The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-27 00:00:00

FRANCE.
It is positively asserted in well-informed circles
that the French Government has notified to that
of Austria that the occupation of Alessandria by
the Austrians will be considered as a casus beili, and
that, in such an event, a French army will forthwith
enter Piedmont.
The Committee charged to examine the accounts
of the Provisional Government has coticluded its
labours. According to the Dgbats, the report
presented by M. Ducos caused long and sharp
debates, the majority of the Committee having
objected to it, whilst the minority, and M. Ducos
himself, would not consent to any modification;
eventually the majority of the Committee ceded,
and the report was agreed to. "We are assured,"
says the Debuts, "that among the credits of which
the Committee does not approve is that of 123,000 f.
granted' by M. Ledru-Rollin to M. Longepied, pre-
sident of the Club des Clubs, to send emissaries into
the departments and among the soldiers to influence
the elections ; the Committee also disapproves of the
sum of 13,000 f., given to M. Oliver, ceminissary-
general in the department of the Bouches-du Rhone,
and the sum of 6,000 f. to M. Joly, who exercised
similar functions at Toulouse."
The Committee charged to examine the Bill rela-
tive to the double command of General Changarnier
yesterday nominated M. Grevy its reporter. By a
majority of 7 to 6 the Committee has resolved to
propose to the Assembly to reject the measure, and
to require the Ministry to execute within eight-and-
forty hours the law on the National Guard.
M. Thiers has left Paris to pass some days at Lille,
partly on account of ill health, partly to settle some
family affairs.
The Siecle publishes the following letter, which
has been addressed by M. Dufaure to M. Lefebvre,
avocet at the Court of Cessation, who is recommended
to the suffrage of the electors of Loir-
" Paris, 14th of April.
" The election of the 13th of May will be a solemn
trial for oar country; accßepubordinglican to the
Gov ern compment will
osition of
the next Assembly, the
be definitively established for us, or it will
be distinguished in the convulsions of a fresh
revolution. It is the determination of my friends and
myself to oppose with all our efforts this new revolution,
under whatever standard it may present itself ; we are
convinced that the republican form of government, well
understood and well carried out, is perfectly compatible
with all the great social necessities, and with the impe-
rishaBle rights of every citizen. We shall be happy to
be assisted in the task which we have undertaken the
last year, by men active, intelligert, younger than our-
selves, and who may continue the work, if it is to have
an existence in the future. It is for that reason that I
bear with a lively interest of your candidateship at the
approaching elections in the department of the Loir-et-
Ober, and I offer you my sincere wishes that the votes of
your fellow-citizens may procure you a seat in the Na-
tional Assembly."
The Siecle, in giving this letter, remarks that it is a
document fraught with political instruction of high
authority, and recommends it to the attention both of
its friends, and of its adversaries.
An elictoral meeting, known asthe " Union Demo-
cratique de la Seine," having called on M. de Lamar-
tine to allow himself to be put forward as a candidate,
that gentleman has written a letter, in which, after
thanking the Committee, he says :
"I do not present myself. I believe that political men
who are slighted, and who support the weight of a recent
responsibility in one of the crises of their country, should
accept without calling for the judgment, just or unjust, of
their fellow-citizens. If .1 am called again, I will answer
to the call; if I am forgotten or thrown aside, I shall con-
gratulate myself on laying down for a time the burden
of the representation. I leave all to the spontaneous
will of the electors. Perhaps new men would be at this
moment more useful to the Ittpublic than men who, if
not used up, are at least compromised in the past.
Patience is a patriotic virtue, and your justice makes it
easy to me."

ENGLAND AND IRELAND.— SIR
ROBERr PEEL'S PLAN.
No. I.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SlR,—The student of history grieves over the pre-
sent condition of-Sicily, Egypt, and Barbary, once
the granaries of the vast Roman empire; the
partisan politician looks to the corn-covered plains of
Tambov and South Russia as the future granary of

our teeming population, and he descants on the
exchange of Manchester spring patterns and Spital-
fields silks with the Cossacks and Tartars of that

—.. .
region ;_ or, if his predilections so lead him, over the
number of acres of English wheat v hich are to be
thrown out of cultivation by foreign corn.

The granaries of the Romans were in their own
keeping, ours are in the hands of the brutal Cossacks
and jealous New Englanders, having in time of war
the sea for our road, a road which can only be kept
open by fighting for its mastery, and which when
gone over may lead to disappointment; beset by
enemies on our way, we reach the corn stores to find
them shut against us by the fear of a famine, or by
political hatred. Free•tra lers and Protectionists
look with like distrust on this possible contingency,
and all that can be said to soothe us is, Hope for
the best." _

---- ---
These are days in which nothing can strike us
with wonder; herds of crownless kings wander as
beggars, the beggar and prisoner becomes a king ;
the golden sands of California have realised all the
wealth and all the daggers that the ancients dreamed
of in the Golden Fleece of Colchis. IF, therefore,
we were told of some new Sicily, we are ready to
believe it. Suppose an island yielding fifteen or six-
teen millions quarters of grain, and which might be
made to yield five and twenty millions. 'What if this
island were lying at our doors ? What an extension
of our political power, what a resource for our social
wants ! Then all we want to fill up the measure of
our national wealth would be given to us, and we
must wait for years before our wants could press
upon us to ask for more. What if this country were
Ireland ?
What if this country were Ireland—pair, beggared,
starving Ireland? And yet it is so. \Ve have vast
resources at our doors, and we neglect them. Ireland
has a better soil than this island; and had our fathers,
in their settlements among the Celts, chosen a field
for husbandry instead of a seat of empire, Ireland
would have become the thriving English island, and
this the abode of miserable, pauperised Celts, and
we should have been told the poorness of
the soil was the cause of misery, and
not the poorness of soul of the people. From the
soil of Ireland a husbandry, the more back ward be-
cause improvident, raises sixteen millions of quarters
of grain. This is the field for Protectionists and
Free-traders; yet such is the political incapacity of
our Legislature, for so we fear we must term ir, that

not one measure is taken to make the resources o

Ireland more available to us.

Measures for the so

called improvement of Ireland have, it is true, been
carried from time to time, but when not political they
have been expedients for perpetuating beggary by
temporising with it. Seldom is it, however, that any
measure other than political is attempted. In 1800
the Union was carried, in 1829 Roman Catholic
Emancipation, in 1832 the Reform Bill, in 1838 the
Poor-Law and the Tithe Commutation Act, in 1845

the Godless Colleges Act, while many political men
sures, as Coercion Acts for instance, have been only
temporary in their operation. Of these measures the
most important undoubtedly is the Poor-law Act,
yet how little is it compared with what is to be done
to stimulate improvement in Ireland. The railway
and drainage bills have been only partial in their
operation, and the poor-law is rather directed to pre-
vent starvation than to increase the resources of the
population.
Part of the mischief is to be traced to legislating for
Ireland on what are called English principles, but in
the greater part to legislating on no principle at all.
In England it is of less importance to legislate for
the promotion of the industry of the country, as the
people are better able to take care of themselves
than the Legislature is able to take care of them ' •
but in Ireland industry cannot be so left to itself.
There every part of the social system is faulty,
and works badly ; its constitution is so unhealthy
that every scratch becomes a wound, and every sore
a chronic cancer. A notice to quit figures as an
ejectment and a clearance, and perhaps nothing is
more illustrative than this of the perverse condition
of the country. If in a country without charity and
without resources an enemy's army laid waste
a wide tract, burned the houses and carried off the
crops, if, in fact, another nation of Palatines were
cast adrift on the world, we could understand the
tale of an Irish ejectment.
England,
take place in
London and throughout
priest tells us of old men, bearingrodaiwd but no parish
women and suck-
ling children, turned into the their
homes, or rather their graves, in the ditches,
lying down to die. Our sentimentalists keeps'bthaenidr
high-flown words and overdrawn tales for
one-
grinders in the workhouse and hard-hearted
overseers without. With an open road to England,Pated
there can at the worst be no need for th
homeless Irish to die in the ditches. Neither do they,
though from a dishonest and idle liking to keep
anything that comes in their way, they cling to their
holdings to the last, and when the landlord has long
ceased to get any rent, and is tired of offering the
abandonment of his claims, the unroofing of the hut
becomes the only means of getting rid of the tenant.
Every par. of the social system is faulty, but no
measures are carried for its remedy, not for want of
good ones, as many are proposed by practical men,
and the question is seldom as to their efficiency, but
f“, to which is the best. Under such circumstances,
though it is necessary that a well combined course
of, legislative measures should be carried out, it is
nut necessary to discuss them here, for they would
take top many words and it will be enough to take
up those measures which are the immediate subject of
this letter.
The object of any measures in reference to the
agriculture. of Ireland may be twofold,firt