The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-01 00:00:00

BELGIUM.

BRUSSELS, DEc. 30.—According to custom the Minister
of Finance laid on the table of the Chamber of Repro.
sentatives, at the beginning of the Session, the account of
the state of the Treasury on the Ist of October last.
This document shows what was at that time the excess of
the expenditure above the revenue ; an other words, what
was the dtficiency of the Treasury. setting out with the
year 1830. This document, the details of which would
be uninteresting, amounted on the Ist of October, 1840,
to 18,455,0001., requiring an equal sum in Treasury
bonds to be kept in circulation. To this amount of float-
ing debt must be added the four millions for the loan made
to the Bank of Belgium, and the eight millions necessary
for restoring the administration of the national debt to a
regular state. But on the other hand, as five millions!are
to be taken from the produce of the loan to reduce the
coating debt, this debt will be only 23,500,000 f. It will
be further reduced by the application of the overplus of
the current year, which promises to be considerable.
Baron Norman, Belgian Charge d'Affaires in America,
returned to Brussels two days ago.
nELGIAIt Nurins--BRUSSELII, DEC. 3).
Actual Debt, :21,4 per Cent.
to Lean, 5 per C,nt 96
Loan of Thirty Millions, 4 per Cent. BB

.
----(1 4.) 96
----------- 3 per Cent. —
....—...Thirty•SQVCll.. •.
Loan of City, Mt?, 4 per Cent 9O
Society of Conunsrce, 4 y‘i per Cent llO
Bank of Plelgitnn, 5 per Cent ............. ~ F6
National Society. .......................
Exchange on London (short)
—Brussels Papers, Dec. 30.
AUSTRIA N FUNDS.—litunivit, Dcc. 22
ril C per C,,qts. illetallique
Fo&I per Cents. ... ............ ....
Three p,r Cents. ........... .. ....... .... ro
sank shares ... ........................................... .
—Ail,:emezne &slung, Dcc. 27

TIIE KIRKCALDY BURGHS.—CoI. Ferguson
arrived in this city on
Monday, and is no doubt now among
his constituents. Of his success there is no doubt, and the
Tory gentleman who has been reconnoitring the ground,
is now sati.fied, we presume, that he might have spared
himself the trouble.--Scotsman. _

LISZT AT HAMBURGII.—A letter from Ham-
burgh of the 10th of December, announces that M. Liszt
gave the entire proceeds of his first concert at the great
theatre there, amounting to 3,189 rixdollars (nearly
7001.), for the foundation of a pension list for the benefit
of the members of the orchestra of that theatre. The
musicians thus munificently provided for went in a body to
the celebrated pianiste's hotel with an expression of tht ir
gratitude. On the following evening they executed a
magnificent serenade, including some of his own chosen
compositions, beneath the windows of the apartment which
he occupied at the hotel.

LONDON:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 1641.

We rejoice to find the old year departing and
the new one commeneing with discussions on the
first principles of Government, because it is impos-
sible to contemplate the abject condition, physical
and moral, of the mass of society throughout
Europe, while the bounties of Heaven are unspeak-
able, without suspecting ;that there is something
fAndamentally wrong in the mode of administering
the affairs of society. If discontent be natural
to man, we know no mason why it should
now be almost universally concentrated on
Govettnent, the creature of man's will, like his
houses and his ploughs, which never excite his
anger,—unless it be that Government no longer
answers the purposes for which it was created. If
his house, instead of sheltering him from the wind
and rain, continually exposed him to the pitiless
storm, and acted, like a chasm in a mountain, to
draw all its fury on him, if it were also continually
catching fire, and scorching him with its blaze, or
wounding him by its down-tumbling rafters, he
would begin to he discontented with his house, and
would probably conclude that it would be better to
give it a prey to the flames than be at the trouble
of continually repairing and upholding it. We
know no other way to account for the general dis-
content with Government but to suppose it is like
such a house—a supposition that seems warranted
by the manner in which the bulk of the people al-
most everywhere suffer from its proceedings ; and
the bare possibility that such a supposition may be
correct makes us rejoice that our Contemporaries,
at the close of the now departed year, have begun
a discussion on forms and principles of Govern-

merit.
We have on two or three occasions lately been
called on to notice the doctrines of the Times and
the Post on this subject, and yesterday the latter
had some remarks, transferred to The Sun, which
seem to give a short explanation of the phenomena.
" We do not dispute," it said, "that the tendencies
()f :mciety arc towards democracy, but the more pal-
pable the tendency becomes the more incumbent it
is upon dutiful subjects of monarchical governments
to resist That tendency." We believe that the Post
in this sentence expresses the opinion of the great
majority of the Tories, while it also correctly desig-
nates whet has throughout been their conduct.
They have laid it down as a principle that it is
their duty to resist the democratic tendencies of
society, and they have acted on that rule with
ereat pertinacity and equal rigour. If they
had confined themselves to argument and per-
suasion, we should have had nothing to say
against them, but they have endeavoured to enforce
their own views by many unjust, and not a few bar-
barous and most cruel enactments. Without going
one step further, the avowal that the Tories think
it their duty to resist the progress of democracy,
coupled with the fact that they have long acted on
that principle, both in office and office, is I

quite sufficient to account for the discontent of the
numerous democracy who have been coerced and
constrained against their will. To satisfy them
that this is for their benefit, while they are exposed
to such an immense number of physical and moral
evils, is hopelessly impossible, and as they keenly
feel both the evils, and the rigorous restraints, can
any man wonder that the multitude are discon-
tented?

But what is meant, or what can any man mean,
by the phrase tendencies of society ? Not surely the
writings or speeches of one or a few persons ? They
do not give a tendency to society. What is meant,
apparently, is this, that all the members of the
same community being created with a rough kind
of equality, there is a constant tendency, whenever
that equality has been disturbed, to restore it.
That is, and ever has been, the course of nature.
The slave-owner deprives another man of his li-
berty, and the slave incessantly tries, while lie has
any hope of success—nothing but an overwhelm-
ing conviction of the impossibility of success puts
a stop to his struggles--to regain his liberty, and
make himself as free as his tyrant. The course of
European society is an illustration of this on a
large scale.

We know enough of the condition of our Saxon
ancestors to decide that they were divided into
masters and slaves, and that the latter were most
rigorously, and often very inhumanly treated.
What is true of them is also true of almost every '
other tribe in the infancy of European society.
Then almost every year was marked by predatory
incursions of contending tribes or nations, which
ended in carrying off men into slavery, or in occu-
pying their soil, and making them slaves in the land
of their fathers. The conquest of WILLIAM of
Normandy, totally unlike modern conquests, though
quite consistent with the freebooting excursions
which were common to that age, ended by his ap-
propriating amongst his followers the bulk of the
land of England. "He bestowed," writes
SMOLLETT, "upon his uterine brother ROBERT
the county of Cornwall, comprehending 2538 manors,
besides 558 which he possessed in other pro-
vinces. The next brother, ODO, was created
Count Palatine of Kent and High Justiciary of
England with 400 fiefs in different provinces."
His other friends were provided for in a similar
manner, so that the whole of England was
ap-
propriated by a very few persons. Now, veer since
that period there has been a continual tendency to
break up into comparatively small portions the
usurpation of the soil thus established. At pre-
sent the number of landed proprietors is almost in-
finite compared to the few among whom WILLIAM
divided the country ; and only here and there one,
like the Duke of SUTHERLAND, possesses any-
thing like a tithe of the possessions which were
conferred on ROBERT and ODo.

The Legislature indeed has always done all in
its power—by rigidly preserving, as long as possible,
feudal principles, the:right of primogeniture, and
strict entail—to prevent this tendency of society,
but its labours have been in vain. When we take
into consideration the many pecuniary bur-
dens which now rest even on the clearest
estates—many of the largest being only
nominally in the hands of one person, the income
going really into the hands of several mortgagees or
annuitants—we shall be:convinced that the breaking
up of landed property into comparatively small por-
tions has been carried much further than is apparent,
(though the lawgiver, who has been throughout
the landowner, has laboured to prevent this effect),
by the tendency of society to restore the condition of
equality amongst all its members.
But when the soil was so appropriated the people
were in a manner appropriated with it, and for a
considerable period there appears to have been in
general only the two classes of landowners and
slaves. That was the height of inequality, and
gradually the struggles of the oppressed, and the
extravagance anti folly of the oppressors produced a
middle class. Towns arose ; opulent citizens pur-
chased parts of the domains of the Nobility ; and
hundreds, and even thousands, came to cope with
the landlords in opulence, and raised themselves
up to be their equals in every branch of ac-
quirement and enjoyment. Finally, to jump to
our con elusion, the numerous middle class, who
could no longer be kept out of political power, were
admitted by the Reform Act to share it. We
maintain, therefore, that the tendency of society,
marked through a progress of a thousand-years, is
always to restore that equality which conquest and
oppression originally disturbed, and legislation
sought to perpetuate.

Now comes, at the end of these thousand years, a
still more numerous class, who have gradually been
throwing off the slavery to which their ancestors
were doomed, and gradually acquiring the rights
and the knowledge of the middle classes, and who
demand their share of political power, as they
have acquired a large share of social power. To
this struggle they are incited by much fell
misery, and by the bright example of their
happier brethren on the other side of
the Atlantic. They must be put down, says the
Post, in substance ; they must be put down, say
the Tories by their practice, by severe and cruel
laws. In fact, ever since the Norman Conquest,
one great object of most laws has been to check
the rise of the middle classes, and keep the serfs
from enfranchising themselves. These laws have not
succeeded. The base of the aristocracy has been so
widened as to become almost a democracy, and now
the whole democracy are struggling to acquire an
equal sl:are of power. As the Legislature has not suc-
ceeded in time past, neither w ill it succeed in future.
It will not be able, though guided by Tory :coun-
cils, and supported by Tory bayonets, to prevent
the tendency of society ; but it will, as it

has already done, degrade and brutalise the
bulk of the people. Let the Post, or
the Tory principle of setting up Legislation
in opposition to the tendency of society, or of na•
ture, be followed with vigour some time longer, let
the Tories again lay their heavy hands on our le-
gislation, and the spring of improvement which is
inherent in the mind, and which has hitherto en-
abled society to go forward urider the many burdens
they have heaped on it, may be too weak to resist
the load, and the equality restored may be the dead
level of the lumper-fed, pries t-ridden population
of Ireland.

The Standard has grown qui to complimentary
to the Ministers, but whether from quarrelling with
its own friends or from a mean conviction that it
!las erred by abusing them, we a,re unable to deter-

mine ; we are inclined, however, to ascribe it rather to
temper than conviction, as we km nv that the appa-
rently tragical pen of our Contenvorary is gene-
rally guided by some petty passion. It allowed, in-
deed, its feelings to creep out, when it said that the
expressio❑ of its satisfaction with Lord MEL-
BOURNE'SGovernment " may not be very welcome
at the Carlton Club, or among the p,ople who are
panting to exchange newspaper wages for official
salarg,” but we believe that it is pretty'generally
the feeling of the country.
We should be better pleased wit} r the Standard's
testimony, could we ascribe it t o sober convic-

Lion rather than to temporary spleen on
account of the rebuke of the Duke o f WELLING-
TON, and the general disapprobatior t of its party.
But whatever motive dictated the lang -nage, it is too
remarkable, as 'applied to that Mini ster, who has
been so long denounced by the Tories.; for giving a

EVENIN G E D ETION.

heavy blow and great discouragement to Proles•
tantism." who has been reviled as a semi-infidel,
and spoken of in the Tory journals in the most op-
probious terms, not to he preserved and rememb.-red•
We copy them from the fiercest foe of the so-called
O'CONNEL L Ministry, and the hottest friend of the
Church—we copy from the ultra-Tory Standard
the following words :

" It would be enough, however, for us to know than
Premier's conduct is good, as far as Englar.d is con-
cerned. We will not rob Lord Palmerston of his just
praise by any reference to the foreign policy of the
Government ; it would he enough—we repeat it—for
us to know, that, with whatever motive, Lord Mel-
bourne ~aoverns well, to he satisfied with his govern-
ment ; but when we remember that among the aspi-
rants to his Lordship's succession there arc persons,
like Lord Ellenborough, whose fear of a Catholic
question' would cause them to strangle the Reforma-
tion itself ; and when we further know that en Ellen-
borough Ministry would, instead of being, like the pre-
sent, pressed into the right path, be pressed from that
path, we see abundart reason for contentment with
things as they are. This feeling," it adds, in the passage
already quoted, " is pretty generally the feeling of the
country."

If the people generally are contented with things
as they are, for what purpose does the Standard
and the rest of the Tories labour day after day to
blacken the character of the Ministers, and involve
the country in all the difficulties 'end perplexities
of a change ? Is it merely to gratify the Carlton
Club, and the few people who are panting to ex-
change newspaper wages for official salaries ? What
a motive for a Ministerial revolution T.

By the arrival of the Independence packet ship
at Liverpool, yesterday evening, we have received
New York Papers of the 10Lh ult., being one day
later than the papers brought by the Great
Western. In consequence of the great depth of
the snow, which rendered travelling extremely diffi-
cult, when Congress met on the 7th, there were
not members enough present to form houses for the
discharge of business so that an adjournment from
day to day was resolved upon, till the requisite
number of members were in attendance. The Pre-
sident's Message was not therefore delivered when
the last mails left Washington for New York, nor
was it known when it might be expected in that
city.

These Papers bring no news of the slightest in-
terest. More was talked about sleighing and skat-
ing in New York, than about banks, currency, and
the President's Message. The brief intervals be..
tween the sailing of the Great Western and the
Independence, had witnessed no arrival either from
the South American States, or from the Canadas.
The following is the latest account of the state of
the New York Money Market :

NEW YORK MONEY MARKET—Dsc. 10.
The resumption of the Philadephia banks, on the 15th
of January, if not sooner, which is now generally au"
flounced and believed, does not seem to give any an.ma°
tion to the markets generally—indeed the reverse is felt.
In the stock market a general tall has taken place, vary.
ing from I to 2 per cent. Money is also scarc., and
dearer.

SALES AT THE STOCK EXCHANGE.
15.500 Philadelphia Exchange
20,000 Min ;is Sixes
50 shares Merchants' Banking Assc.
120 do. Mechanics' Banking Association lO2
50 do. Vicksburg Banking do.
100 do. Union Bank
25 do. Bank of America
25 do. Dry Dock Bank
10 do. Commercial Bank
5 do. Lafayette Bank
5 do. Bank of Commerce lO2
200 do. Delaware and Hudson 9Ol 84 -
150 do. Long Island Railroad 5.3i
15 do. Manhattan Gas B5
12 do. Syracuse Railroad
23 do. Patterson R
10 do. American Ex. Bank
25 do. Farmers' Trust., sq
75 do. North American Trust thw 26'Z
75 do. United Status Bank 65/
50 do. Bos. and Prov. 6Ol 93
40 do. North Jersey Railroad 76
50 do. Stonington R R..... b3o 27
50 do. Haarlem R R b3O 39
200 do. Canton Co.

SALES AT THE SECOND BOARD.
25 shares Vicksburg s3o 13
25 do. Mechanics' Banking Association B4
25 do. Canton
50 do. Delaware and Hudson nw 84
25 do. North American Trust blo 23
50 do. Haarlem
50 do. Long Island

The whole of the French Journals of Wednes-
day have been received, from which extracts
be found in another part of The Sun. On Wed.'
nesday the Minister of Finance, M. HUMANS
presented his Budget for the year 1842. The folk
lowing summary of the exposition of the French
Minister, before the Chamber of Deputies, is.frotrg
late editions of the Morning Papers, having beets
received from Paris by Extraordinary Express :--