The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-20 00:00:00

Zicin

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, IF4I.

We yesterday made a few observations to illus-
t►ate the opposite effects of the centralizing and all-
regulating, Government of France, and the localizing
and comparatively little-regulating Government of
Etw'and. The Journal des Debats of Friday
last has an article from which we may gather sup-
port for 111C33 views

Debats justly connects the democratic party
in the United Sates with hostility to a national
d.;b7. Nothing higher could be said in its praise.
The practice :n the monarchical Governments of
Europe of pledging the resources of posterity has
bee❑ found pregnant with mischief and ruin. If
no other reproach can he heaped on the principle
of &ineeracy than hostility to a national debt, the
able6t financiers and most honest councillors in
Europe will regard it. with reverence ; for they, like
.Dr. HAMILTON and Mr. M'CuLLocu, have ad-
•visea that every nation should raise within the year
!a sufficient revenue to cover the expenses of the
year.

The Debals imputes to democracy, as an offence,
aversion to a na ional bank. Its disadvan•
tapes are not yet so dear as those of a nation,'
d,br. bat ADAM SMITH, no mean authority, pre-
'fel led private banks. Every establishment ap-
vro,,,)ng the nature and character of a national
in Europe, not even excepting the Bank of
England, has made something like a bankruptcy ;
.and he manner in which the monarchical Govern-
laieffla of Europe have degraded the. paper they have
iissued has brought misery my? ruin on thousands
if is he characteristic of a democratic, or mercantile
pint to hat& a national bank, we reckon that to its

lionour.
The Journal des Debals, ignorant of the nature
.3.ntl,,sourees of mercantile credit, and of the paper
which it puts into circulation, which, as BURKE
says, is 44 of value on 'Change, because it has no
value in Westminster Hall," which is defiled by
the sanction of the law, because the Legislature
creates no wealth, and has no tzoods on their way
to market, like the merchant, wherewith to take up
its bills—the Journal des Debats, has a short
mc-
t of overturning the careful observation of S a I Tll
an' the shrewdness of BURK E. " From the moment,"
it says, 4, when a system of banking is admitted into,
the country, from the moment that it is acknow
ledged that the United States cannot dispense witl:
paper money and credit, it is not only useful, it is
absolutely indispensable to the national welfare, that
a great institution of credit and circulation should
.te placed above all the banks." In that passage 1
the spirit of NAPOLEON domineers over trade,
(. and as certainly crushes it as the same kind of
-Imperial spirit has lost France her colonies, and
ruined her commerce. The Debats might as well
assert that from the time that London could not
dispense with gas light, and Manchester was
obliged to have recourse to cotton spinning, that a
great gas and spinning establishment should be

placed by the power of the Government above all
the manufactories of gas and cotton twist. Bank
promises and credit notes are as much the offspring
of commerce and division of labour as gas lighting
and cotton spinning, and the Government might as
well undertake the management of the latter as of
the former.

It is amusing at present to find the Journal des
Decals, which seems to misapprehend the nature
and effect of the democracy of the United States,
ascribing to it " a savage national and personal inde-
pendence." " Its perfection" is said to destroy every
bond between individuals in each country, and be-
tween each portion of the human race. This is
amusing, at a time when France is almost isolated
by her absurd political system, though she he in
the heart of Europe ; and at a time when the
United States has by its commerce more connection
with England and with the continent of Europe
than any one of the great monarchies of Europe has
with England or with the rest of the Continent.
The democratic system, which requires co-operation
to elect a wardman as well as to elect a
President—which puts no obstacle to the
division of labour, and thus makes every man
dependent on others, and which allows of free trade
with every other nation, is the very reverse of a
system of isolation either of individuals or of
No, the proud monarchy where man has
no occasion to commune with man to attain a com-
mon end, but where the whole herd is driven by a
common master—where the apprehension of some
rival monarchy interdicts traffic, and cuts off a nation
as France is now almost cut off from the rest of
Europe—the proud monarchy, elate with vain glo-
rious conquest, utterly regardless of the millions
who live in it, is the Government for isolating a
nation from other nations, and isolating the indivi-
duals who compose it. As France is now separated
from the rest of Europe, so the inhabitants of Paris
and the distant provinces of France, the luxurious
idlers of the Chaussee d'Antin, and the hard-
working, hard-living artizans of the Faubourg St.
Antoine, are more estranged from each other, and
have less sympathy with one another, than any classes
of American citizens.
When the well-Informed Journal des De-
bats writes on France or on the continent of
Europe, it is worthy of much respect, but its re-
marks on the democracy of America are tinctured
with the spirit of the Imperial Guard. For that
body BONA PA RTE was a divinity—for the
Debats, the Government of France, at present, is
perfection. We prefer the activity of the demo-
cracy which has called into life " a multitude of
cities, an incredible extent of canals and of rail-
roads," to the inertness of a monarchy of which
the cities, except one or two, are not flourishing, in
which not above one canal has been made for up-
wards of a century, and which has not yet con-
structed more than a single railway of very short
extent.

nations.

Some of the Scotch clergy have assumed a bold
attitude of defiance towards the law which is worthy
of notice, if not of imitation. The Rev. Gentlemen,
however, will probably find imitators. They teach
the laity a lesson, and set them an example. They
are our authorised teachers. They claim a higher
authority than lawmakers, and their pretensions

tend to overthrow either the law or themselves.

Careless or superficial writers and thinkers may turn
up their eyes with astonishment, and wonder whi-
ther this will lead ; but they live in times such as
never were before, and strange events are every day
the parents of strange doctrines.
At a meeting of the Presbytery of Edinburgh on
the 6th instant, that body adopted this resolution in
reference to the Strathbogie case, which has been
decided adversely to the principles of the Presby-
tery, first, by the Court of Session, and subse-
quently, on appeal, by the House of Lords :
" That the Presbytery contemplate this decision of the
Court of Session with the deepest regret and alarm, as
involving the exercise of jurisdiction by a civil court in
an ecclesiastical matter, and as being thus inconsistent
with the word Y. God, the standards of the Church,
nod an encroachment upon the acts and liberties secured
to the Church and people of Scotland by the Revolu-
tion settlement, the Act of Security, and the Treaty of
Union."

The Presbyterian clergy, then, not to be
behind the priests of the Romish and the Anglican
Churches in claiming a power derived from a higher
source than the law, set up the " word of GOD," in
opposition to the jurisdiction of their civil court•
When it suits their purposes every " authority" is
said to be of GOD, and men are commanded to
" obey for the LORD'S sake ;" but now another
authority is set up against the law—the word of
GoD " in opposition to the authority of law," which
is also of GOD, and, therefore, according to the clergy
GOD'S authority is in conflict with GOD'S authority.
It will require some of the mystical and holy con-
juration in which the priesthood deals to remove
the discrepancy between their demands on the laity
to obey the authority of the law as of divine origin
and their claims to set aside that authority because
it is opposed to the word of GOD.

When the Court of Session lately ordered the
Presbytery of Strathbogie to induct Mr. ED-
wARDS,II they bad no reason for refusing, the LORD
PRESIDENT said, the Act, 1592, provided that the
Presbytery " were BOUND and astricted to admit
and receive whatsomever qualed person" who
was presented to them ; " so the Court," adds a
Commentator, " simply declared that a Presbytery
could not refuse, without any reason whatever, to
perform a duty, and to repudiate an obligation laid
on their, by statute." But a Mr. CUNINGIIANIE,
a leader of the most-holy-of-all men, and therefore
very little lower than an angel, has found out that
the Act of 1592 has not provided any means for
enforcing on the Presbytery the div.y it requires the
Presbytery to perform. He said at die meeting—

" I have further to state, that there is no statute in
the land which professes to give to the Court of Session
the power to order a Presbytery to receive and admit.
They can produce no principle from national law ; they
can produce no dicta from distinguished writers on law ;
they can produce no decisions from the Court of Session
itself, since the era of the Revolution, which affords
them the slightest vestige of countenance for this order.
The question then occurs, on what ground does the
Court of Session found their claim to this power, or on
what principle do they defend it ? Why, we all know
that there is an Act of Parliament binding and restrict-
ing Presbyteries to receive and admit qualified persons.
It is quite true that there is an Act of Parliament con-
!ain ng these words, and that by that Act an obligation
•s imposed upon the Church to receive and admit. But
then there is no provision•by which that obligation mat
be e,ifureed, nothing giving authority to the Court of
Session to interfere to enforce it.
‘• Thera may be a deficiency in the statute—that is
no business of mine ; but lithe Court of Session supply
that deficiency by a contrivance of its own—and that, in
this case, they have done—they break the law, they
t themselves,theselve
s
set themselves above the law, unquestionably they set
themselves above the law ;
assume
itnh es
uppaprot
rotiolfegwilslihciltiortslhty cltieay kye l
nnot ws
for o
point to any statute or
their own. But it may be said, is
• there no e
nodsesn °1
vizyti°•ofenfarcing this civil right ? We say,
they leive no right to invent modes which the law has
:,et sanctioned ; anti they have no right to
,break other
lawsltti is ndeorott twi
the pretext
sonfdentfhoarteitn,hgni.shuisproonnew. 'civil ';iurt
.
.
„
interpret and et fOrce the statute. The right of
the Court to enforce statutes against all the rest of the
subjects is not expressly given to them as to us Church-
men. Hence we may violate the statute will: perfect
impunity.
`'This I will s3y, that the decision pronounced in-
volves a great sin against God ; that it is in violation of
God's word, an interference with Christ's arrangements,
haensd:er n atssumption of powers and prerogatives which He
front then:, and conferred upon the Church.
It is an assumption substantially of the same jurisdiction
in the,government of Christ's house ; and I venture to
say that it is not lessened, perhaps it may be increased,
because that assumption is made by the civil power, in
place of a power calling itself ecclesiastical. Not only
,s it a great and heinous sin and to be regarded in this

light, but it is fraught with danger to the rights and
liberties of the Church and people of Scotland."

Mr. CUNINGHAME, then, objects to the Court
of Session enforcing the law of the land, unless
that law prescribes the means of enforcing it, and
lays on the Presbytety some heavy punishment for
disobedience. In England, the omitting to obey
such a positive enactment would be a misdemeanour,
and Mr. CUNINGHA ME'S doctrines might here end
in a two years' imprisonment. In Scotland there
must be some similar mode of enforcing the audio-
rity of the 1,,w and the Court of Session. It has
the power to cause its own decrees to be obeyed.
Not to obey the order of the Court, made to en-
force a statute, must be considered a higher offence
than merely to omit fulfilling the conditions of a
statute, and either Mr. CUNINGHAME and the
Presbytery must carry the order of the Court into
effect, or go to prison.
But Mr. CUNINGHAME, speaking in the name
of tile ALMIGHTY, as all the clergy speak, asserts
that this assumption of jurisdiction over the go-
vernment of CHRIST'S house, is a great and heinous
sin. The Presbytery adopted the resolution which
this speech recommended, and the Presbytery go
with Mr. CUNINGHAME in tesisting the ordinances
of authority for the LORD'S sake. The Church,
then, is at issue with the law on the point of autho-
rity ;• and while it declares disobedience in laymen
to be sin, it declares the acts of authority, in rela-
tion to the clergy, to be sin. Its doctrines are
fashioned to time passing hour. They arc adapted
as they are required and paid for, to make men the
slaves of the State, or the State the slave of the

priesthood.
Mr. CUNINGIIAME'S objection to the jurisdic-
tion of the Court of Session is not in substance
different from an objection now frequently made in
England. It is naturally assumed in both countries
that as the Statute Law!provides for one thing it ought
to provide for another. As it enacts that the Presby-
tery " should admit and receive a qualified person,"
it ought to have ordained a penalty or punish-
ment for not obeying, and ought to have
described how the fine was to be lc vied
and the latter inflicted. It ought to have
followed out the business to the end, and not have
regulated one-half by positive statute, and left the
other to the arbitrary will of Judges. All that it
does not prescribe, and which the Court neveithe
less does, is Judge-made law. Mr. CUNINGEI A M E
says that " the attempt of the Court to supply the
deficiency of the statute is breaking the law and
setting themselves above the law. They assume to
themselves the duty of legislation." In substance,
then, the priests of the Scotch Church do not much
differ from the philosophic BENTHAM and his dis-
ciples, "who object in the strongest terms to the
Judge-made laws of the Courts.
Other persons make a similar objection when it
suits their own purposes. The House of Com-
mons, for example, would never, on a question of
privilege, oppose a statute which could completely
overrule a privilege. The laws which the Com-
mons and the Lords oppose are, like the assump-
tions of jurisdiction to which Mr. CUNINGHAME
objects, Judge-made laws. In fact, therefore, the
priesthood, enlightened jurisconsults, and the two
Houses of Parliament, treat Judge-made or common
law with contempt, and recognise only the statute
law. Such a conflict between authorities claiming
respect seems well calculated to unsettle the reason
or the obedience of the nation.

It is plain from the united objections of the
clergy, the two Houses of Parliament, and enlight-
ened jurisconsults, that all laws, even to their
minutest consequence, should be written, and should
be deliberately enacted. The yearly increase of
statutes setting aside, term after term, more and
more of the common law is perhaps intended to
realise this object. Will the change be beneficial
The common law is unknown even to the Judges.
The statute law is a confused jumble which they
are often puzzled to apply, and can never unravel.
It now, however, becomes the duty of the priest-
hood, who have invalidated the authority of law for
their own purposes, to teach us laymen the grounds
of obedience, and to relieve us from all doubts as to
what is and what is not to be obeyed.

The Paris Journals of Monday have all been
received. The Moniteur publishes the following
official news from French Africa:—
" TOULON, JAN. 15, 4 O'CLOCK, P M.
" THE MARITIME PREFECT TO THE MINISTER OF WAR.
" During the list days of December, General Guir-

Bret executed a razia on the territory of the tribe of
Beni Sala Haam. The perpetrators and accomplices
of the murder of the Captain of the staff Saget were
either killed or delivered into our hands. 60 Arabs
were killed ; 800 oxen, 1,200 sheep, tents, and a great
quantity of grain, fell into our power.
" The expeditionary corps returned to the camp;
in the beginning of January, without having suffered
any loss.
" These particulars have been given to me by the
Commander of the Isere."
There may be some English readers who know
not what a razia is ; and for their information we

nay observe, that it is the surrounding an Aral

village or district with troops, when the inhabitants
fancy themselves in a state of security, and indis-
criminately slaughtering all capable of offering the
slightest
.resistance, and carrying off tlieit.property.
This is the Fiench system Of colonization; arid in
the- records of the murder of every Frenchman found
separated from his companions, we read the history
of the only success which so inhuman a system
merits. The French war in Africa is a war not
simply of conquest, but of extermination.

M. TIIEERS dined with. the KING on Friday
last. The ex-Minister's Report on the fortifica-

Lions of Paris, has made him an especial favourite
at Court. What do the war faction now think of
the consistency of their champio❑ ?
The following paragraph appears in Galignani's
Messenger of Monday :
Several of our contemporaries have intimated that
M. De Lamartine is to have the embassy at Vienna,
but we under,:tand that these reports are devoid or
foundation. It is true that the present Ministry, im-
mediately on its installation, gave M. De Lamartinc
his choice between the embassies of Vienna and Loc-
don, but he declined accepting either, from metirts
which M. Guizot duly appreciated. Since then
affair has not been again brought in question. The
ported acceptance of the embassy at London by the
Count de Saint Aulaire is equally erroneous—he has,
on the contrary, refused it fro►❑ family motives.
The same Journal contains a summary of the
opinions of the French Journals on the proposed
amendment of M. LARABET on the Fortifications
Bill, which demonstrates clearly enough that the
Government will have the detached forts, or op-
pcse the Bill altogether. The debate on the Bill
is expected to be exceedingly animated.

The Tou/onnais of the 13th inst. states, that the
Phaeton steamer was waiting the arrival of a personage
from Paris, who, it was believed, would replace M.
Cechelet, the Consul-General of France in Alexandria.
Another steamer, the Chamelion, had been ordered to
hold herself in readiness to convey General Bugeaud to
Algiers.

'.I:ItEATY WITH BUENOS AYRES.—M. Meruilliod, the
Ministerial Duputv for Havre, has addret.sed a letter
to the President of the French Chamber of Deputies,
stating that he had to present the protest of P 2,000
French subjects in La Plata against the Convention
signed by Admiral Mu<kau, and adding that the stale
of his health would prevent him from asking explana-
tions of the Minister before the ensuing week.
The following is the latest news from Solcure : it is
dated the 12th of January :
" At this moment (nine o'clock) in the morning, a
salute of 101 guns announces the acceptance of the
Constitution. The following is a statement of the
votes :—For the acceptance, 6,259 ; Against, 4,277.
—Majority, 2,012. Of 15,600 citizens in the canton
entitled to vote, 5,134 did not make use of their right.
All seems tranquil at Soleure."
The sanguinary conflict which has taken place in
the canton Argovia may be considered as ended.
Berne and Zurich have sent their troops into that can-
tonihaneddoocrudemreinst
distributed
completely restored.—Gaz.de France.
among the members of the