The Sun.
London, England, 1840-10-10 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

EMBARRASSMENTS of ENGLAND.

(From the Debats of Thursday.)
do not know whether England has seriously the
imbarrassments which may befal her in the career of war
into which a rupture with France would plunge her,
but what she cannot have forgotten is what the first
coalition cost her. She still bears the weight of it ; and
twenty-five years of peace, of labour, and of continued
efforts have scarcely done anything to diminish the enor-
mous debt which had been occasioned by fourteen years
of obstinate resistance. While the yawning gulf is still
there—while the wounds inflicted upon England by the
Continental system are still bleeding—can it be sup-
posed that she should be inclined to lav before a new ,
coalition the credit of her public wealth?
When in 170 the English Government, constituted
the banker of all Europe, armed against us, it was,
doubtless, far from foreseeing the immensity of the task
it undertook, and the enormous subsidies in money and
in blood which were to be paid. Lessons like these
ought to be never lost upon a people ; and it is sur-
prising indeed that it should be necessary to remind
them of it, after entertaining the idea for ten
years of an indissoluble alliance between two grand
nations—the simultaneous development of their in-
terests ; the association, in a manner, of their na-
tional prosperity. Let us cast an eye, then, upon this
evil past, since it mast be so, not with the intention of
indulging in recriminations, which would have nothing
either dignified or advantageous in them, but of giving
a warning against yielding to imprudent impulses. The
sources from which we borrow the following calculations
cannot appear doubtful ones, as they are furnished us
by an English political economist, Mr. G. R. Porter.
The chapter of his work on the " Progress of the Na-
tion," entitled " Expenditure of War," (vol. 2, p. 331),
lays before us all the wounds and sufferings of the coa-
lition. In 1811 all the resources of Great Britain were
exhausted—the misery of the working classes was at its
highest pitch—the warehouses remained clogged with
merchandise—a loan was impossible—the debt was
more than 22,000,000 millions (of francs), and England,
in apite of her invincible obstinacy, would infallibly have
been borne down in the struggle, if fortune had not at
last turned her back upon him who, till then, had been
the ruler of nations. In twenty-two years, from 1793
to 1814, tlee sum total of the loans and subsidies paid
by England to the Continental Powers amounted to
1,157 millions of francs. The two years (1813 and
1814) alone cost her 381 millions.
In this enormous premium paid to the coalition, Rus-
sia enters for 218 millions ; Austria, 240 millions e
Spain and Portugal, 363 millions ; Prussia, 84 millions ;
S.vcdoe, 95 millions ; Sardinian States and Sicily, 80
H 'cover and other German States, 77 millions.
It would he curious, after this, to follotv the increase
of the national debt in England. In 1793, before the
hostilities, the capital amounted to 6,000 millions. It
then increased successively, and in such proportion, that
in 1808 it amounted to 16,000 millions ; and on the Ist
Jinuary, 1816, the epoch of its apogee, it amounted
to more than 22,000,300 millions of francs. The pub-
lic expenses had increased in a still more considerable
proportion. From 600 millions in 1793 they had risen
iu 1815 to 2,675 millions, the interest of the debt in-
cluded, as well as the poor-rates, which were forced to
b? increased from 100 millions in 1800 to 267 millions
in 1811.

If a continental war were to break out, France, strong
in her immense interior resources, has certainly less to
fear than any nation in Europe. She could at need
suffice to herself, and find in the transactions and ac-
tivity of the thirty-three millions of men the aliment as
well as the consumption of her trade and manufactures.
tier public cri.dit is, incontestibly, the most solid in
Europe. There is no disaster, however great, from
which this fruitful country, so rich, above all, in its agri-
cafe productions, could not easily recover itself. Two
successive invasions, the calamities which accompanied
or followed them, the thousand millions' indemnity, the
war in Spain—all this has proved the fact. Can we
',sped a; much of England ?
IF there be a nation whose prosperity is intimately
connected with the peace of the world it is most as-
suredly tieirland. She lives only by her foreign com•
mom! ; everything comes to her from without, as it is
out of the country where she has to find a consumption
of all her immense industrial production. England is a
body, the members of which, out of all proportion with
the head, extend immoderately from India to the An-
tilles, from China to Canada, and which, in order to live,
needs all freedom of movement. flow, then, can England
be thus eager to commence the adventurous career of war?
Does she, perhaps, consider herself the only one of all
the European nations that is exempt from those interior
embarrassments which menace their political existence ?
That would be the strangest blindness, England has her
Chartists and her pauperism ; she has femiahed Ireland
by her side, palpitating beneath the powerful h and of
O'Connell ; she has a struggle with Canada, which is
far from being terminated ; she has the limination of
this colony to fix, a question in which, one by one, are
lost all the means of conciliation between Great Bri-
pia and the United States; she feels the emancipated
Antilles from her grasp ; she sees India Me-
naced-by Persia and by Russia, now Ler ally of fatal
augury.; even her quarrels with China are capable of
ecaling a hard blow to her interests. It is necessary for
England to come off victorious from the contest with
the Celestial Empire at any price, for to her it is a re-
veoue'ciii'estion—the question of the importation of tea.
e were To a state of agitation enough, not long ago,
about riAfeiir millions of which the competition of the
tao sugars threatened to deprive our treasury ; but the
tea is quite another thing to England ; it is a question
of noticing less than a revenue of from eighty to ninety
millions, which must be made to enter the Exchequer
coffis at any price.
• To SUM up. The political condition, the financial
resources, and the public feelings of the people, and the
direction given as welt to their national activity—all, in
fact, has changed its aspect from 1813 to 1840. Be-
tween these two epochs is an i.nmense interval--a world.
The anti-revolutionary enthusiasm, which in 1813
incised up from the soil of Germany such numerous le-
gions, is extinct, and cannot be revived. A profound
elaboration is being carried on besidesin the heart of every
State, More or less hampered in its action by some se-
rious ditliculty of interior policy. During the last
twenty years the interests of nations have become major
ones ; they would no longer place themselves in the
suite or at the pay of the jealous passions of any Power.
Have we beet!, in truth, the elements of a continen•
tal war ? A continental war in the nineteenth century,
in the midst of the great European family, whose ten-
dency is to organise itself for peace and labour, would
be a barbarous arid anti-national act—an act which mi-
litates against all the views of Providence. For a time
a conftet of the kind might paralyse the progress of in-
dustry ; the capital turned away from that channel will
not wiliingly.come to the aid of a war of coalition. To
excite it would be at once an act of barbarity and of ill
f&aleulation. Will England take upon herself this tern--
Lie respensitility ?

THE CON VOCATION OF THE

CHAMBERS.

SPIRIT OF THE FRENCH JOURNALS OF
THURSDAY.
(From the Constitutionne/ )
The. Cabinet has eourazeously engaged its responsibi-
lity, and will again engage in it, according to circum-
stances, up to the riteting of the Chambers. The
Ministry has confidence in the Chamber, and with rea-
son. For in all that has been done, and all that it will
be called upon to do, the Alinistry has listened, and will
listen, only to the inspirations of its patriotism. It will
pr. sent
diplrimatic acts, and at the same time will show France
a-s it has re-organised it, that is to sly, ready to meet
every eventuality. We do not doubt for an instant that
the Chamber will ratify all the acts by which it has been
placed in a condition to sustain the interests and dig-
nity of France. The members of the national repre-
sentation are now disseminated on every point of the
territory, in the midst of a general population, which
shudders at the idea of an attack upon the honour of the
country. The Chamber will meet fully impregnated
with those sentiments of dignity and energy, which have
been interchanged by the electors and the elected. Let
us but recall to mind the national feelings under the in-
licence of which the present Parliament "as formed.
At ' s
.a.-:eession, it overthrew the policy which became
feeblet
we f
irnthe presence of foreign powers. The Cham-
ber, ineod, will be faithful to its origin.
The Tee 'n
inepsgvoes further than the Constitutionnel, for
it throws. out a hint that the Ministry
il have come to a
decision as to the casus belli and
. the Chambers to-
gctNer tor tea purpose of a ratification'c
of that decision.
We see," says this journal,"
of in the convocation of
Chambers, the indication
the
initiativesatisfy
n
all the exi-
gencies of our honour and interests in the present
have crre s
et
l
con-
juncture. Events do not wait those
ready taken place, and those which may r
toreeen
before the 28th of October, require, in fact, that from
the present moment certain resolutions should be come
to by the Ministry solely upon its own responsibi
In presenting itself to the Chambers to den
they should take their share of the responsibility,ra
'd
that
Ministry will meet with warm adversaries, it will
at least have the .advantage of defending itself openly
in a discussion in presence of the country. It will not
call upon the Chambers for a policy, but for
it the.ap-
probation df that which it has adopted, and will at
the same time appeal to the jadgment of the country as
to its acts. It will have no difficulty in proving to Eu-
rope that disinterestedness, moderation, and the sincere
defence of the equilibrium of Europe, have been con-
stantly on the side of France, and that its Government
has in
E this question sustained the true principles of
European policy."

(From the Siecle.)
There is no doubt but the Ministry has a plan of
conduct ready, the execution of which will take place
immediately after its having received the approbation of
tl e roprcsentatives of the country. A national system,
well
couce:ved and firmly decided upon, applied by the
men who have most pledged themselves to the rcvolu-
ti,n of July, wall,we hope, prevail in the policy of
•