The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNAL'

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Morning Post.)
Our readers, no doubt, remember that we were fortunate
enough to be the first to announce the Treaty of last July,
which shook the political fabric of the European s.:, stem to its
very foundation. Since then this agitation has never ceased—
an armed peace has been found to be a hollow truce, which
could not continue without collision ensuing, and it has been
the nearly general opinion of all the great political characters
of Europe that, rather than continue a state of things which
might produce a convulsion when lea 4 expected, and exhaust,
in the meantime, the resources of nations by unnecessary taxa-
tion, it would be better to wage war, and settle the question
at once, when the source of aggression was generally 'ac-
knowledged. Under circumstances of so much alarm, we
are most happy to announce the daily increasing hopes
of the completion of a treaty (already some time on the taps),
by which the French Government would re-enter the pale of
friendship with the Powers on whose fiat depends the peace of
fie world. There are still many difficulties opposed to the
conclusion of this compact, and it would be premature in us to
descant upon the conditions of a treaty 'which vary every mo-
ment under the Protean vicissitudes of tortuous diplomacy.
Although the present Administration hare only given utter-
ance to their opinions in favour of France as it were under
compulsion of the Tory interest, and that of every other party
in Parliament, it is but just to say that Lord Palmerston
has always been favourable to the French alliance,
and we could mention more than one great diplomatist—whe-
ther he be an Esterhazy or a Bulow—who, as difficulties arise
to the consummation so earnestly to be wished for, suggest new
modifications and proposes new means by which to reunite the
dissevered am;ty of France and England. Without adding
anything further, but connecting together the general demon-
stration of good feeling. towards France which characterized
the opening of the Session of Parliament—the subsequent di-
minution of a very large force, in the ranks of the French army
by order of Marshal Soult—and the more recent conduct of
M. Guizot in answer to an interpellation in the Chamber of
Deputies—our readers cannot doubt but our hopes are well
founded. We can only add that it is a matter of the highest
importance to the peace and commercial security of Europe.
(From the Morning Herald.)
There is t carcely a Whig "boon" to the people that does
not carry in it a serpent's sting. Even " cheap justice" is
made subservient to the hostile designs of our liberal rulers
upon trial by Jury, as " general education" covered a deep-laid
scheme against the religion of the country. Tice sting of that
most envenomed of all Whit! "boons"—the Poor-law Amend-
ment Act—is rapidly doing its work in producing crime, suffer-
ing, and death, while Government, as if afraid that it was not
sufficiently prolific of evil to the labouring classes, is
pressing the Legislature to infuse into it fresh vitality and
venom. We are glad to see that the parishes in the me-
tropolis and in many parts of the provinct s are bestir-
ring themselves to endeavour to avert the continuance of
this tyrannical and unchristian law, as a permanent curse upon
the country ; for the attempt to renew it for ten years is, as we
formerly stated, equivalent to an attempt to inflict it up- n the
nation for ever. The evidence' of its calamitous operation is
strong and abundant enough now to stop it ten times over, un-
less Parliament is resolved that no evidence of its disastrous
effects shall weigh against it in the scales of national legis-
lation, though, as holding the faith of Christians, we must
believe that it will weigh heavily against its authors and pro-
moters in the balance of Divine Justice. 'lt is written,
" When he maketh inquisition for blood he remembereth
them, and forgateth nut the complaint of the poor." The
fearful judgments denounced in Holy Writ against great and
famous cities and states of old, for the hard hearted adoration
of Mammon and the oppression of the poor, how can we, with
better knowledge, deserve and hope to escape ? But this is all
matter of sneer and ridicule for utilitarian scoffers and philoso-
phical. "liberals," who strike at Christianity itself whilst
scourging the poor with the scorpion-lash of a law that directly
contravenes the precepts of the volume of mercy, where the
rights of the poor are repeatedly recognised, and their cause
pleaded with their oppressors in language of the most pathetic
remonstrance, or their wrongs made the subject of terrible and
awful denunciations.

( From the Times )
The deplorable calamity which it was our duty to record last
week, of the loss of 124 human beings by the collision between
the Governor Fenner, American passage ship, and the Not-
tingham steamer, ought to suggest very uncomfortable reflec-
tion eto the minds of her Majesty's Government. In the case
efrailfvay accidents Ministers have been aroused from apathy,
no t,we verily believe, because they care about the matter, but
by the loud and resolute tone in which the public has de-
manded protection. Every consideration which can justify
such a measure as that proposed by Mr. Labouchere for the
regulation of railways applies with equal force to the case of
steam-vessels, or we should rather say, with greater force.
After the labours of two committees of the House of Commons
prior to 1839, and of the Commissioners appointed in 1838 to in-
quire into the causes of steam-vessel accidents during the ten
preceding years,—after the evidence collected by those com-
missioners from the most respectable sources, clearly pointing
out the nature and extent of the evil, and the appropriate re-
medies ; and after the several reports, all agreeing in their
conclusions, we did not expect that this subject would be left
ra statu quo till the Session of 1841; and the country will hold
those who have utterly neglected a matter of so great impart-
ance, on which they could not possibly plead inadequate infor-
mation, responsible in a high degree for the disasters which
have occurred in consequence. The extent of the evil may be
'udged of by the fact, that the Commissioners enumerate
about a hundred steam-vessel accidents attended with loss of
life, and 634 lives lost by those accidents in the ten } ears over
which their inquiries extended. Nearly half these accidents
happened within the last three years of the period; 22, wish
the loss of 137 lives, in the space of 15 months only from Ja-
nuary, 1833, to April, 1839. Since that time the number
nas increased; and three vessels, the Tyrian, the City of Bou-
logne, and the Governor Fenner, have perished by collisions
alone since the spring of 1840. The chief causes of these dis-
asters have been the foundering, &c., of vessels at sea from
unseaworthiness ; the bursting of boilers from want of strength,
or the use of improper safety-valves, &c.: and collisions from
the want of an ascertained " rule of road," and a uniform sys-
tem of signal lights. This was the case with the unfortunate
Rothsay Castle, in which 119 souls perished. Boilers and ma-
chinery are constantly worked after they are comp'etely unfit
for use. The Forfarshire, and the Abbey, two vessels wrecked,
the one in September, 1838, the other in March, 1839, were
both sent to sea with boilers leaking, and patched up in the
most disgraceful manner. Those of the Abbey were pugged
with horse-dung, old rspes, and hemp ! In the Forfar-
shire, whose owners knew in what condition she was
when she , put to sea, forty-five lives were lost. Numerous
and dreadful explosions have been caused by the
practice, which, down to 18:39, was general in Scotch-built
steamers, of using exposed and accessible safety-valves, which
worthless engineers frequently overload or tie down for the
purpose of gaining an extraordinary degree of velocity at start-
ing. To provide against the recurrence of the first two
classes of accidents, arising from unseaworthiness of hull
or machinery, and unsafe construction or position of boilers
or safety-valves, the Commissioners recommended the adop-
tion cf a compulsory system of registration, with periodical
surveys and licenses. It was proposed to place the regulation
of the system under a department to be created for the
l.urpose in connexion with the Board of Trade, similar to
the milway department; and we are at a loss to unlerstand
why no steps have been taken for carrying these sugge=ti ns
into effe,A. The third class of disasters, that arising from
colli.ions, as in the recent unhappy case of the Governor
Fenner. is thus describe I by the Commissioners :
" Collisions between steam-vessels, and between them and
other craft, occur so froquen.ly in crowded waters, they are
often so fatal to I.f-, and so generally attended with litigation
and expense in rel airing damage, that t' e want of a law to
diminish the evil is the subject of complaint with nearly all
our COI respondents. Coll sions occur both by thy and by
night, at sea as well as in rivers. They c-onmonly arise from
the absence of an universal understanding as to the ' rule of
the road' to be observed by ves•e!s in pas,ing one another, and
from the absence of an universal system el night-lights and
signals. The practice is al present regulated only by custom
or by the by-laws of different ports. which custom, being
various, is productive of serious collisions even on the high
seas.

As a remedy fur these evils they refer to and adopt the sug-
gestions of the Commissioners appointed in Ifs:ls to inquire
into the laws relating to pilotage, who recommended a way of
reducing all these different usages to a un form system by posi-
tive enactment. We do not hesitate to say, that if these re-
commendations had been attended to by Government, the
Governor Fermnr with her crew, and the por emigrants whom
Lash laws harshly administered were driving to seek refuge in
a foreign soil, would probably never have perished.
(From the Globe.)
Beyond the limits of his constituency, Mr. Ainsworth,
the Member for Bolton, is not a personage likely to excite
the slightest interest ; and we take it for granted that
the Bolton Liberals have their eyes open upon the votes
which Mr. Ainsworth deems it consistent to give with
the proLssions he made at the time of his election, and
which obtained for him the support which sent him to
Pailiament. By voting in direct opposition to those
Professions, he has enabled the Bolton Liberal electors
to estimate him at his real value to the cause he was
sent to the House of Commons to support. Dees Mr.
Ainsworth imagine that a vote on free trade, or a stray
vete with the Ridicals in a small minority, will be
regarded as a setoff against voting with the Tories
on such a question as that which was the subject
of discusiion during last week, and which involved
in its results the important issue, whether Ire-
land. should be mocked with the fora], but be
deprived of the exercise, of a popular franchise?
We presume that Mr. Ainsworth is aware of his
position at Behan ; that if not taken up by the Tories,
his power of damasieg the cause of Reform, by strength-.
ening the bands of its er:efile-i; 111 terminate with the
present Raliament; ter, assuredly, no Liberal who
looks to the division lists will so stultify himself as to
record his vote for a nominal Reformer—who votes
with the Tories agaiest a Bill, the object of which was
to preserve the Reform Bill from being neutral:zed in
Irela id, and the defeat of which invelved the fate of a
Liberal Administration. We were gratified to see the let-
ter of Mr. Swynfen in which he ascribed his ab-
sence fiom the division, without a pair, to sudden illness,
but for which he would have been in his place, and voted
for Lord Morpetb's Bill. We hope that the Hon. Mem_
ber's restoration to health will be complete; and that no
future aberrations from the course of political consistency
well excite suspicions of the sincerity or strength of his
professed at ta ch nkeFn trot a
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n upon at.o subjectmake
inquiry during nine long pars, upon
have brought lb a'rerdy four bills, andrt
of whtihcoh
was v-gorously clef ated during the grca'er p
last s•ssion. Dces Lord John Russell Lag t that he
brought in a bill revclutionisirg the parliamentary
constitution of England within three months of the
accession of his party to office? There was no want
ef time for that further information which, it appears,
indispensable, even after the lapse of nine years,
end after the debating of five bills (Lord Stanley's
excluded) in several of these nine years, to come to
set about an Irish Registration Act. But what is this
furtl!er information to illustrate ? Not the value
of b/. sterling,
or the duration of fourtnn solar
) cars—these are things already fixed and certain.
Not the numbers of the lii,h population, the pro-
p, rtions of the several proprietary or nen-proprietary
classes, or the number of electors—full infornaa iJn in