The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-01 00:00:00

PRICE 5d

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM TEE.MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
CHRONICLE.—We have elsewhere inserted a copy
of a letter from Commodore Napier to Admiral Stop-
ford. On the supposition- that Sir Robert Stopford made
the speech attributed to him, we are at a loss to under-
stand what he means by saying that Commodore Napier
arrogated to himself the whole credit of the Syrian cam-
paign. •It praise enough for any officer in conmand,
Cult lie conducted eneiations in which the most splendid
results were obtained byslender means. It cannot, surely,
detract from the merit of a leader, that the officers and
men under his command behaved with the utmost gal-
lantry, and Sir Charles Napier would only prove himself
an arrant fool were he to refuse this justice to them.
Does Admiral Stopford mean to say that Commodore
Napier has taken credit to himself for actions of which
the merit is due to others, or that he has withheld from
meritorious qfficers the praise to which they were entitled ?
The Commodore is the last man whom we shout sus-
pect of any-such meanness. Such conduct is, indeed,
-foreign to the nature of a gallant and spirited officer
like Commodore Napier. A pedant of antiquity thought
•he detracted from the fame of Alexander and
Julius Csar, by observing that they could not
have. gained victories without armies. Does any
one. suppose, like this pedant, that Sir Charles Napier
loses in reputation, because he could not, by his own
unaided personal exertions, have routed the Egyptians ?
But although we can see no ground for supposing Sir
' Charles Napier so foolish as teattribute to himselfalone
results which lie could only obtain through the able man-
!net in which he was seconded, we think we can see in
these murmurings of Admiral Stopford, the outbreakings
of a jea/ousy which it would have been more to his ho-
nour to have suppressed. - Age has its weaknesses, and
one of the usual weaknesses of age is excessive caution.
\Vso have no wish to go into the-history of what prece-
ded the taking of Acre ; but we believe it isno secret;
that if the nature of the undertaking had nit beetrmere
correctly appreciated by others than by Sir Robert
Stopford, our navy would have been unable to boast of
one of the most wonderful achievements of modern times.
- TIMES. —GeLenclispeak ing, the declarations of the present
Government are to be interpreted in a sense exactly the oppo-
site of what their language would seem to convey. Thus,
among the various tokens of frankpledge whereby they have
bound themselves to give suit and service to Radicalism, in
acknowledgment of the dependent and conditional tenure under
which their offices are h&c', it will be foiled that their ready
submission to those exactions has always been in precise pro-
portion to the violence with which they had previously opposed
them. Thus, at the last general election,- when the Whigs
loudly professed to denounce the Papineau faction in Canada,
then bordering en rebellion, they positively prohibited a mode-
rate supporter of theirs from contesting the city of Bath, for
fear of endangering the election of Mr. Roebuck, the
paid agent of the Papineau faction. Thus, at the
same period, while busily preparing to despatch a large rein-
forcement of troops fur the purpose of suppressing an antici-
pated insurreation, several of the Ministers actually voted at
the Middlesex poll in favour of that noted patriot Mr. Hume,
who had done everything in his power to stimulate the Cana-
dians "to throw off the baleful domination of the mother
country." Thus. too, Lord Melbourne proclaimed to the
House of Peers that any proposal to alter the Corn-laws would
be " absolute insanity ;" and vet, a few months afterwards, his
Lordship proposes the very alteration which he had so empha-
tically condemned. Thus, again, Lord John Russell addresses
a letter to the electors of Stroud expressive of his hostility to
secret voting, and of his determined adherence to the Reform
Act as a final settlement of the franchise ; but, not content with
making the Ballot an open question, almost at the next Cabi-
net meeting thereafter, the wayward Lord commences the pre-
sent Session of Parliament by insisting that the Represen•
tation of Ireland shall be handed over to a new constitu-
ency of five-pounders, and that henceforth the rate-pay-
ing clauses in the English Reform Bill shall be vir-
tually reduced to a nullity. With such proofs, therefore, of
the very accommodating and ambiguous character of Whig-
Radical professions, we are anything but surprised to find thate
Mr. Ingham of South Shields, anxious that the success of Sir
R. Peel's motion shall, if possible, be realised in a furm some-
what different from that which certain calculators have counted
on, has once more arrayed his self-importance on the side of
his fellow-shut lers in office ; and in so doing has publicly
hung a millstone about his neck, which, with all his fancied
buoyancy, must eventually sink him. This miniature com-
pound of twaddle and tergiversation, albeit generally passing
for an agreeable little fellow, has certainly attracted a larger
share of public contempt than gentlemen of his calibre can
usually contrive to earn. Perhaps, with a jester estimate of
his own weight than of the supposed equipoise of parties in
the approaching division, Mr. Ingham covets the distinction of
being the eccentric atom whose defection from the Conserva-
tive mass is meant to be the arbiter of Ministerial preponde-
rance—the almost impalpable dust that gives a hair's-breadth
turn to the scale.

HERA LD.—We had no opportunity, yesterday, from the
press of various matter, to cLiim, especially, the attention of the
public to a very remarkable Parliamentary Paper, which we
published in yesterday's Herald, entitled "An Account of
Monty received from the Trustees of Savings Banks by the
Commissioners for the Reduction of the Naticnal Debt, *eve."
The results exhibited by this paper, astonishing as they ~ee I
in themselves, are enhanced, in political importances and pre-
sent
interest by the ill-advised allusions occurring in the debate
on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's memorable " budget," to
what measures it " might be" his decision--or rather his alter-
native to resort, in relation to the deposits of these sav;'eAs
banks. We feel all the delicacY—we might almost say the
inexpediency--of dealing with a question which turns on an
hypothesis that was announced by the Right lion. Gen-
tleman himself as one not likely_ to be resorted to ; or resorted
to only under thts•presstrretittfitiiifitlfsiM ektrefilifY. We #.4%. !
fully inc!ined to believe that the Right Hen. Gentleman did
not, and does not, seriously contemplate any ten,perary appro-
priation from the funds of these hanks, in the hands of the
Government, towards making good that defisiency of the pub-
Ite" iocome which has been now silently, but rapidly, growing;
upon us during the last three or folir years. So far. theriric,
as our own opinions go, we are happy to expre.s.-, our disbelief
that the Chancellor of thi, Exclicou, r will avail himself of a
re-
source, to which he could apply only in the face of those con, '
stitutianal and political consequences, the peril of which was
forcibly pressed upon him in the debate alluded to by Sir. Her-
ries. A correspondent, who addresses us under very great ae- '
prehensions on this subject, asks us by what authority A*
Chancellor of the Exchequer can take the vast sum I
declared to be due to the trustees of savings banks on the 20th
November last (26,000,000/. and upwarchi). or any part of it,
cut of the hands of the Commissioners; whether these hitter 11
do not hold such moneys on trust for the depositoTr.,• whether
these moneys could be legally taken up on loan, without their
consent, &c. We fear that the short answer to most of these
questions is, to remind our correspondent of Blaekstone's de-
finition of the functions of Parliament, and at his much dis-
puted doctrine, after Sir Edward Coke, of its omnipotence.
Besides, our correspondent's reasoning on the contingency of
any Government which should venture on the exercise et so
enormous a power as this species of appropriation would be,
" a power which it would be wrong to trust to any Minister"
(according to the admission of Mr. Baring himself), obtaining
subsequently a Bill of Indemnity, is almost sufficient to deter-
mine his own doubts, They would he reluctant, indeed, to
challenge it release which Patliament would be so little likely
to grant them.
POST.—There cannot be greater effrontery of misrepre-
sentation than that which seeks to excuse the potent Ministe-
rial tenacity of office on the ground of precedent. It is said
that Mr. Pitt, in 1784, and Sir Robert Peel, in 1835, acted
as the present Ministers are acting. This is not true, There
is no such similiarity in the cases as can justify the assertion.
In 1784 and in 1835 the newly-appointed Ministers were
on trial before the public. They did not persist in holding
office after having lost that confidence of the House of Com-
mons which was requisite in order to carry the raeastwes which
they deemed essential to the public welfare, They were at the
commencement of their career, and they were bound in duty sia
the respective Sovereigns who had appointed them, to wait. fur
a short time, in the belie of bringing over the House of Commons
to their views, Mr. Pitt succeeded in this, and Was enabled
to continue in office. Sir R. Pool, basing called a new Pu...
liament before he met the House as Minister, and finding; after-
a short time that,there was no probability that he eAsold carry
in the House of Commons measures which ho deemed essen-
tial to the public welfare, resigned his °MOO. He only waited
as long as it was necessary ler a now Minister to wait, in order
to ascertain whether hp could carry on the business with which
it had pleased the Sovereign to entrust him, or usst, The dif-
ference between the case of a new Administration seeking to
establish itself in the cnnfidence stf the House of Commons,
and an Administration et some years' standing which has
gradually lost the confidence of that House, is palpable and
most important. The one case is that of a reasonable
attempt to justify the Sovereign's choice in the eyes
of Parliament, and of the pohlie. The other is an•
impudent attempt to hold office in contempt of the judgment
to which Parliament has deliberately and after long experience
come. It is also a reckless disregard of the public welfare for
Ministers, rather than sacrifice their places, to abandon the ad-
vocacy of measures which they declare to be of essential im-
portance to the public welfare, and adopt other measures
which they had stigmatized as injurious. Did Mr. Vitt offer
at any time to accept the India Bill of Mr. Fox., because the
first proposition of his own was rejected by the House of
Commons ? Did Sir R. Peel offer to appropriate the revenues
of the Church in Ireland to secular purposes, because the
Op-
position carried a resolution that they
ought' so to be p o
priated? No ; neither of these Ministers sought to re-x.ll'll.in
to glee upon such terms. But the present Ministers,
after having attacked the duties on foreign sugar as impolitic_
after having drawn very frightful
pictures of the distress of the
pecple in some districts—and
after venturing to ascribe these
distresses to the existing duties on sugar, have come forward to
propose these very duties, because they have so far lost the con-
fi lence of the House of Commons that they cannot carry in
that House the new scale of duties which they d. The
question now before the country
of,Prc'Pece
is one peon, practical uti-
lity, and so Sir R. Peel has very properly put it to the consi-
deration of the House of Commons.

MONEy
FROM THE M
MARKET and CITY NEWS.
OHNING PAPERS OT THIS DAT.
POST.—The Chancery
brokeri made sales to-day of Con-
sole to the amount of aboutoo,ooo/., said to be preparatory
to the
distribution of a divi.denpdaratdovfertthiseedsumon:ahse
90, and part at the less favourable prica of 89i. A purchase
pel sat:ettle a''tf
Messrs. Hammersley and Co
was, on the other hand, 1114(1f3 by
a leading broker of some
20,0001. er 30,0001. in the New Three-and-a-Half
per Cent.
Ann ; ;
%tie& With the exception of these isolated transactions,
the business of the day was not important. Money was less
easy than it has been, a change that is believed to have been
produced by the reports in circulation respecting the French
loan, M Rumania being, it is said, disposed to dip somewhat
unsparingly into the pockets of our capitalists for the supplies
needed by him in order to meot the increased expenditure
brought on by his predecessor, M. 'Fhiers. The rates given
on the deposit of Government securities, ranged between band
7 per cent. per annum.
The announcement contained in the French Papers, of au-
thority having been given by the Chambers to the Minister of
Finance to negotiate a loan far 458 millions of francs, has made
no very great impression in the City. The ainount, however,
is large (18„000,000/. sterling) and, as M. ll?mann notoriously
calculates a good deal on the support he may derive from the
capitalists of this country, we quite agree with the Morning
Chronicle in the ()pinion that the matter is one which calls for
the most vigilant attention on the part of the Bank of England.
The Bank, as was shown by the returns pnblishecl on Fri'-
of the averages of her liabilities 141-, A
sage a, and . ..ay
we have made some yomments, is vornitor ..- ...eon which
it WY slowly, lin iy.ovnt s---' _ .otind again, though
i;ivivicligii tii, do"--
• _,,,,,y of bullion for all purposes,
.ott upon her numerous branches in the