corner of the hottest hell
of slavery ; and the mighty truth will bring forth its
•
proper fruits, iu spite of all that the sordid and malig-
nant passions of men can do to prevent its influence.—
Morning Herald.
We' have no doubt of the sincerity of the indispo-
lion which prevented Lord John Russell from pro-
ceeding on Monday night with the Tithe Commuta-
tion Bill. We have no doubt his Lordship was very
ill of .a consciousness that the public had discovered
this Tithe Bill to be absurd where it was not unjust,
and unjust where it was not absurd. Even the
Papers which the Government is pleased to pa-
tronize, in return for the kindness which they
generally show to Government measures, found
they could no longer differ with the public opi-
rrion upon this Bill ; and on the very day fixed
for the decision of its fate in the House of Commons
they deemed it expedient to pour forth their conviction
of its total erroneousness. We give credit to these
public instructors for the correctness of their judgment
at last, but we cannot extend our congratulations to
the quickness of their perceptidn. Every argument
which, on Monday, the 21st of March, it has occurred
to them to put forth against the Tithe Bill, was sue-
gested in the Morning Herald of the 29th of Febura;y
—exactly three weeks before. We have adverted to
the same subject on more than one occasion since, and
we cannot but feel pleased that, after so much longer
consideration upbn the question, the Ministerial Jour-
nals have come to the same, or very nearly the same
conclusions that we did, after our first perusal of the
Bill. Under all the circumstances of the case, Lord
John Russell was certainly right not to press forward
the Bill on Monday night ; but we think that he or
his colleagues were as certainly wrong in speaking of
the Bill as it was spoken of ,when the postponementof
its consideration in Committee was announced. It is
very possible that Lord Howick knows nothing whatever
of the provisions of the Bill—perhaps he has never read
it. It is not in his department ; nor is it a very inviting or
entertaining study-for those whom it does not immedi-
ately concern Bid. if he had not read it, the Noble
Lord was very rash in stating that there was great mis-
apprehension abroad as to the main provisions of the
Bill ; and if he had read it, there was in the observa-
tion rather strong evidence of the want of understand-
ing on the part of the Noble Lord himself, and want
of fair and reasonable deference for the understanding
of others. It appears that an Hon. Baronet who
moved the Address at the opening of the Session re-
peated (no doubt, according to his instructions) the
same remark, or one of the same description—namely,
that there were many errors abroad regarding the
operation of the clauses of the Bill. Now these state-
ments, whether correct or not, might have been at least
plausible, if the Bill were as yet only known through
the description of the Minister, when moving for leave
to bring it in. But the original Bill has been five or
six weeks before the public, and, even as " amended
by the Committee," it has been more than half that
time in the hands of all those who chose to seek for it.
It is something too much of Lord Howick or Sir J.
Wrottesley to stand up in the House of Commons and
tell the people of England, who complain of a mea-
sure, that they greatly misapprehend the main
provisions of a document which for three weeks
past they have been anxiously examining. We do
not mean to charge the Bill with excessive
dearness, or with the unmistakeable character'
of its language,--quite the contrary. As at first pre-
pared, it was exceedingly difficult to be understood ;
and though much improved in this respect in its "se-
cond edition," it is still far from remarkable for in-
telligibleness. But, he this as it may, we venture to
affirm that it has been studied by intellects as astute as
ever studied a Bill of the kind ; and if it be not com-
prehended, it is because it is not comprehensible: Does
Lord Howick mean to say that men of the highest
eminence, woo hove devoted their lives to the study of
statutes, and who have taken so active and praise-
worthy a part with regard to this Bill, have. been
all the time under a total misapprehension as to its

It becomes our duty to call the immediate attention
of his Majesty's Government, of Parliament, and the
country, to a statement which has appeared in a Frank-
fort Paper of the 16th inst., to the following effect :
" ST. PETERSBIIRGH, MARCH 2.—By the Emperor's
Orders, a quarantine establishment is to be formed at the
Sulinsky mouth of the Danube. It is to be in two parts—
One for pratiques, and the other for suspicious vessels and
goods : the first in the island of Leti, the second in the
island of Georgiewsk. No goods are to be purified in the
establishment, but they are to be forwarded to the Quaran-
tine Establishment at Odessa, or that at Ismael: It will
serve as a place of refuge for ships which are compelled by
storms in the strong current of the Danube to touch at
Sulinsky, to take in provisions, or to undergo repairs.
Merchants, the clerks, and other travellers, will be received
into it who, after the expiration of their quarantine, wish to
go by land to Ismael—a permission granted likewise to the
crews of ships that may be wrecked in the vicinity of these
islands."
Ever since the celebrated cordon sanitaire which
was collected at the foot of the Pyrenees, under the
pretext of preventing the plague of Barcelona from
entering France, was converted by a simple ordonnance
into an invading army, and marched into Spain for the
purpose of putting down the Constitution of 1820, the
quarantine system has become an engine in the hands
of the despotic powers, to which they have resort
whenever they have any political design to conceal.
Thus, in the settlement of Wallachia and Moldavia,
which was effected under the arrangements enacted by
the treaty of Adrianople, Russia took good care that
those provinces should remain under her Sovereign
control, though they are nominally subject to the
Porte. How was this done ? A quarantine esta-
blishment was formed on the northern bank' of the
Danube, and the regulation and control of thiS esta-
blishment were vested in the hands of the:-Russian
Consul-General at Bucharest. The persons who were
appointed to carry his orders into effect are pA police
officers„ but military men, clothed in Russian uniforins;
-and armed in the usual manner. Thus, in fact, under.the
appearance of a quarantine system, which at a distance
sounds very innocently, there may be seen, on the
Wallachian shore of the river, well-organized troops
of Russian soldiers, who owe allegiance only to the
Autocrat. For some time a question has been in dis-
cussion between Russia, Austria, and Great Britain,
as to the -right- Claimed by the former power to levy
tolls upon merchant vessels passing into the Black Sea
from the Danube, cr vice versa. This alleged right is
founded upon the. treaty of Adrianople, by which the
whole Delta of the river was -ceded by. the Porte to
Russia. Treaties previously existing between Austr:a
and Turkey provided that Austrian vessels should
freely navigate the Danube, and under these treaties,
Nhich that of Adrianople could notikpeal, as Austria
was-no party to it, exemption was claimed from the
tolls demanded by the Russian authorities. The gene-
ral treaty of Vienna, to which Russia was a party,
expressly stipulates that the navigation of all the prin-
cipal European ricers should be free, and that no cus-
toms or other imposts higher than those then established
should be levied at the embouchures, or any other part
of these. great canals. No tolls of any kind were a that
period exacted at any of tilt mouths of the Danube ;
consequently the British Government has claimed
the right -for his -.:114-ajesty'L sAects to pass up and
down .the.Danubc without paying. any impost wliat-
evr to the Russian Authorities. It would appear
that'the Russian Cabinet.has.found its positions un-

tenable upon this' point ; that the tolls cannot be
levied according to the law of nations ; and therefore
it is that they, have suggested the adoption of the
;quarantine system, to get out- of the legal difficulty,
but still to preserve their usurpation. An 'impost-not.
payable as a customs'-duty is to be changed into. a
va,rantine cbargc. But the new device goes. much
further than this. The opening of the Danube to the
free navigation of- the subjects of every State would
seriously affect the commerce of Odessa. That corn-
peree
_most be protected at all events; hence every
possible impediment -is to be thrown in the way
of foreign merchant-ships ascending or descending
the river. There are to be two quarantine establishments
—one in the island of Leti, the other in that of
GeorgieWsk ; but in neither of these places -are
goods allowed to be purified—the are to be
UMET, tneretore, [or a r.nii-§h 'ship, for in-
-stance, whose cargo is consigned to a port in %Val-
laohia, to go to Odessa in the first place, and sail
direct from Odessa to the Danube, than to go to the
Danube, then to Odessa, then back to the Danube
again. The ships sent for purification to Ismael, a
port in Bessarabia which belongs to Russia, can only
be those which descend the river. Consequently the
whole object of the quarantine is'plainly to prevent
English and other foreign merchant-ships from carry-
ing on a direct trade with Wallachia or Moldavia, and

to render it a matter of necessity that they should trade
with the Danubian States only through Odessa. The
concessions apparently made to merchants, clerks, tra-
vellers, and crews of ships wrecked in the neighbour-
hood of the two islands, Leti and Georgiew•sk, are to
be set down amongst those flourishes of " magnani-
mity," " disinterestedness," and " generosity" of every
sprt, usually found at the head or the tail of all Rus-
sian documents which mean mischief. All that we
need add to what we have now said upon this sub-
ject. is this, that if the notification above quoted from
a Frankfort journal has emanated from Russian
_authority, _and if the system of quarantine therein
pointed out is to be really carried into effect, there is
an end to British trade in the Danube. No pre-
cedent, we believe, exists for such a vexatious appli-
cation of the sanitary laws to such a purpose as this
declaration reveals upon the face of it. The quaran-
tines of Ismael, Galacz, and Giurgeva, are already
snore than sufficient to protect Bessarabia and the two
principalities from infection. Those about to be
superadded at the Sulinsky mouth of the Danube are
utterly superfluous, in a sanitary point of view, and
are intended for no other purpose than interference
with the rights of every trader who is not Russian.
The British merchants, therefore, who have already
established houses at Bucharest and Jassy, and who
have embarked in them large capitals, may as well
abandon their enterprises at once, and we may bid
adieu to all the brilliant prospects which the steam
navigation of the Danube opened to all Europe. The
trade of the river is to be monopolised by Odessa.—
Morning Chronicle:

From some cause or other, the Melbourne Ministry
does not seem to get much a-head with those great
measures of which its chief boast is to have been the
originator, and on the accomplishment of which, ac-
cording to its advocates, the well-being of the empire
depends. -One of the first promises of the Whig go-
vernment, five years ago, was a Bill for the commuta-
tion of tithes in England and Wales ; but it is no
less edifying than curious that Sir R. Peel, the Con-
servative, who was guiltless of all ostentation or pro-
fession upon the subject, should have been the first
to bring forward a Tithe Commutation Bill which was
(3egerving a second serious thought. Sir Robert Peel
aro-unded his measure of commutatien upon a volun-
taryo agreement between titheowner and landowner, to
which ,he naturally took for granted that a sense of
mutual i, iterest would incline them both, and he en-
grafted up. 4'n
this root a provision for perpetuating
.by
foree of law
that same adjustment of their respective
rights and ob.lig
ations which at first they had spon-
taneously concurred in. It is to be presumed that
wherever an affreetvent took place, each party would
be previously satisfied of its fairness, and therefore,
after two or three ycars' experience of the beneficial
working of such a voluvtary system, that the authority
of law might be employed for its cont.'nuance without
nt to it, and
hardship to either party, :whose first asse
,4 to be suosequent acquiescence in it, had proved 1,
rea-
sonable and effic • .
acious. The workin aof sue h a mea-
sureh
the n
would obviously furnish safest and th,' most
satisfactory data for
the details of a compulsory co.m-
mutation bill, if one should be found necessary, a::
probably it would, in
order to meet cases where 'Par-
ties from ignorance or interest
could be brought to 310
agreement at all. Now, the delay of - liliiris-
ters in proceeding with their bill, t.
which substitutes
immediate compulsion for temporary freedom 'n the
bargain between the tithe-payerand - i 4 •
tithe-ret.6tver,
leads to the suspicion that something has gone w rong.
The dissatisfaction it has produced is universal oi it of
doors, nor do we believe that Lord John Russell' can
reckon upon even a strong minority in the Ilou. le pf

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1836.

main provisions ?- Will even he have the confi-
dence to affirm that Mr. Preston is non-apprehenSive
as to the meaning of a Bill creating a rent charge on
landed property, or that Mr. Eagle does not under-
stand provisions relating to tithes? With all deference
to the station and character of the Secretary-at-
War, we venture to tell him that the opinion of West-
minster Hall is of rather more value on such a subject
than his opinion, and there is no man with a lawyer's
gown on his back who would not immediately yield,
with the deference weich knowledge is ever ready to
pay to well-earned reputation, to the opinions of such
men as these upon such subjects. We do not find
that when the deputation of landowners (of whom we
believe Mr. Eagle, the author of works of great pro-
fessional authority on the subject. of tithes, was one)
waited upon Lord John Russell, that his Lordship
taunted them with having misapprehended the main
provisions of his Bill. He seemed rather to desire to
reconcile those who waited upon him to the operation
of the evils in the Bill, which, according to him, it is
impossible to avoid. This is another form of that con-
fidence in their own abilities which our Ministers pos-
sess—certainly in as high a degree as their pretensions
justify. It is true, said Lord John, with surprising
coolness, that highly cultivated lands' will be made 'sub-
ject for ever to a rent charge calculated upon that high
cultivation, whatever their future condition may be ;
but, then, on the other hand, lands which are now
compardtively unproductive will, when highly culti-
vated, pay no more tithe than they pay at this mo-
ment. His Lordship thinks of averages, and forgets
the injustice on both sides, of which the mean—
which practically will not exist at all—is equity.
The injustice to those charged, under all circum-
stances, with a tithe rent charge calculated upon
high. 'cultivation, will be the greater and the more
intolerable, because other lands, in the possession
of dther landowners, which have been' more re-
cently brought into cultivation, will be subject only
to a tithe charge calculated according to their former
barrenness. 'The competition of these more favourably
circumstanced lands will make it the more difficult, to
bear the burden of a tithe charge fixed upon an er-
roneous and an unjust principle. We are very curious
to see the course which Lord John Russell will take
after he shall have " screwed his courage to the stick-
inc.-place" regarding :the Tithe Commutation Bill.
Hitherto he certainly has not improved upon the Bill
which Sir R. Peel brought in last year, and has now
re-introduced. Of that Bill it may be said that, in-
stead of sweeping away the evils complained of in the
tithe-system, it only affords the means of adjustment
between the parties, which, if they are agreed upon,
will remove these evils. But this much is clear, that
if such a Bill, in consequence of not being compul-
sory, falls short of certainty in producing good, it can-
not enforce new or aggravated evil. The complaint
against Lord John Russell's Bill is that, under the
name of a remedy, it introduces a confirmation of an
--acknowledged evil, and even adds to it hardships and
hopelessness which hitherto have been unknown. We
think his Lordship will be wise to take the advice of
Mr. HodgeS, and postpone his Bill until after Easter.
During the recess it is possible he may learn that
the " misapprehension of the main provisions of the
Bill" has not been with, the public.--Morning
Herald.

The impartial and judicious report of the Commis-
sioners appointed by his Majesty. •to inquire into the
system of discipline in the army, and the interesting
and satisfactory evidence upon which that report is
founded, are calculated to set the question of the aboli-
tion of corporal punishment completely at rest. Yet
it is already evident that they will fail to do so, and
that they will fail not from any deficiency in the evi-
dence itself, or from any inaccuracy in the reasoning
founded upon it, but simply because there are many
persons whose interests will not permit them to forego
the opportunities of agitation which the continued dis-
cussion of- the subject may afford, and a still greater
number—the willing dupes and slavish followers of the
former artful and wicked class—who—
" Convinced against their will,
Are of the same opinion still."

For the condition of the public mind, in reference
to this important subject,ipiznqvctuers, ;6,"i'tie3-Mk
acid Radical parties, and especially some of the prin-
cipal Members of the present Administration, are
chiefly responsible. They have laboured throughout
their woole political lives to inflame the passions and
to pervert the understandings of their countrymen upon
this as upon other subjects, when their object was
merely to force their way into power by means of a
cheap and vulgar popularity. And, now that they are
in possession of power, and would elude, if they dared,
the performance of their unprincipled promises and
the accomplishment of their daring and senseless
projects, they at least have no right to com-
plain if they should be held to the letter of their
vicious compact, and be compelled to encounter
the hazard of attempting what they so vehemently
and recklessly urged upon their predecessors. The
Ministers of the Crown must hazard all the conse-
quences of an attempt to abolish corporal punishments
in the army, or plead guilty to the charge of having
heretofore, in their wickedness and folly, agitated tile
public mind upon a subject which they did not under-
stand—upon a subject which ordinary diligence and
activity in search of information would have enabled
them to understand then as fully as they call under-
stand it now—upon a subject of such vital importance
that the man, professing to be a Statesman, who has
once permitted himself to speak or write upon it in
ignorance, is manifestly guilty of one of the highest of
public crimes. We willingly leave, however, the Whig
and Radical Ministers of the Crown to steer their
course as they may think fit between the opposite
dangers, of gratifying the expectations they have ex-
cited among their deluded admirers, and of attempting
to legislate upon so important a subject as that of the
discipline of the British army, in opposition to such a
Report and such evidence as now lie before us. A
more interesting and a more useful employment than
that of speculating upon the future conduct of such
men, now demands our attention—that, namely, of
describing the results of the laborious inquiry which
has been pursued by the Commissioners appointed for
the purpose by Sir R. Peel, and the character of the
evidence upon which their conclusions rest. The Com-
missioners have the merit of having collected what may,
without exaggeration, be termed a complete body. of
evideneo upon the important subject committed„, to.
their -investigation. 'I. hey sought information from
officers of all ranks in the British army-=from privates
of the British army, recommended for the general ex-
cellence of their character as soldiers and as men—
from four intelligent and distinguished officers of the
French army, sent by the Government of France, at
their request, for the purpoSe of being examined—fro,
the most eminent persons in political and military life,
t
who are most prominent in the eye of the world as
the opponents of corporal punishment—from all
printed and manuscript documents of an authentic
character which could be expected to shed light upheon
any branch of the subject. They have challanged
world to compare their Report with this mass of evi-
dence, by presenting, as was their duty, the two to-
gether ; and they have done this in the just and well-
founded confidence that the latter will fully andcoad
com-
pletely sustain the former. The Report alleges, and
the allegation is fully supported by the whole mass of
more
testimony, that the mode of recruiting the British
army by enlistment, as compared with the compulsor
levies of other States, is a circumstance highly unfa-
vourable to the character and discipline of a mili-
tary force ; and it asserts, what is, in truth, no
than a plain conclusion of common sense, that
a military body so constituted requires a different sys_
tem of discipline from that which is held to be neces-
sary in the Continental armies, drawn, as the latter
are, promiscuously from the various classes of society,
and containing a smaller proportion of men who are
induced to enter the army by the desperation of their
circumstances, the result of antecedent improvidence or
vice. The report and evidence further show, what in-
deed scarcely required to be shown, since it is
self-
evident, that the British system of recruiting by bounty
cannot t 1 e
cboentexchangednent.
of Europe, fora
and that the original mate-
rial conscription system, like that
of
of which our army is composed cannot otherwise be
improved without such an increase of the expense of
our military establishment as the nation is not prepared
to endure. Had the evidence stopped here, it would