The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-26 00:00:00

SIIIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

General Cockhum, in a letter in this day's
Chronicle, which we have elsewhere alluded to,
refers to his pamphlet published under the title
of " Six Letters on subjects very important to
England." In one of these letters the General
enters on the subject of tithes. " In respect to
the value of Church property (he says) I have
not the means of knowing it with nice accuracy ;
but from a number of tables and returns that
have examined, and by calculations I had made
by in skilful accountant, I am confident I am
rather under the mark when I state that the en-
tire church property of England and Ireland,
including Bishops' lands, Deans and Chapters,
and ail the tithes, as yielding amongst them an
income of at least nine millions a year ; and
that the Bishops' lands, if out of lease, would
be worth another, making ten millions a year ;
but as the leases of these lands will not be out
for 21 years, of course there would be a differ.
ence to make, and which shall be noticed in its
proper place. . . The value of gross pro-
duce, and on which tithe is charged, is calculated
at the produce or actual value, viz.-200 millions
a year ; but if only levied at a sixteenth, instead of
tenth, and on 150 millions instead of on 200,
the tithes amount to nine millions, besides Mi-
nisters' money in towns, on houses, &c. Of
course I include Dean and Chapter tithes.
These gentlemen have estates also, at least in
Ireland, but of what value I know not ; we may,
however, safely value them and tithes at ten mil-
lions annually, and the Bishops at one million,
dropping the other 200,000. General Cock-
burn allows for lay impropriations three millions,
and after deducting this, seven millions remain,
which at fifteen years' purchase would produce
one hundred and five millions towards the liqui-
dation of the national debt. He proposes that
the clergy shall be borne on the national expen-
diture for two millions a year. Without follow-
ing General Cockburn into the details of his
plan for making mother Church available to the
public and the poor, we cannot help expressing
an opinion, that the people of England and Ire-
land will not continue much Fonger to be the
laughing-stocks of the world for the asinine pa-
tience with which they bear burthens which no
other country would tolerate. In the second num-
her of the fifth volume of the Swiss Archives for
Statistics and National Economy, just published, a
statement is given of the revenue, population,
&c. of eleven of the large and rich cantons,
namely, Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Basle, Soleure,
Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Aargau, Vaud, Ge-
neva, and the Grisons. The population of these
eleven cantons is 1,446,000, and the whole of
the revenues of the State, including interest on
capital (for in Switzerland the Governments
lend instead of borrow), and including tithes
also, in the cases of Zurich, Berne, Soleure, and
Aargau (of which the population is 787,000)
amounts only to 7,232,000 francs, or little more
than 300,0001. sterling. This sum pays the
clngy, pays schools, pays the administration of
justice, and a variety of other expellees, which
in England are paid by the people over and
above the taxes to the State. Out of this sum
the Governments are continually saving, the in-
terest of which diminishes the burden on the
people. The Swiss author justly congratulates
his countrymen on their proud distinction of be-
ing less burthened by taxes than any other civi-
lized people. " It will hardly (he observes) be
affirmed, that the low rate of taxation is in the
ratio of the greater poverty of our country, for
it may be assumed, without exaggeration, that,
in several of our cantons at least, thOugh each
individual pays on an average one-third or one-
fourth part only of the taxes paid by each French-
man, the wealth and the income of the Swiss is
greater than that of the Frenchmen." What a se-
vere satire is conveyed in the following passage on
the public men of a certain country, in which
the members of the Privy Council alone share
amongst themselves more than the double of the
expenditure of Switzerland We see (ob-
serves the Swiss writer) that the wants of the
Sate usually met by Governments are tolerably
well provided for; that though many branches
of public administration cost much less here than
elsewhere, they are not worse discharged—nay,
that, generally speaking, more money is ex-
pettleti here on many objects, as roads, schools,
useful structures, &c., than in other countries.
We see that for the most part unnecessary ex-
penditure only is retrenched ; the servants of the
State are moderately, but sufficiently remune-
rated, and their number is not great ; ace know
nothing of the lavish allowances which are so
burdensome to other States ; nothing of expen-
(limn , which has merely ostentation for ob-
ject ; the salaries of all the men in place are far
Jess in amount than the civil list of a Prince.
Our Governments in all times have anxiously
endeavoured to confine the yearly expenditure
within the yearly income. This moderate
expenditure, on as many important objects,
is so much a stronger proof of a con-
scientious Administration, that from the na-
ture of things, it is evident that many institu-
tions must be proportionably more expensive in
small than in large States." In speaking of rich
and poor countries, a great mistake is often com-
mitted. Some countries are called rich because
there are rich individuals in them, though the
mass of the people are in a state of the greatest
destitution. In fact, the wealth of the indivi-
duals is too often the cause of the poverty of the
mss_ If the Swiss public men were to be as
rapacious as the English Aristocracy, there
would he a greater number of rich individuals,
and the mass would be in a state of destitution.
We were once particularly struck by an obser-
vation of the late Lord Redesdale in the House
of Lords. A countryman, with exultation, re•
marked to his neighbour, pointing to a bench
of Magistrates in Yorkshire, "there are two
hundred thousand pounds a-year on that
bench." This his Lordship thought, of course,
highly honourable to the Yorkshire country-
man. In England the Aristocracy have suc-
ceeded, to a considerable degree, ill corrupting
m
the public morality, l%l' making people vain of what
ought to fill them with shame—that they have so
long allowed themselves to be (loped into the no-
tion, that it is for their honour .304 glory they
should be pillaged unmercifully to fattiNi sine-
curists, lay and ecclesiastical. What a pobic
triumph to be taxed three or four times more
than any other people ! to have colonies merely
to gorge the spawn of the boroughmongers—to
have Bishops enjoying the income of Princes,
and Noble Dukes with estates equal to half a
province, throwing their mothers on tile public
in the character of state paupers ! We trust the
day is not distant when Englishmen will feel a
pride in protecting themselves from rapine and
injustice, instead of being the most plundered
of nations. The splendour which is derived
from what causes the misery and privation of the
mass of the people, will then be synonymous
with national degradation. We shall close our
observations with the following quotation from

the Leeds Mercury of Saturday last. It cannot
be too often dinned in the ears of the people,
that many of the sufferings under which they
groan are caused by the extravagant expenditure
of a bad Government :
" Our attention has this week been forcibly directed to
the inquiry, how it happens that labour is so much worse
rewarded in this old and opulent country than in the United
States of America? It appears from the letter of one of
our correspondents, that there is scarcely any such thing
in the United States as the employment of young children
in manufactories ; and the question arises, why should
they be so employed here? There is also another question
—.How does it happen that so many of our work-people
are out of employment, or only partially employed, and
that so many more of them, both in manufacturing and
agricultural districts, are receiving so miserable a remune-
ration for their labour ; and this too in a country where
there is abundance of capital, and of course so many
means for employing the poor? We should be very glad
to have an answer from Mr. Sadler to these questions.
Our answer to them, however, we will give in the mean
time. Young children are necessitated to work in the
manufactories here, instead of going to school, because
their parents cannot support them without that income
which they derive from their labour. And why can they
not support them? The answer is—because the wages
of the parents are so small, compared with the price of
the necessaries of life, that they will not supply the daily
returning wants of their families ; and the cause of so
many work-people being unemployed, so many partially
employed, and so many unprofitably employed, is this
—that the nation is burdened with an enormous load
of taxation, occasioned by the extravagance and misma-
nagement of the Government of the last fifty years, by the
borough proprietors having saddled all their dependents
upon the State, and by the corn laws pressing upon the
industrious classes, with a weight that is scarcely to be
endured. If it be further inquired, how these evils are to
be remedied, we would say, by pursuing exactly the op-
posite course to that which has produced them ; by a re-
formed instead of a nomination House of Commons ; by
an economic instead of an extravagant Government, which
a Reform in Parliament must produce ; by cultivating
the arts of peace, instead of engaging in long and ruinous
wars; by removing all monopolies prejudicial to the
people ; and by either repealing the corn laws, or so mo-
difying them, that the people can have cheap bread. And
after all this is done, it is still doubtful whether the middle
and lower classes will not find themselves oppressed by the
weight of taxation, and whether it may not ultimately be
necessary that persons of property, both landowners, mer-
chants, fundholders, and others, as well in the Church as
in the State, should make a general contribution, to extin-
guish a large portion of the National Debt—that moun-
tain which Mr. Pitt and his followers raised to so gigantic
a magnitude, and which overlays and oppresses the
country."—Morning Chronicle.

The merciless slaughter, which is stated to
have been committed in cold blood the other
day, under the orders of the pious Nero of
Spain, upon the unfortunate Torrijos and his ill-
fated followers, affords an additional proof to the
many that have recently occurred of the exter-
minating vigour upon which modern despotism
relies for the enforcement of its doctrines and
the establishment of its power. How different
was the example which the Constitutionalists
gave when they overthrew the arbitrary power
of Ferdinand, and gave liberty to Spain ! They
spared the life of the tyrant, stained as he was
with the blood of Porlier, Lacy, and other brave
men, whose valour had assisted to raise him to
that power which he wielded to crush the free-
dom of his country. They even allowed him
to reign, and accepted his oath to the mainte-
nance of the Constitution of the Cortes, though
he had given such signal proof of the perfidy of
his character, and the ingratitude of his dispo-
sition, by overturning the former constitutional
system, at the head of which he had been placed
by the heroic patriots of the Peninsular war,
whom he persecuted and destroyed. We con-
fess, with all our knowledge of the character of
Ferdinand, and the positive manner in which the
news from Gibraltar states that the orders to
execute rorrijos and his followers were carried
into effect, we cannot give implicit credence
to such horrible intelligence, until it re-
ceives such authentic confirmation as leaves
no longer any room for doubt ; for even the
worst tyrants have sometimes deviated into cle-
mency from satiety of blood : and it is not long
since that human sacrifices enough, one would
think, had been offered to Ferdinand, near the
French frontiers, to alleviate his terrors, or
gratify his revenge. As to the fact of Tor-
rijos and his followers having fallen into the
hands of the Spanish authorities at Malaga,
there is no doubt ; but as to the circumstances
which accompanied their capture, there is much
discrepancy in the accounts. The communica-
tion from Gibraltar, dated December 13, which
positively states that from 54 to 57 Liberals,
who had surrendered, had been subsequently
shot, affirms, that the patriots had evaded the
vigilance of the police at that garrison, and con-
trived to effect a landing in Spain ; having been
entrapped by Spanish emissaries, who carried
on a correspondence with them for that purpose,
and made them believe that if they effected a de-
scent on the coast they would be joined by the
Spanish troops. The account is not credible,
because we must believe Torrijos and his fol-
lowers, who were not without experience in en-
terprises of difficulty and danger, to be absolute
fools if they could be duped by such a
shallow and common-place contrivance, to place
themselves, without any resource or reliance
but their credulity in the patriotism of
their countrymen, within the territory of the
inexorable tyrant. The scenes which so recently
occurred near the Pyrenees might have convinced
the most enthusiastic devotees ofliberty that Spain
was no longer the land where a few defenceless
patriots were likely to inspire either troops or people
ith admiration and love of chivalry and freedom.
There is a very different version of this affair,
which we could wish, for the honour of our own
country, was not true. It •is stated by the In-
dicator of Bourdeaux, that the refugees, about sixty
in number, being compelled by the authorities
to leave Gibraltar, embarked on board two small
French vessels, bound to France ;but the Spanish
Government, which had long watched all their
motions, ordered its Custom-house vessels to
pursue and drive them on the Spanish coast.
The French vessels perceiving, but too late, this
infamous plan, in vain hoisted the Oa-coloured
flag, protested that they were bound to France—
that they had no hostile project against Spain
and had no passengers but unarmed individuals.
They were obliged to land their passengers, who
were instantly made prisoners. If this account
be true the whole case presents a most audacious
insult to the flag of France, as well as an un-
heard of violation of the rights of humanity and
the laW of nations, But how came our own
authorities at Gibraltar to compel the unfor-
tunate refugees to embark, under the circum-
stances stated, and thereby rush into the nets
which the enemy had spread for their lives ? We
hope this part of the tragic tale will prove untrue,
but at all events it if; a case that ought to be
inquired into in Parliament, more especially as
it appears that a British subject has been put to
dead], and his body, if the account can be ere•
dited, insultingly sent to the British Consul.
of the capture, which
Now the official account
appeared in an Extraordinary Gazette pub-
lished at Madrid on Dec. 8, and which account
is signed by jean Antoine Menel, Prefect of
Police at Algesiras, though obviously coloured
to make the capture appear, as much as pos-
sible, a legal one, does rather confirm the state-

meat given by the Indicaleur than the account
which would make it appear that the descent of
the refugees on the coast of Spain was preme-
ditated. The Principal of Police says," In the
night of the 30th of November quitted Gibral-
tar (in consequence of the persecutions which
the revolutionists meet there) two vessels, con-
taining 50 of those men, without their knowing
where they were steering fur; but last night a
despatch informed us that the vessels of the
coast-guard having pursued these two barks,
succeeded in driving them on shore, when
these perverse men landed at a place called Feran-
givola, where they hoisted the tri-coloured flag
with cries of VivelaLiberte. In mycapacity ofCom-
mander of the Forces of Algesiras, I immediately
despatched the necessary troops, and took every
other measure for the capture and extermination
of those revolutionists, which, I trust, will soon
take place, on account of the excellent spirit of
the inhabitants of those countries, and the en-
thusiasm of his Majesty's troops." Then fol-
lows a second despatch, dated the day after,
giving an account of the surrender of Torrijos
and his party at discretion ; and to this is sub-
joined a report that a courier had been imme-
diately sent from Madrid, with orders for the
instant execution of the prisoners. The offi-
cial account, then, as taken from the Madrid
Gazette, acquits the unfortunate Liberals
of having landed in Spain in consequence of
any preconcerted plan ; for it expressly admits
that they were compelled to leave Gibraltar, and
that they were pursued and driven on shore by
the coast-guard Spanish vessels. Thus the
Spanish authorities themselves forced the re-
fugees to land, for the purpose of having a pre-
text for slaughtering them. The hoisting of
the tri-coloured flag, admitted by the official
account, tallies with what is asserted in the Indi-
cateur ; and there is no doubt they hoisted that
flag, not in defiance, but for protection—why else
should they hoist the French flag in Spain, where
it has never been popular ? Whether they cried
" Vive la Liberte !" or not, we cannot tell,
but it is not likely that, in their destitute condi-
tion, they cried out for any thing but the mercy
that was denied them. If this statement be
true, a British subject has been most foully
murdered ; and, if so, we hope our Govern-
ment will not any longer, like that of France,
truckle and crouch to the tyrant, who, by the
wanton sacrifice of a British subject—of one who
was under the protection of his allegiance to the
British Crown—has inflicted upon the Govern-
ment and the people of England the outrageous
insult of a coward ferocity. If the reported as-
sassination of Mr. Boyd be true, and if the
wounded honour of the country be not vindi-
cated in an exemplary manner, the character of
England must sink to the deep and degraded
humiliation to which the juste milieu policy of
the French Cabinet has reduced the French
nation. But we shall wait for more authentic
information, promising that, when we shall have
possession of the whole of the facts, we will not
desert a subject in which the honour, the cha-
racter, and the interests of England are so se-
riously involved.—Morning Herald.
The subject of Irish tithe, to which recent de-
plorable occurrences, and the uncertain project
of a feeble and incapable Government, have di-
rected public attention and anxiety in a remark-
able degree at the present moment, must be con-
sidered with reference to the legal rights and
permanent welfare of the Protestant Church in
Ireland—with reference to the interests and
claims of the landed property of Ireland—with
reference to the encouragement and promotion
of improved modes of cultivation and the pro-
gressive application ofnew capital to agriculture—
with reference, to sum up all in one word, to the
real and lasting interests of the whole empire,
and in no degree whatever with reference to the
inclinations of the Catholic part of the Irish po-
pulation, who must be taught to content them-
selves with such advantages and privileges as they
can possess in common with the aggregate of Bri-
tish society, and to forego the pursuit of fac-
tious and sectarian triumphs. It seems to us
indeed that a grave error has been committed in
referring to the consideration of Committees
of the two Houses of Parliament the subject
of tithe in Ireland, as a subject distinct from that
of tithe generally, whether English or Irish, since
this separation tends directly to foster the idea
that in Ireland the change is complained of more
justly than elsewhere, and that the Legislature
may deal with it upon other principles than it
would be safe and wholesome to apply to the
case of English tithe. This idea is, we fear,
already much too prevalent, although a very
slight consideration of the subject may suffice to
shew that it is entirely erroneous. Why should
the Irish people he more impatient of tithe than
the English ? If it militate against the progress
of agriculture and the prosperity of a nation at
all, it does so equally i❑ one country as the
other. And if it be true, as the political econo-
mists teach, that tithe is a tax which enhances
the natural or remunerating price of agricultural
produce, then is it not plain that any proposal
to remove or alleviate this burden in Ireland ex-
clusively is in substance a proposal to give to the
agricultural produce of that country a bounty to
the prejudice of the agricultural produce of
England in the English markets ? Assuming for
the sake of argument, although the fact is
notoriously otherwise, that the greater part of
the land of Ireland is the property of Roman
Catholics, why, we beg to ask, should the Ca-
tholic landlord be more impatient of tithe than
the Protestant ? What landowner, whether Ca-
tholic or Protestant, can allege that tithe is an
imposition upon his estate, from which it was
free when he, or those through whom he derives
his title, acquired it? Not one. Then why should
the impatience upon this subject of any landlord,
whatever be his religious faith, be regarded with
greater indulgence or respect than the fretfulness
of any other freebooter who finds himself impeded
in his eager attempt to seize what never belonged
to him Why, in the last place, should the
Ca-
tholic tenant be more impatient of tithe than the
Protestant tenant ? It is equally true with respect
to both that if relieved from the claims of the
Church,the claims ofthe landlord would be speedily
increased to the full extent of the relief; while
among the Catholic tenantry of Ireland, where
the competition for land is more intense than in
this country, it is morally certain that the ces-
sation of tithe would be followed instantaneously
by a correspondent increase of rent. We despair
of any beneficial result of the inquiries to be
undertaken by the Tithe Committees, simply
because the circumstances which have led to
their appointment are of such a nature as to give
the proceeding the air, if not the character, of a
concession to popular violence, and of an at-
tempt to propitiate that enmity to the Pro-
testant Establishment which we believe to
he at the root of all the opposition which
the collection of tithe in Ireland has expe-
rienced. What hope indeed can any reasonable
man entertain that peace and contentment will be

the result of concession, when we have seen con-'
cession follow concession only in each instance to
be followed by some new demand ? When the
temper in which the collection of tithe is resisted
in Ireland shows that it is not so much the bur-
den as the object of this institution which excites
opposition, what man in his senses can expect
that any thing short of the subversion of the
Protestant Church can pacify the malcontents ?
And should our present liberal Government de-
termine, as they probably may, that the Pro-
testant Church is not too great a sacrifice to be
offered up upon the fashionable altar of concilia-
tion, who that has meditated on the nature of
mankind, or watched with an observant eye the
progress of events in Ireland, can doubt that
presently the legal toleration of Protestantism
will be deemed an intolerable grievance in that
country, and submission to the sway of an here-
tical Monarch an inexpiable sin ?—Morn. Post.

When Lord Grey and others of his colleagues
are asked why they have introduced the Reform
question, their answer is, very naturally because
it was unavoidable in two senses. 1. Because
the country in all its parts,—England, Scotland,
and Ireland—called out for it, and would have
it, 2. Because, with reference to the Ministry
itself, it could not have remained a week in
power, and therefore must have thrown the whole
realm into confusion, if it had not gratified the
universal eagerness for real and fundamental Re-
form. Is the necessity diminished ?—has the
public fervour cooled ?—would there be less
danger from disajection and con fusion, if the
people of the three kingdoms were now to be
suddenly disappointed ? If King and Ministers
were not convinced of the positive necessity under
which they announced themselves to have acted
on this great occasion, they must have been—
what no rational creature will suppose them—not
merely the falsest, but the most gratuitous and
childish hypocrites. Knowing both the Sove-
reign and his servants to be honest, what fol-
lows ? That they will honestly and unflinch-
ingly go on with their work, and carry as a for-
mal law through Parliament that measure which
has already become a law in substance, for the
nation which Parliament but represents; inasmuch
as the bulk of those citizens who constitute the
nation have acknowledged a free choice of re-
presentatives to be that law of political action to
which they have one and all sworn allegiance,
and which they will not suffer to be violated. If
Ministers act upon their own declaration, that
the necessity for Reform was what overthrew
their predecessors, and that upon the truth of
which they themselves must stand or fall, they
will then carry this indispensable measure of Re-
form. It will to that end be absolutely necessary
to have a majority of the House of Peers. We
believe that in favour of the essence of the Bill
there have been few or no conversions in that
assembly. Towards a disfranchisement of the
fifty-six boroughs—a partial disfranchisement of
the thirty boroughs—a fair and free election of
Members for either of the great towns, or new
boroughs, or even the counties—we apprehend
the Tory Lords are at heart as inveterately hos-
tile as ever. This is our apprehension, founded
on good authority. But various readings are in
circulation as to the plan of campaign agreed
upon by the Tories. They will not oppose the
Bill in bulk, as is reported, but piecemeal. We
believe it. They will not attempt what might
scare their more timid followers, and insult the
nation, as well as assault it openly ; they will
therefore probably let the second reading pass.
The clauses in Committee they will not let pass.
They will nibble, and eat away, and undermine,
and thus destroy, a policy in which timid and
cunning men may be found to abet them, because
there is no daring or flagrant peril on the face
of it : they will be able to tamper both with
their consciences and their nerves, hoping to
blind others to the magnitude of the evil which
they aim at, and lulling their own cowardice as
to the magnitude of the risk which they incur.
But it is not the less undoubted that the Reform
Bill may be effectually ruined, for a season, by
such artifices; and we act the part of friends in
assuring the King and Ministers beforehand, that
the British nation will not endure the disap-
pointment. Peers must be made, and it must
he made known immediately, that there exists,
what we are aware does exist, a determination
to create them, or the present seeming repose of
the public spirit—a repose proceeding from the
yet undisturbed confidence of victory—will not
remain much longer. As for calculations of
what might or might not happen on a change
of Ministry ! we trouble not ourselves or our
readers with them—a Tory Ministry now
would be a revolution. Those who manoeuvre
for such a project are revolutionists of the deepest
dye.—Times.