The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-20 00:00:00

visit of the Duke DE MONTPENSIEE to Madrid.
There cannot be a doubt but that an election at the
present moment would give a Progressista, or, more
properly speaking, a National majority in the
Cortes.

The Bank of San Fernando had 'remitted 80,0001.
to London, to pay the dividend on the Three per
Cents. due on the the Ist of January.
MADRID BOLSA, DEC. 13.—The Three per Cents.
were done at 28-i, at 50 days; the Five per Cents.
at 16 for paper ; and the Debt without Interest at 5.

We hare received the Paris papers of Friday and
Saturday.
The Debats has a long article on Irish affairs, in
which it exposes the blunders, mistakes, and quarrels
of the Repenlers in the House of Commons. The
article concludes in the following manner :
" It has been always imagined that the contests which
have covered Ireland with blood during centuries were
fought between English and Irish. This is an error.
They were above all civil wars. They were wars be-
tween Protestants and Catholics, but always between
Irishman and Irishman. It is to be observed, that the
Protestant party found itself naturally the English
party. As it was the English garrison in Irelard, there
was between it and England an offensive and defensive
alliance, and it compensated for its inferiority of numbers
with regard to the Catholics by its superiority of wealth,
discipline, education, and, in fine, by all the advantages
derived from the possession of power and the support of
the strongest party. But it is precisely since the union
between Ireland and England that this contest between
Protostantism and Catholicity, this war between north and
south, has ceased. The central power acts as a media-
tor between the belligerent parties. In place of being
the auxiliary of one party against the other, as it has
been during centuries, the British Government is now
the arbitrator between both. But the old animosities,
the ancient spirit of sect, of caste, and the antagonism of
race, still exist in Ireland. If to-morrow the union of
the countries was destroyed, the north and south would
immediately take up arms and recommence their san-
guinary quarrels. That is all that Ireland could gain
by the repeal of the union."
We find in the Presse the following admirable com-
ment on the reply of the Marquis:of LANspowNE to
Lord STANLEY, on the subject of the visit of Lord
IN.llyro to Rome. Taking as his text the declaration
of the Marquis of LANSDOWNE that it was monstrous
that there should be at the centre of Europe a Court
with which England could hold no communication,
the writer thus proceeds :
" Yes, it is monstrous, and the Government should
have:the courage to cause to be abolished by a formal
vote the absurd law, which places the head of the Catho-
lic Church, the spiritual King of several hundreds of
millions of souls, beneath the lowest of the Rajahs of
the Indian Archipelago. Thu, Mr. Brooke has been
pompously accredited as the official representative of
England, with the pirates without faith and without law,
who dominate in Borneo ; and Lord Minto is to be
looked upon as a man infected with the plague,
for having breathed for a few weeks the same air
with Pius the Ninth 1 These gross inconsistencies,
these stupidities of a pretended religious fanaticism, can
only be injurious to those who are guilty of them. Lord
John Russell is going to bring in a Bill to relieve the
Jews from the moral and religious degradation to which
they have been sentenced by an antiquated legislation.
This is well. But is there not on the part of the nation,
which calls itself Christian, a ridiculous contradiction in
allowing to subsist the absolute anathema upon the Pope,
whilst it revokes that upon the Jews? If Lord John
Russell were well inspired, he would, instead of
temporising with the furious bigots of the University of
Oxford, force them to be at length of their own century,
and to admit civil and political equality for all religions.
The time is arrived for the reform of all absurd exclu-
sions."

Albeit the Presse is no friend either to England or
to the English Minister, the advice here offered is
sound andiwholesome advice ; it would be well that the
Minister should follow it. In the same journal we
find the following on the subject of the mission to the
Buenos Ayrean Republic :
" After having published the announcement by Lord
Palmerston of the approaching- termination of the im-
broglio in La Plata, the journals have added that the
new English agent, Mr. Gore, had orders to wait at Rio
Janeiro the arrival of the new French envoy. 'We learn
that this mission is entrusted to our Charg
d'Affaires at' Bogota, Baron Gros, who goes with
instructions conformable in every point with those of
the *English agent. and with orders to bring this in-
terminable and ridiculous question to a reasonable con-
clusion. There is hut one efficacious means of arriving
at this end, and of proving to the Argentine Govern-
ment the sincerity and serious character of this negotia-
tion, and that is to follow the line drawn by Lord
Howden; but, be it understood, with this difference,
that the main question, the only one of any importance
to be solved, be not complicated by raising accessory
questions, generally ill-conceived, offensive in their na-
ture, and of minor interest to u., such as the question of
Paraguay and the navigation of the Parana. We believe,
indeed, that the new instructions are drawn up in this
sense, and with Ministers who have some consistency in
their ideas, and some firmness in their resolutions, we
may be confident of at last seeing the curtain fall on
this sad spectacle, which we have for ten years been ex-
hibiting to the people of South America."

M. GUIZOT continues faithful to his old Absolutist
propensities, which induced hint to "go to Ghent."
He would now, to curry favour with the Northern
Courts, g,) much further than Ghent, if that were
necessary.
The Patrie says—

"At a general meeting of the Polish emigrants, which
took place at Paris in the evening of the 29th ult., M.
Bakounine, a Russian refugee, pronounced a speech
against the oppressor of their common country, the Em-
peror Nicholas. M. Guizot has given orders to M. Ba-
kounine, through the Prefect of Police, to quit Paris in
twenty-four hours, and France within the snortest pos-
sible delay. 'We denounce to 'the indignation of all
honest men this inhospitable and inhuman act of M.
Guizot, and this base condescension of our Ministry for
the tyranny of the Czar."
It is said that the Duke DE MONTEBELLO ',hill
succeed the Duke DE BROGLIE in the English
Embassy.
We read in the Siicle

" It appears that the Directory of the Bank of France
has determined at length to reduce the rate of discount.
The period and the amount of this reduction have not
yet been fixed. The majority of the Council, it is said,
is inclined to allow the present state of things to con-
tinue to the 15th of January. But in admitting such a
delay, will the rate of discount be then lowered to four
and a half or four per cent ? This question has given
discussions ; but no resolution has yet
this circumstance, as on all occasions,
we i
ictilual indecision of the Bank."
breseen s
ene t odvtoh very rtyehdl. lively

The Akhhar of Algiers of the 12th, has the follow-
ing from Tunis, dated the 4th :-" The projected
bank will not be established, England having signi-
fied to the Bay that she did not understand that
British subjects settled in the regency were to he sub-
ject to the reserve of four per cent., as a condition
attached to the re-imbursement of the notes of that
bank, the circulation of which was to be obligatory.
The Semaphore de Marseilles of the 15th instant
contains the following notice :-" The Chamber of
Commerce informs merchants and mariners that the
sanitory measures to which the vessels arriving from
France in the Roman states were subjected since the
26th of Nov ember have been suppressed. Official
advice of this suppression has been addressed to the
Chamber in a letter of the Consul of France at Civita
Vecchia, dated the 7th inst."
The Three per Cents. closed on the Paris Bourse
on Saturday at 75f. 6.5 e. ; New Loan, 76f. 75c. ;
the Five per Cents., 117 f. 20c. ; the Orleans Rail-
road Shares, 1,208 f. 75c.; Rouen, 9131. 75c. ;
Havre, 475 f. ; Great Northern, 5551. ; Avignon, 5681.
75c. ; Vierzon, 551 f. 25c. ; Bordeaux, 490 f; Dieppe,
260 f. ; Basle, 1621. 50c.; Paris and Strasburg, 418 f.
75e.; Tours and Nantes, 3981. 75c.:; Paris and
Lyons, 3921.50 c.
MARSEILLES, DEC. 14.-Marseilles and Avignon,
5581. 75c. ; Great Northern, 5421. 50c.
LYONS, DEC. 16.-Paris and Rouen, 910 f. ;
Avignon and Marseilles,
585 f. 75c. ; Vierzon, 546 f.
25c. ; Northern, 551 f. 25c. ; Paris and Lyons, 392 f.
50e. ; Orleans, 1,197 f. 50c.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE