The Sun.
London, England, 1838-03-12 00:00:00

securities. On behalf of the public, we ask why the
interest on Exchequer bills is not again reduced to the
level at which it stood before the difficulties of the Bank of
England induced the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER to
tax the public, to fill its coffers ?

" The Necropolis Bill," says a Morning Contemporary,
which was thrown out in the House of Lords last yottr,
and which proposes to inclose the beautiful walk to Hemp-
stead, will be brought before a Committee of the House of
Commons this day." We trust that the measure will not
be allowed to pass through Committee, but meet with a
vigorous opposition from all Liberal 'Members. It
is of no earthly benefit except to interested parties,
who seem to care little about the public convenience,
provided their own ends are answered. By the Bill in
question, one of the most beautiful and healthy field-
walks in the neighbourhood of the metropolis will be
forbidden ground to the people, with whom it has been
hitherto a favourite place of resort in the long summer
evenings, and more especially on Sundays, the only period
when the toil-worn operative has an opportunity of breath-
ing the fresh air of •the country. We have not so many
pleasant green fields lying within the distance of a short
walk from our close and over-peopled Babylon, that we
can afford to dispense with those in the neighbourhood of
Hampstead. Brickand mortar have made sad inroads on our
enjoyments in this respect, and if we are not,v now to be furth or
incommoded by a cemetery, the only delightful walk we have
left, northwards of the metropolis, will be effectually shut
out from us. And why is this nuisance proposed to be
established ? Merely in order th:,t the dead may have a
respectable and picturesque place of interment provided for
them ! We trust that Parliatnent will treat this absurd
and ungenerous measure as it deserves to be treated, and
bear in mind that it is the duty of Government to legislate,
not for the dead, but the living. We shall not lose sight
of this matter, and meanwhile direct the attention of our
readers to a letter which appears on the subject in to-day's
Sun, from the pen of Mr. JAMES, who has taken it up in a
proper spirit.

The Times informs the world this morning, that the
Ministers, backed by the majority of the House of Com-
mons, are not strong enough seriously to grapple with the
Church of Ireland. The greatest political nuisance that ever
existed in any country, must, therefore, remain pestiferous
to the people, and master of the Government. We must give
up all hope, it seems, that an Ecclesiastical Establishment
which is made wealthy by fleecing the poorest peasants on
the face of the earth, and to whose comfort or instruction
it in no wise contributes, will ever be improved. The
Times also tells us that an open contest with the Church of
England appals the Ministers, who are thus defied by
the Ecclesiastical Establishment in both countries. We
must suppose that the Bishops have recovered, ac-
cording to the Rev. SYDNEY SMITH, from their fright at
the Dissenters, and are ready boldly to resist the nation.
No attempt, we are assured by the Times, " to transfer any
surplus to arise from the re-arrangement of Bishops' leases
for the extinction of Church-rates" will be tolerated by the
bold Bishops ; and the friends of the Church are" to badger
Lord JOHN RUSSELL out of his skin," to prevent him from
even obtaining a report from the Committee, which be pro-
poses to appoint, to enquire into Bishops' leases. The
Clergy are resolved to give up nothing, and not
to allow a single abuse to be touched, lest its re-
moval should destroy the whole estaVishment. In
Ireland, in Scotland, and in England, the Church obviously
assumes to be the master of the lives and fortunes of the
people, and the instant the Legislature refuses to be the
servant of its wishes it is set at defiance. Why men, who
boast of freedom, should take great pains to check every
approach to civil tyranny, and why they should supinely
allow clerical tyranny to heard the assembled majesty of
the nation, we profess not to understand. The tyranny of
the Church has in it something which makes it in-

finitely worse than any civil tyranny. It not only
takes our property and prescribes our behaviour,
but it assumes the control over education, and trains
the infant, mind under the hopes and fears of the un-
known, to believe that obedience to the priesthood
is one of men's first duties. How long thisenlightened na-
tion is to tolerate the arrogant assumption of the Bishops
as shadowed forth in the article of the Times, daring the
Ministry and the House of Commons to abate even the
most flagrant of their usurpations we cannot foresee ; but
it would surely be better to have no Church Establishment
at all, than one which openly sets at defiance all the secu-
lar authority of the State.

Of the many important. questions now before the public,
none excites so general and deep an interest as the question
of slavery. We doubt, indeed, whether, at any period
since the abolition of slavery first began to be discussed in
this country, the publie feeling has ever been stronger, or more
emphatically expressed on this subject than at the pre-
sent moment. Nor is this to be wondered at, when we
consider that the accursed system which originally roused
the indignation, and prompted the exertions of the British
public, is as vigorously at work as ever. The Slave-trade,
it is true, as far as Great Britain is concerned, has been
abolished ; but has the sum of human misery been thereby
diminished ? We fear not. We are afraid it will be found that
our abandonment of this nefarious traffic has had the effect
of stimulating the efforts of other nations to increase their im-
portation of slaves, and that a greater number of human be-
ings are now made victims to the trade in blood, than wh-n
we participated in it. For this there is one andbut one remedy.
We may make what treaties we please with foreign nations for
the extinction of the trade,but until it shall be declared piracy,
and punished as such, we might as well save ourselves the
trouble of negotiation. It is utterly useless, and worse
than useless, for it has tended to increase the barbarities
practised in the transportation of the slaves.
But it may, perhaps, be said, " We have no controul
over the proceedings of other natians, and are responsible
only for the conduct of our own subjects." Have we not paid
twenty millions sterling for the emancipation of the Negroes
in our colonies? and is not slavery completely extinguished
throughout the British empire? We heartily wish that this
were indeed so. That we have paid the twenty millions
is true enough, but as far as regards the object for which
this, the noblest sacrifice ever laid by a nation upon the
altar of humanity, was made, we have not proceeded a
single step beyond the point we had reached on the Ist of
August, 1834. We know that the negroes must all be set
at liberty in 1840. Beyond that period the planters and
their agents cannot extend their tyranny ; hut in the mean-
time slavery exists in almost all its former atrocity, and unless
the Government interfere more energetically than it has
hitherto done between the so-called apprentice and his op-
pressor, will continue to exist to the last hour at which the
latter can say to the former, " I am your master."
That this should be the state of things in the West

Indies, after all that has been done to ameliorate the state
of the black population, may appear incredible to those who
have not the means of knowing the real state of the case. But
every dayis accumulating evidence to the same effect. Among
the proofs which have lately been laid before the public of
colonial slavery there is one which pre-eminently deserves
attention. It is a pamphlet entitled " Jamaica under the
Apprenticeship System," by the Marquis of SLIGO. This
is a work that must open the eyes of the most
bigotted supporters of the planters. No man is better
qualified to instruct the public on this question. Lord
SLIGO has had the best means of information, and his tes-
timony is above all suspicion. To-morrow we shall make
some extracts from this most interesting pamphlet.

The Paris journals of Friday and Saturday have all been
received• In the official columns of the Citrate of Friday
we find the following intelligence from Spiin