The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1847.

Parliament being again prorogued until the 11th of
November, another interval for conjecture is afforded
to those who have been speculating on the probable
position of political parties since the dissolution of
the last House of Commons. We may safely under-
take to assert that, dating from the period when the
popular representatives first assembled in St. Stephen's
Chapel, a new Parliament has never been regarded
with more curiosity by the population of the United
Kingdom than the one which will commence its
sittings under the Administration of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL. The broils of factious antagonists have
been dissipated by the dispersion of the Conservatives
and the recent triumphs of Liberal opinion—the con-
tentions of squabbling politicians have been forgotten
in the achievements of a patriotic statesman—the
struggles between an effete minority and a superci-
lious majority have been definitively terminated by the
unparalleled innovations of a converted Prime Mi•
nister—and yet, notwithstanding the tranquillity
which was the necessary consequence of these
movements (a tranquillity originating on the
one side in despair, and on the other
in a complacent conviction of supremacy), the
inquisitiveness of the multitude with reference to the
futurity of the new Parliament is doubled, if that be
possible, in its intensity and concentration. What
will be the actual strength of the Government ? W ho
will be the acknowledged leader of the Opposition ?
How will the Irish Members be distributed ?
Which names will appear in the catalogue of Minis-
terialists ? Are the Repealers decided upon the policy
to be supported ? Will they combine for the purpose
of weakening the present Cabinet ? Is their hos-
tility to
Whiggery—or rather to the ghost of the
shadow of the shade of WhicrYger —so implacable
that they will sell themselves, bodyc'and soul, vote-
and declamation, to the Protectionists ? And then—
the awful mystery of the
mystery more profound than the
sessto —a
he Masonic secret, or
the Rosicrucian doctrines, or the riddle of the Sphinx,
or the aspirations of the alchemists,ece r or the spectacles
temple revealed to the neophyte in thelenf Eleusis, or
the oaths and subterranean n
Vhemgericht—the august and be woildiees'n
r. ofg
the
blem of the new Parliament, Sir il pro-
PEEL ! What will be his influence ? whOo will
nERT
be his associates ? Where will he sit ?
jowl with .Colonel SIBTHORP ? Vis-a-vis to MT..
BENJAMIN DISRAELI ? Will he be attracted by the
magnetism of ex-official dignity into the immediate
vicinage of the red tape and the red boxes ? Will he
reveal the expansion of his waistcoat below the gang-
way ? Or, taking the facetious hint of an ananymous
pa:nphleteer, will he swing intermediately between
the floor and the ceiling, in a basket ? His ambi-
tion—is it extinguished ? His self-possession—is it
imperturbable ? His magnanimity (as evinced to
Mr. CorsßN, to Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and, in short
to the entire nation)—is it inexhaustible ? His long-
suffering (under the opprobriums and calumnies of
his late supporters)—is it unbounded ? Have the tac-
tics cf the Peelites been &liberated on in the sanctum
runctorum of Drayton Manor ? Happy Sir ROBERT !
whose projects are as inscrutable as those of Death,
and whose reveries are guarded from vulgar investi-
gation as by the utterance of the Sybilline interdict,
" Procul, 0 procul este profauir
It is amusing to observe the bewilderment of the j

Protectionists, as to the relative position of parties in
the new Parliament. With the Liberals it is other-
wise, for the impetus which recent occurrences have
imparted to the popular movement has rendered it al-
together irresistible. The conjecture is no longer
how Reformers can withstand the preponderance of
the Conservatives—as it was in 1641—but how the
Protectionists will contrive to withstand the prepon-
derance of the Liberals. The tables are turned with
a vengeance. The pigmy has expanded into the giant
—the colossus has dwindled down into decrepitude.
Conservatism, like the Kilkenny cat, has left only the
fag-end of its tail, but that shred of its existence is
still palpitating with vitality. Yet the hopes of the
Protectionists survive all their reverses. Gifted with
a more sanguine temperament than was ever before
granted to political faction, they are sustained by their
egotism amidst circumstances the most unpropitious—
they imagine that the empire is to be regenerated by
the babblings of a servile party, led by an accomplished
renegade, and animated by a speculator in horseflesh I
The Quarterly has condescended to be the enunciator
of these aspirations. It plumes itself upon the innate
strength of the Protectionists, it exults over the
quibbling calculations of Lord GEORGE BENTINCX
and the stubborn pertinacity of Lord STANLEY. It
revels in the dream of their ultimate victory and re-
joices in the notion that they are " sufficiently power-
ful to prevent any great mischief from either the com-
bination or the rivalry of the late and present Minis-
tries !" That declaration is at least an acknowledg-
ment that such a combination or rivalry is the only,
and inevitable, alternative. This acknowledgment
too, from the Quarterly The rivalry or combine-

tion of the Cabinets of Lord Joan RUSSELL and Sir
ROBERT PEEL—for the people, for the advancement
of Reform, for the promotion and introduction of po-
pular measures ! Nor is this the only certainty of the
session of 1848 inimical to the cause of the Protectionists,
Sir ROBERT PEEL is not only definitively committed
to the principles of liberality, he has not merely been
pushed forward into the van of the great popular
movement, side by side with his late illustrious rival,
and now his powerful associate, but the scabbard has
been torn from his belt by his former adherents, and
the battle will not terminate until Free Trade
and Reform are consummated by the extinc-
tion of the Protectionist party and the ob-

livion of the obsolete doctrines. Another
fact most favourable to the Liberals, a fact
attested by Dodd's Parliamentary Companion, and
corroborated by the Quarterly itself, is the demo-
cratic intelligence of the 223 new Members recently
elected by the different borough and county consti-
tuencies. The latter authority laments over the cir-
cumstance, and insinuates a gloomy analogy between
the Lew Parliament and the National Assembly of
France. As if St. Stephen's was to be the birth-place of
a most bloody Revolution, and the modest writer in
the Quarterly was to be regarded as another EDMUND
BURKE, penning a new philosophical and prophetic
analysis of the Legislative Chamber. Never was
there, surely, a more dismal egotist—(we would repay
the compliment of the Reviewer !)—since the days of
MAXIMILIAN ROBESPIERRE ! How much reason we
have to regret the return of these 223 new representa-
tives may be gleaned from the following considera-

tions. There are a greater number of barristers—
alas ! the Quarterly might have thought of lIENRy
BROUGHAM. There are a greater number of mer-
chants—it must have remembered RICHARD COBDEN.
There are a greater number of political writers—it
must have winced under the recollection of WILLIAM
COBBETT. There are a smaller number of naval and
military officers—it must have bewailed the possible
exclusion of some cousin-german to Colonel SIBTHORP.
There are a smaller number of persons connected
with noble families—it must have sighed for the
damper thus imparted to some genius kindred to that
of the Marquis of GRANBY. And lastly, there are a
smaller number of country gentlemen—a circum-
stance fraught with the most poignant and lugubrious
inferences to the Quarterly Reviewer, seeing that
among the country gentlemen elected to a seat at
Westminster are such august guardians of the con-
stitution as worthy Sir Jolts TYRRELL. We sym-
pathise in the affliction of the Quarterly—our heart

bleeds with commiseration, for, in the ascendancy of
Reform and Liberality, we can afford to be mag-
nanimous, and beyond that—as Sir JOHN CAM 11011-
HOUSE wrote, in 1815, to Lord BYRON—" We are
not stocks, nor stones, nor Tories ! "

The fearful evils to which the country has been
exposed from the deficiency of circulation, and its
inadequacy to supply the general purposes of the
country, to represent the enormous amount of capital
invested in trade and commerce, or in a dormant
state, such as in lands, houses, railways, &c. &c., are
all encountered for the purpose of complying with an
abstract principle of making gold the only money of
the country, and securing the immediate conversion
on demand of every note which might be issued either
by the Bank of England, or any of the private
banks whose existence was recognised and sanctioned
by the Act of 1844; in fact, that the entire
circulation of the country, if nut exclusively a me-
tallic one, should be wholly based thereon, and
that no other description of property should be repre-
sented by what would be received as a currency as
contradistinguished from money, or that which would
possess an intrinsic value, and be at all times received
without any reference to the credit of the parties who
were responsible for the ultimate liquidation thereof.
A startling anomaly is, however, manifested in the
very outset. The framers of the law found it utterly
impossible to carry their intentions into perfect
execution, to follow the principle to its full extent.
They were compelled to acknowledge that there was
not a sufficiency of specie in the country, and were
therefore obliged to tolerate a departure from a
strict adherence to the rule. The Bank of England
was accordingly authorised to issue to the extent of
fourteen millions sterling, that being in round numbers
the amount of Government securities of which the
Bank was then possessed, but which, as we have
already shown, it might at any time dispose of; and
certain private banks were also permitted to issue notes
amounting to 8,000,0001. sterling or thereabouts, being
the average amount of their circulation for a certain
period previous to the passing of the Act, and these
issues, amounting in all to 22,000,0001. sterling, were
sanctioned V% ithout one single ounce of gold being
required as the basis, nay, without any adequate or
satisfactory security being afforded to the public for
the full payment thereof. Here there was an admis-
sion at the very outset hostile to that which they were
attempting to establish. It proved that an exclusive])
metallic circulation, or a currency wholly based thereon,
was impossible. It recognised at least the possibility of
the Bank of England and the several private banks
being reduced to the condition of many of the
mercantile firms that have been obliged (although
with ample assets) to suspend payment. Those
parties may be accused of over-trading, because, from
the scarcity of money, they are unable to find present
means of meeting their outstanding liabilities, and
yet the Legislature permits the great national esta-
blishment to be in the same position. Had the late
harvest been a deficient one, had we been again
obliged to look to foreign nations for a supply of
food equal to that which was imported into the
country in the latter end of last, and the beginning of
the present year, the coffers of the Bank would be ex-
hausted. The gold would leave the country, for, under
any circumstances, the people must be fed, and no
forcing up of the rate of interest, or other means
within the power of the directors, could keep the
exchanges so much in our favour as to prevent the ex-
portation. Then, indeed, the consummation would
arrive, a more reasonable system would necessarily
be adopted ; but the nation would, indeed, have
paid dearly for its whistle. Our trade and commerce
would be almost annihilated ; the high character and
credit, which we have maintained for a long series of
}ears, and which was acquired by ages of undeviat-
ing
the
uil integrityion faith, h
have,
t country forfeited, and
croantcdhegtoowr-loufal
in universal ruin.

The object of the Act of 1844 was to make a self-
acting scale by which matters would at all times find
their own level, and by which a drain of bullion' no
matter to what cause it may be ascribable, would be in-
stantly checked. The directors of the Bank, the future
Ministers of the country, were all to be reduced to
ciphers, and everything was to be regulated by
the machine or automaton acting on a fixed in-
variable rule. If gold was leaving the country, it was
to be forced back by a compulsory depreciation of
every other description of property. The usual

accommodation should be withheld, in order to compe
manufacturers to sell their products at any price that
they might be enabled to meet their engagements,
even at a serious loss, and that thus foreigners might
be tempted to purchase from the extreme cheapness.
LTo get back two or three millions of gold a
little earlier than they would return in the
ordinary eourse of events, forty or fifty millions of
other kinds of property was to be sacrificed, and, far
worse, the credit of the entire country seriously im-
paired. And, euibono, for what end or object was this
destruction to be encountered ? Why should our
merchants and traders be deprived of their legiti-
mate profits, our artisans and operatives driven
out of employment, and a general stagna-
tion of commerce be occasioned ? simply that
a few additional millions in gold should be retained
idly in the coffers of the Bank, being practically of
as little use as if they had still remained buried in
the bowels of the earth. Surely such a 'course of
policy must appear little better than insanity to
any cool and dispassionate observer. We may
laugh at the folly of the miser who, with
ample means at his disposal, deprives himself
of all the comforts, almost of the necessaries, of life, in
order that in his closet he may gloat over his accu-
mulated hoard, that he may increase those stores
which, if properly applied, would afford him every-
thing he could desire, but which are suffered to re-
main utterly useless and unproductive. But in what
respect does our own conduct differ from his ? Do we
not practically sacrifice the substance in grasping at
the shadow, and relinquish real prosperity, for the
sake of a phantom ? We abandon the solid ground
in pursuit of an ignis fatuus.
We had intended alluding at some length to an
excellent suggestion contained in a letter on the
Currency, which we have copied into our columns
from a morning Contemporary. We have
not, however, space sufficent to enter into an
examination thereof this day. It is one worthy of
serious consideration, which might, as we con-
ceive, be made the foundation of a better systeti, and
very materially extended. There can be no doubt
that if acted on it would give very considerable relief
to all interests in the country, although we are
not prepared to say that it would be the most
advisable course to be adopted, or provide a
sufficient reform. It still acts on a gold basis, but
enables a remedy to be supplied when peculiar cir-
cumstances require a variation. The writer suggests,
" that whenever the stock in bullion is below ten
millions, the Bank should be authorised to issue 11.
and 21. notes to the extent of the deficiency; that
these notes should be made legal tenders, but not
convertible into gold until a year after date, but
payable into the Exchequer as taxes at any time."
We shall on a future occasion refer at greater length
to this proposition, when considering the means by
which the circulation may be made adequate to the
wants of the country without any danger of depre-
ciation of the currency, or want of proper security.

A letter from Naples, dated Oct. 5, says—
" I told you in my last letter that M. Pietracatelli,
the President of the Council, not wishing any longer
to accept his part in the responsibility attendant on
the direction of the Government, had sent in his re-
signation to the King. The fact is exact, but the
King refused to accept the resignation. The Minis-
ter, not being able to overcome the will of the King,
has protested against such conduct, and declared that
he should for the future remain totally a stranger to
the business of the Cabinet. In consequence he re-
fused to attend the Council of State. the next day
all the Ministers proceeded to his house to hold a
council, but M. Pietracatelli kept his room declaring
that he was ill, and allowed his colleagues to de-
liberate as they pleased, in his drawing-
room. The arrest and death of some of the Romeos
are related so contradictorily that I cannot affirm any-
thing certain to you about them. I can inform
you that the bands commanded by Longobucco
and Baron Piotino have reached the wood of Sila,
whence they often make a sortie to attack the royal
troops. General Statella has fixed his head-quarters at
Monteleone, in order to watch the limits of Calabria
Ultra, and intercept all communications with the
other parts. Bonfiglio, the leader of a numerous
band of brigands, offered Longobucco and Baron
Plotino the aid of his men, but the offer was refused,
in order not to disgrace the cause of the insurgents.
Bonfiglio then commenced acting on his own account,
and disquieted the Government so much, that General
Statella has promised 2,000 ducats for him, alive or
dead. In his last reports General Statella mentions
the general discontent, and the sympathy which the
insurgents meet with amongst the population ; he
does not dissemble that some concessions, made at
the proper moment, would be more favourable to the
royal cause than the violence and severity displayed
against the insurgent districts."
The resignation of PllrritscATuxx has been fol-
lowed by that of every member of the Cabinet, ex-
cept the Minister of Police. They were justly
offended at having been deceived by the KING, who
had caused them to declare to the chiefs of the in-
surrection that if they would lay down their arms,
the institutions they demanded should be granted to
them, but who, when the chiefs desisted from their
purpose, and suffered the royal troops to occupy
their positions, refused to perform the promises which
he had made. Another rising is expected in conse-
quence.
- - - - - -

A letter from Leghorn, of the 6th, states that on
the previous evening crowds traversed the city, crying
" Long live Corsini ! Long live Italian Independence !
Death to Austria ! " The Civic Guard interfered, and
order was re-established, but some apprehension was
entertained that tumultuous scenes would be renewed.

According to this letter, the two new Ministers,
the Marquis RIDOLTI and Count SERRISTORI, have
accepted the portfolios of the Interior and of Foreign
Affairs, on the condition that, in the event of an
Austrian intervention, the GRAND DUKE, with all
the Government, shall withdraw to the Island of Elba,
in order to be able to resist it.

By the steamer Montrose, which arrived at South-
ampton yesterday, we have received intelligence from
Lisbon to the 9th.

The Ministry have amended the decree relative to
the registration, and have enlarged the time to fifteen
days.

The accession of NARVAEZ to power was known at
Lisbon, and it was supposed that in consequence a
Cabralist movement would be made in that city.
The Terrible, supposed to have on board Count
Bostrim and his companions, entered the Tagus on
the 9th.

[For the remainder of the news we refer to the
letter of our correspondent in another column.]

Madrid Papers of the Bth have arrived.

The Gageta publishes a series of decrees suspending
the execution of SALAMANCA'S financial projects until
they shall have been approved of by the Cortes.
The Herald() publishes a letter from London, in
which it is stated that it was believed among the
Spaniards in that city that it was by the advice of
Lord PALMERSTON that ESFA.RTERO had delayed his
return to Spain. The Eco del Comercio publishes
another article on the recent Ministerial changes.
It appears from it that General Ros DE OLANO, whom
the Eco seems to think had entertained the intention
of betraying his colleagues, paid a visit on the 3d to
General SERRANO, whom he found very sad, and
making preparations for a journey. " Profiting,"
says the Eco, " by the perturbation of his friend,
which arose from an annoyance he had undergone,
and which had been unhoped for by some and cleverly
prepared by others, he conceived the idea of appealing
to General NARNAEZ, as the only person able to
save the high interests which at that critical
moment were menaced." The Leo then proceeds to
say that NAaVAEZ, &MEAN°, and Ros DE OLANO
had a conference, after which they had an interview
with the QUEEN, and caused her to consent to the
change of Ministry. To induce her to sign the de-
crees at that very moment, her MAJESTY, it says,
was told that " a horrible conspiracy existed for com-
pelling the Government to decree the arming of the
national militia, the dethroning of the QUERN, the
coronation of EsrAirraao, the abandonment of the
Philippine Islands, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Canaries
to the English, and to consent to take part in be-
heading most of the peaceable inhabitants of Madrid."
The Eco adds, that the discovery of this " horrible
conspiracy" was made by General Szaßlrso, who, it
s_t
ep
apvoes
ne
a'
nmautsht a
th ah vee lr
eperaersne endt e
di ts
to
the
c2existenceuEEN from
that
his duty and devotedness to her caused him to reveal I
it, and to recommend a change of Ministry as the
most efficacious means of baffling it. More addresses
to the Throne, expressing gratitude for the nomi-