The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-13 00:00:00

SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE

SAVINGS BANKS:
Sir Robert Peel has attempted to destroy the force
of the representations which have been made respecting
the existence of distress in this part of the country, by
making some statements respecting the amount of pay-
ments into, and withdrawsl.s from, the Savings Banks.
The fact is, and Sir Robert Peel ought to have known it—
indeed, it is probable he did know it ; but, speaking with
a special object, it did not suit his purpose to acknow-
ledge the circumstance—that June is not at any time a
month of large deposits, but is usually a month of large
repayments. In June, 1837, for example, the deposits
in the Manchester Savings Bank were 3,740/. ; but
the repayments were no less than 7,6291., thus exceed-
ing the deposits by no less than 3,8891. In August,
1837, however—as in August this year—the tables
were turned; the deposits were 6,116, and the with
drawals 4,961/., or 1,155/. less than was deposited. In
this case, we may observe, there was no change of Ad-
ministration to account for so remarkable 'an alteration.
There are, however, several obviou. reasons for such
a state of things. Many of the ilepositors in Savings
Banks are, in June, retaining what they can spare from
their wages, for the pav'inent of their rents, and other
periodical charges, which come upon the:n about that
season of 6" year. And, in most districts of the coml.
tq' Ps:ust be remembered, that July and August are
ul'.oths of considerable extra earnings, from piece-work
harvesting, which have hardly begun in June, or, if they
have, are then absorbed in preparing for the ordinary
Midsummer payments, of which almost every family has
more or less to make.

But Sir Robert Peel, finding his statements of Fri-
day objected to, returned to the subject on Thurs-
day last, with some more recent information. He
says, it had been complained that the returns for the
present year, which he had already laid before the
House had particular reference to the agricaltural
districts.

" On the present occasion he had made inquiry into
the returns in a manufacturing district, and he had se-
lected a district of the utmost importance, namely,
Manchester and Stockport ; and the result of the in-
formation he obtained was as follows :—During the
months of July, August, and September, in the years
1837, 1838, a..d 1839, the average of deposits amounted
to 22,6001., and the amount of withdrawals was
21,0301,, leaving a balance in favour of deposits of
1,5704 Io the years 1830 and 1840, taking the ave-
rage for the same three months, the amount of deposits
was 24,3001., while the amount of withdrawals was
23,800/., leaving a balance of only 509/. In 1841, for
the same three months, the amount of deposits was
28,1031., and the amount of withdrawals was 25,356/.,
leaving a balance in favour of deposits of 2,747/ "
Did no cause for this difference strike Sir Robert
Peel ? Did he not know, or did it not suit him to
state, that in 1837 there were three contested elections,
within the circuit which his returns embrace, viz., in
Manchester, in Salford, and in Stockport ; and that at
about the same period in this year, at least on the 30th
June and the 2d July, there were also contested elec-
tions in the same boroughs ? These occurrences are,
we have no doubt, quite sufficient to account for the
greater average increase of the deposits in June, July,
and August, 1837, 1838, 1832, over those in the same
months of 1839 and 1840 ; and again, for the magni-
tude of the dopes tg, as compared with repayments, in
the same three months of 1841. It may he observed
further, however, that both in July, 1837, and July,
1841, there were five Saturdays, which, being the ge-
neral day on which wages are paid, is here, and we
have no doubt in many or most other parts of the king-
dom, a day on which a much larger proportion than or-
dinary of deposits are always made. —Manchester
Guardian.

COMMISSIONER OF GREEN-

WICH HOSPITAL.

The appointment of the Honourable Charles Hope
to a Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital, not
vacant by death or resignation, is the commence-
ment of the good old Tory policy, and forms a pro-
per commentary on an article which appeared in the
last Quarterly Review, entitled " The Old and New
Ministers." In alluding to the changes and ap-
pointments made by the late Administration in June
last, and, among others, to that bestowed on the
Member for the city of Aberdeen, the Reviewer in-
forms us " That Mr. Bannerman wanted a place—a
permanent place; and there were two or three
chances that the Greenwich one might be of that
comfortable class. Sir Robert Peel, in his known
moderation and disposition to indulgence, might be
induced to wink at the flaw in Mr. Bannerman's
title ; or, what was more likely, Mr. Bannerman,
who was threatened with a contest, might be
beaten ; and then, being out of Parliament, Sir Ro-
bert would surely not be so hard-hearted as to remove
him , or, finally, one vote being no longer quite so
vJuable as it had lately been, Mr. Bannerman, a very
loyal gentleman, might, perhaps, not be disposed to
offer any factious opposition to her Majesty's Govern-
ment, in which case all would be safe and snug. We
know not how far these surmises may be well-
founded, but we do know that they afford the only
explanation we can imagine for the notorious facts,
and they are certainly not inconsistent with the
practice of the very worst jobbing administration which
ever existed, and which only existed by jobbing I" The
" known moderation and disposition to indulgence" of
Sir Robert Peel has been strictly exemplified in Mr.
Bannerman's case : that" very loyal gentleman" has as
yet had no opportunity of offering any opposition, factious
or otherwise, to her Majesty's Government, but he has
been, nevertheless, dismissed ; and, if report speaks truly,
not very ceremoniously. As we consider this disposition of
moderation and indulgence" on the part of the
Premier to be somewhat unusual, we have been at
pains to ascertain under what tenure a Commissioner
of Greenwich Hospital holds the appointment, and
we find during the Secretaryship of the Right Honour-
able and Learned Gentleman Mr. Wilson Croker an
Act was passed for the better management of the
Hospital. Five Commissioners were appointed, two of
them ex officio ; the Chief Commissioner of Woods and
Forests, and Paymaster of the Navy, without salaries,
and three others who were named in the Act, whose sala-
ries are provided to be paid from the funds of the Hos-
pital, and not from the Treasury, as Government official
salaries are paid. The Lords of the Admiralty have the
appointment of all officers connected with the Hospital,
and have the power to dismiss them for
misconduct, with the exception of three Com-
missioners, who hold their appointments by
letters patent from the Sovereign, and during
her Majesty's pleasure,. as all such patents are held.
The " moderation and indulgence" of Sir Robert
Peel, therefore, may prompt him some morning
to dismiss the gentlemen who were lately Mr.
Bannerman's colleagues. But it will be said that
Mr. Bannerman holds a seat in Parliament,
which they do not, and was elected after accept-
ing the appointment. Lord Auckland, a Whig
peer, one of the Commissioners named in the
Act of 1829, continued to sit, aye, and to vote, in Par.
!tame as he chose, while be held the same appointment.
On the death of the late Mr. Creavy, Mr. Shell
succeeded, and resigned on being appointed Vice-
President of the Board of Trade ; when the Hon.
W. Couper was appointed, and he resigned in
June last, on being made a Lord of the Treasury.
Mr. Bannerman succeeded, and was dismissed last
Thursday. So much for a patent place, provided it
is not held by a Tory ; and Sir Robert Peel has
thus established a precedent which to any future
Government may be found a very convenient one.
Whether the member for Aberdeen intended to fol-
low Lord Auckland's example, or whether he ex-
pected, from the " known moderation" of the Pre-
mier, what the Right Honourable Baronet so ear-
nestly claims for himself, " a fair trial," we are not
aware ; but his dismissal from an office, to which
no administrative duties are attached, could not
be postponed until February, when the Honour-

aVe Gentleman might have judged of the great
measures then to be propounded to Parliament, for
fate had decreed that the Hon. Mr. Hope, brother
to Lord Hopetoun, had also measures in contempla-
tion, which, unlike the affairs of the State, could not
lie over till February. The Honourable Mr. Hope
"wanted a place," such a one as would enable him
to bring his matrimoial measures to maturity. Green-
wich Hospital was one of that comfortable class ;
and if be could get it," as the Quarterly says,
" all would be safe and snug." We know not how
far this surmise may be well-founded, but we do
,know that it affords the only explanation we can
Imagine for the notorious fact. Thus commences the
Tory regime, and, with Colonel Perceval's trans-
ference from the Treasury to a patent appointment
may furnish material for the first chapter, to use the
Quarterly's appropriate title, of the " Book of Job"
of the Peel Administration. That its continued his-
tory may prove a useful lesson to future Governments
we entertain but little doubt.—Chronicle.

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS OF
THE CONTINENTAL STATES.
We need cot seek further than the negotiations
now pending beta een Holland and the Prussian
Commercial League for a striking illustration of the
feeling which pervades the Continent upon the sub-
ject of commercial relations. Financial considera-
tions induced the Governmenths of the Prussian
League to encourage the importation of colonial
sugar at a moderate duty, in preference to protecting
the home manufacture of sugar from beetroot ; and
it was resolved to contract treaties with the maritime
Powers upon this basis, which should appear to con-
tain a concession made to those states. Holland,
however, which was likely to derive the greatest
benefit from the change, refused to look upon the
measure as a concession, it being evidently dictated
by necessity, and would grant no reduction of duty
upon German wares exported to her colonies. It is
highly probable that upon examination it was found
that the German manufacturers actually had nothing
to export which could compete with the manufactures
of Great Britain ; and Holland was and is bound
by the treaty of 1825 to grant no concessions to
other nations which she does not extend to Eng-
land. It would perhaps be going too far to ascribe
the assignment of these motives as an excuse for her
refusal 'to. a positive feeling of hostility on the
part of Holland to ourselves, although the useless
angry altercation kept up for some time by Lord
Palmerston with the Dutch Government was likely
enough to engender such a feeling. A simpler mo-
tive is nearer home in the desire of the Dutch to en-
courage their own manufactures, to which end no
pains have been spared to induce manufacturers to
emigrate from Belgium, and thus to render the
commercial system of Holland, which was previously
complicated enough, still more perplexed and intricate.
The German manufacturers, blind to the impossibility
of exporting to foreign markets with advantage,
while they were unable to supply the quanti-
ties required at home at sufficiently moderate
prices to exclude foreign competitors, immediately
raised an outcry against their Governments for
having betraed their interests by concluding the
treaties in question. United with the sugar refiners,
who had more reason to complain, because the duty
on refined sugar was reduced in a greater propor-
tion than that upon raw sugar, they finally com-
pelled the Prussian Government to announce to the
Dutch that the treaty would expire with the first
year, a clause allowing such a declaration to be
made having been inserted in the treaty. A report
was, however, circulated that the low duty was to
be retained in the tariff of the Prussian League,
which was revised last year, but has not as yet been
made public ; and this perhaps accounts for the si-
lence with which the Dutch received the notifica-
tion, and for the rapid progress made in the nego-
tiations for the accession of the Grand Duchy
of Luxembourg to the Prussian League. This last
treaty was drawn up and even signed by the Pleni-
potentiaries appointed to conclude it, when on a sudden
the King of Holland refused to ratify it, and estab-
lished a commission for the purpose of making further
inquiries into the commercial interests of the Grand
Duchy. The reason assigned for this sudden change is
the report, which has recently been spread, that
on the expiration of the treaty of 1840, differential
duties will be imposed upon colonial wares imported
through the Hanseatic harbours and those im-
ported through Holland ; but, whatever the cause
was, the refusal of :the King to ratify the
treaty has excited much bad blood in Germany, and
a portion of the press has renewed its exhortations to
dictate compliance by force to a Power whose re-
sources do not seem to entitle it to be treated with
ordinary courtesy. In the meantime Holland finds
itself obliged to show a disposition to accede to the
commercial systems of France and Belgium, and
would find no full indemnity in the French market
for the loss of the direct trade with Germany ; of the
indirect trade through the Hanseatic port she of court e
could not be deprived.
Looking upon this situation of affairs abstractedly
from British interests, it would appear a just punish-
ment to the States of the Prussian League for the iso-
lating tendency of their policy, if Holland acceded to
the French Belgian system. The Prussian tariff,
which appeared originally with an especial bad grace
just at the moment when the other nations of Eu-
rope were awakening to a sense of the good
policy of relaxing commercial restrictions, and
emanating from a state which had some preten-
sions to influence as a cultivator of intelligence,
may be said to have retarded the mutual under-
standing between the leadieg Powers of Europe
a full quarter of a century. The accession
of Holland to vile French Belgian system would
in a great measure neutralise the effect of a
commercial union between France and Belgium
alone. It would then be a treaty of reconciliation
between Holland and Belgium on a footing of mutual
independence, which would be cemented by the ad-
vantages which both derived from France, while it
would contribute to make the former Powers once
more politically independent of their restless neigh-
bour. If Prussia is jealous of such an union, let her
adopt a powerful remedy, which she has at all times
in her hands, and by moderating her tariff annul the
exclusive advantages which these lands proposed to
grant to each other. As commercial relations have
now obtained an unusual weitht in the political system,
isolation in commerce is the: surest way to induce a
loss of influence, and the most dangerous discovery
which a country can make is, that its neighbours can
do without it.

Whether at a moment when such important ques-
tions are once more set afloat, an approximation on
the part of Great Britain to Holland would not also
be both practicable and desirable, is a question de-
serving of a more detailed inquiry. Materials have
been furnished in an article in the last number
of the British and Foreign Review, which afford a
comprehensive view of the European sugar market,
with its consumption, and the fluctuations in price
which have taken place for the last ten years. The
object of the writer is to show that the low price of
Java sugar is partly to be ascribed to the forcing
system of importation, and also induced, both by the
necessities of the Dutch Government, and the false
position of the Dutch Trading Company towards the
Government. The remedy suggested in the abstrac-
tion of a large quantity of sugar from the continen-
tal market by a reduction of the differential duty in
England—a concession which might be made in
exchange for a free admission of our manufactures
into the rising colonies of Holland, which have a
population not much inferior in numbers to the
United States. Such an abstraction it is con-
tended would raise the average price on the Con-
tinent to a figure which would be injurious
neither to our East or West India producers,
as is /proved by the average prices of former yea-s,
while a step of the kind would give an impulse to
trade which must be productive of extensive and
highly beneficial results. It is known that an influ-
ential party in Holland is very desirous of being
emancipated from the yoke of the Company as it at
present stands, and the subject will be mooted in the
next, if not in the present, session of the States-General.
But the subject is important enough to be separately
considered ; here it is enough to show how anxiously
the continental states cling to any petty advantage
from which they cannot be bought off, and how far
they are removed from large and enlightened notions of
free trade.

POST-OFFICE MONEY-ORDERS.--.-The adop-
tion of this mode of remitting small sums of money
although attended with incalculable benefit to the public,
has nut been unattended with inconvonince to the depart-
ment. That branch of the General Post-office is to all
intents a bank of issue and deposit—the aggregate sum
daily paid and received is quite incredible. The great
pressure of business has, however, been diminished,
owing to the district post-offices being empowered to pay
money-orders of small amount, but to entitle the party
in whose favour the order is drawn, it must be specially
directed. There is at present great risk in remitting
cash, the letter-carriers being no longer required to de-
mand receipts for money letters.

MADLY. D'EsTE.—This distinguished lady
—the legitimate daughter of his Royal Highness the
Duke of Sussex and the injured Lady Murray—has been
staying at Cheltenham for the last month, tncog. to all
but her personal friends. Her Ladyship took her de-
parture last Monday for Scotland, on a visit to the Duke
and Duchess of Buccleugh.—Cheltenham Journal.
Dr. B. informs us that he has a patient so
dreadfully irritable on the subject of water, that be won't
wear his watch, because there is a spring in it.—Anicrt.
can Paper.
A MAN BURIED IN A CHALK-PIT.--On
Friday a remarkable accident occurred at Patinbourne,
Kent. It appears that a man named White, in the em-
ploy of a Mr. Cozens, of Canterbury, was engaged in
digging chalk, when a mass fell over and buried him, and
he remained so for nearly two hours before he was dis-
covered. He was then extricated, and had not been seri.
ously injured.

i. '~~i

MORNING SITI4'.-: