The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-26 00:00:00

,i-itening ,-'),- nit,

LONDON, FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 26, 1847.

_ The resolutions adopted by the "Council of
National Safety," in Ireland, were yesterday sub-
mitted to the First Lord of the Treasury by a depu-
tation of Irish representatives. It was of course im-
possible for the Premier to give an immediate reply to
a series
. comprising so many different subjects.
aluch information,
points was
conta! however, applicable to the several
Lordd of the precieuded
i in the speech of the Noble
the
ey alluded. in
addition
evening, to which we yester-
of
the
Government
thereto his Lordshi stated
s th ,rovernment with respectP
most pressing of
important to •
and that to the
to in the resolutionse many
to
mhichPtlhese adverted
me first five
of these resolutions
during the
ensuinganby
which the people are torebeaPPlicable—the
winter. The result of the intilutiri" which have bee
will not be able, out of their owtwentY-tw° unions
ply the wants of the disti:erses
or about
sup_which amount to over 1,300,000 persons,'ePopulation,
one-sixth of the population of the entire
We may assume that the localities which so
e ur-
gently require assistance are those mentioned by si
JOHN BURGOYNE, in hi 3 letter, which appeared in
The sun, about the middle of last month, being the
districts lying along the western coast, from ill-fated
Skibbereen to the Giant's Causeway. The means
already at the disposal of the Government will be
applied for the relief of the distress and destitution in
these impoverished districts ; and it is conceived that

600,000 persons may be supported thereby, together
with what can be obtained under the Poor Relief
Act, and assistance from other quarters, for a period
of four months, after which time any further steps
necessary for the maintenance of the people will be
taken. At present the Executive have made ar-
rangements for supplying the wants of the people
wherever the poor-law is likely to prove
ineffective. The remainder of the country is
to be left to its own resources, to the
exertions of the owners and occupiers of the soil.
They have the ability—if they choose to avail them-
selves of the opportunities within their power—of
giving profitable employment to the labouring classes,
and thus enabling them to live by their own honest
industry, in place of becoming pauperised, and look-
ing to others for that bread which should be earned
by the sweat of their brows. The first great lesson
to be taught the Irish people is a spirit of self- reliance,
that will lead all classes to exert themselves earnestly
and energetically in their respective stations, to avoid
the reproach of national mendicancy. The Irish
Members themselves are fully sensible of the demo-
ralisation that necessarily attends gratuitous re-
lief. In any nation it is very objectionable, but
in Ireland it is peculiarly so. The people are
satisfied with the humblest fare—a scanty supply
of the coarsest food is looked upon as sufficient te
dispense with the necessity of any exertion what-
soever, the lands are left uncropped, the fisheries
neglected ; while those who might add to the na-
tional wealth are fed at the expense of the nation.
Some weeks since we directed the public attention
to an address of the North 'Wexford Landlord and
Tenant Association to the landed proprietors and
occupiers of that county. That address should be
circulated throughout all parts of the island, for it
points out the means by which the present emergency
can be successfully encountered, the national diffi-
culties overcome, and prosperity and independence
restored to the people. It is by a cordial co-operation
of all classes, and a zealous determination by every
person fully and fairly to perform the duties inci
dental to his position, without any attempt at shirking
or evasion, that the country can alone be pre
served. " The employment of the people in
the improvement and cultivation of the soil
ii the only resource left for saving the na-
tion from anarchy, confusion, and ruin ;"—so
say the North Wexford Association, and every
unprejudiced person must concur in the opinion.
The people must be maintained ; they have now the
f,rst legal claim on the produce of the several estates
prior to that of the clergy, mortgagees, rr nominal
owners—they must be supported under any circum-
s'anees, and it must be obvious that " to support
them in idleness while the land lies sterile and un-
productive, if permitted to continue, must overwhelm
the country with a burden it is utterly unable to
bear." The Association also stated, " that a full
and saving measure of employment could easily and
speedily be effected, by a combined and comprehen-
slve movement on the part of the landed proprietors,
if they would come forward, and by their improve-
ments and cultivation develop the natural resources
of their respective estates, and thereby give the labour-
ing population the means of supporting their families,
out of the poor-house." In doing so, every facility
will be afforded. The nation will gladly aid the se
anxious to help themselves. Loans to the amount of
a million and a half pounis sterling have already
been applied for by the Irish landlords, under the
"Landed Property Improvement Act," of which
several have already been conceded to the extent of
500,0001. sterling, and it is to be hoped that the remain-
der of that allcated by the Legislature to the
same purpose will speedily be made applicable,
and by the power thereby conferred on the landlords
there will be full means of giving useful employ-
ment to all ; more especially if the parties liable to
the payment of the poor-rates would, by a voluntary
arrangement amongst themselves, agree to give em-
ployment to the idle labourers in proportion to the
extent and value of their respective holdings.
We are grieved to find his Lordship speaking of
" the necessity for partial measures of coercion.'
We shall, however, abstain from comment until the
nature and extent of the proposed measures are
brought for ward and fully before the public. It is at
least satisfactory to find that it is not by coercion
alone that Ireland is to be governed, but that the con-
templated enactments are "to be accompanied by
measures of a remedial character, calculated to ame-
liorate the condition of the people, and to restore se-
curity to life and property." Peace and tranquillity
can never be restored to Ireland until the causes that
have led to the disturbances are removed, until the
relationship between landlord and tenant is placed
upon a better foundation, and more equitable laws
than those at present in force, are brought into
operation.

We cannot feel much amazement that the Protec-
tionists should, through their Parliamentary leaders,
declare that our present embarrassments have origi-
nated—exclusively and immediately originated—in
the operations of Free Trade. The opportunity is too
seductive to be overlooked, out of mere sentiments of
justice and truthfulness. Monopoly is hors de combat.
Conservatism is paralysed. Toryism is defunct. The
prestige of the good old class of politicians who were
predominant in the good old times is vanishing. The
anti-popular faction is used stp, and doomed to obli-
vion. something must be done, if possible, to re-
trieve their position think Lord STANLET and Lord
GEORGE BENTINCIL ; some show of life must be made—
even though it be as distorting and evanescent as
the galvanic convulsions of a corpse ; some signs of
vigour must be made—even though they resemble
the momentary and ghastly spasms of dissolution.
The necessity requires no enforcement with the fol-
lowers of these noble statesmen ; they are driven to
r.cts of audacity by the very desperation of their
cause, and by the perils of their most untenable posi-
At this crisis in their destiny an oppor-
unity presents itself for striking a last blow at
their adversaries, and, in the act of striking that
blow, of raising themselves again to power
and distinction. This opportunity is—the panic
which has seized upon the community. Here
is a theme for vituperation ! Here is a handle
for sarcasm against the politico - economic
system contrived by such imbeciles and
visionaries as ADAM SMITH, as 'WILLIAM HUS
KISSON, RS RICHARD COBDEN, as SIR ROBERT PEEL,
and as Lord Jostle RUSSELL What is honesty when
contrasted with the chance of such a bitter,
though ephemeral revenge ? What are truth, and
candour, and straightforwardness when weighed
against this golden opportunity ? Nothing. Lord
GEORGE BENTINCK yields himself up to the sugges-
tions of this desperate fantasy. There is the fact of
our embarrassments, and there is the fact that those
embarrassments have been immediately preceded by
the free-trade enactments. The inference deduced
from these facts by the ingenious statistics of the Noble
Lord the Member for Lynn are exquisitely specious and
deliciously calculated to gratify the spleen of his sup-
porters. All these national afflictions are attributed
to the malign and destructive operation of free trade.
The money market is involved in anxieties ; it is free
trade. The capitalists are stopping payment, and
coming down with a crash, one after another ; it is
free trade. There is little food, and less employ-
ments, in the manufacturing districts ; it is free
trade. Enough cotton is not imported from Ame-
rica ;'it is free trade. Cotton won't come at all from
Hindostan ; it is free trade. Free trade is,
in fact, the Jonx JONES of the farce; the
Little Plcier.e— or, rather the Big Pica LB
—of the vaudeville. Always doing wrong; always
plunging into difficulties; in every body's way;
blowing hot when it should blow cold, and blowing
cold when it should blow hot. Free trade is held up
to the execration of the people as their bugbear ; as
the cause of all their afflictions; as the false step
which has carried them over the edge of the preci•
pica, and is now hurling them down into the abyss of
national bar.kruptcy. In drawing this malignant
picture of free trade Lord GEORGE has just gone,
iteo,wleeitvoe:s, a
one
ettle
in itself,
itfsaerlf.,
but
te
hneotiorhl
stroyed its
Ifeffect by the intensity of his
aswasdea-
ipnr(oliNg:dattoloonni•
uc_ hefor hasils proved anything he has
so louOdwl argument. He has
uponllimsolf and that he has con-
tiny of thes
cr'elnisterdatedhis
voice
hitherto d.
Y 8 the inatninence
verted in anotPhuebrlictl'ie
of affairs ; and under that crutiny the ex.
eactiosncrhubinY
i. Party the scru-

;ion.

travagance of the principles of the Protectionists
cannot fail to be more than ever recognised. He
has adventured upon such a variety of topics in his
attack that he displays beyond all denial the super-
ficial character of his information. He has spread
his statistics out over such a wide surface that
he has betrayed their excessive shallowness,
and laid himself open to the overwhelming
rAnttal of his antagonists. Never did Oppo-
sition leader make a more Quixotic charge, or
receive a more Quixotic castigation. The walls of
the Commons were still reverberating his denuncia-
tions against free trade, when Lord JOHN RUSSELL
showed in half-a-dozen homely sentences their utter
insufficiency and absurdity. Among other things,
the Prime Minister asks the leader of the Protec-
tionists to explain whether he would have a duty of
203. or 30s. imposed on wheat when wheat is at 110 s.
the quarter ? Among other things, he reminds the
House that while the exports from Liverpool of British
manufactured goods to the United States were to the
Amount of 4,529,586/., for the three quarters ending
October, 1846, they had amounted during the cor-
responding three quarters of 1847, to no less than
6,791,0001., showing an increase to the extent of just
fifty p r cent. upon the experts of British manufac-
tured goods from Liverpool to the United States.
Such were the declarations extorted from the Premier
by the foolhardy aspersions upon free trade uttered
by Lord GEORGE BENTINCK. The golden oppor-
tunity, in fine, which Lord STANLEY and his
colleague in the Lower House have grasped
4t with such avidity, has proved to

be merely what the straw is to the drowning man
—an illusion and a mockery. Instead of leading to
the revival it must tend to the yet further abasement
of the stubborn supporters of that most stubborn fal-
lacy—Protection.

The Duke of AIODENA has vieclarred Massa Carrara
in a state of siege, and has ordered his troops to fire
on any assemblage consisting of more than two
persons.

The Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal FRANZONI, had
forbidden the clergy of his diocese to take part in any
demonstration in favour of the reform granted by
King CHARLES ALBERT.

His Majesty CHARLES ALBERT has granted to the
Duke of TUSCANY permission to march troops des-
tined to occupy Pontremoli over the Genoese terri-
tory; they are to land at the bottom of the Gulf of
Spezzia. The Italian journals look on this fact as
the first political act of the Italian Confederation,
proclaimed in principle in the Customs' Union

Treaty.
Extract of a letter from Naples, Nov. 15 :—" I
have just heard that his MAJESTY has changed his
Ministers, and that it will be published in the Gazette
of this evening. Everything is perfectly tranquil
here, and the weather beautifully mild ; we have some
strangers, but not so many as in former autumns."

The Bilancia of Rome states that Count CHRIS-
TOPHER FERRETTI had been commissioned to termi-
nate the difference respecting Ferrara with General
RADETZKT, at Milan.
Letters frcm Rome of the 16th state that the
Council of State was inaugurated on the preced-
ing day.

The Provisional Government of Friburg has issued
he following decree :
" Being obliged by circumstances to adopt the most
urgent measures to arrest the course of the evils which
overwhelm the country, and prevent their recurrence ;
" Whereas the accession of the canton of Friburg to
the anti-national league called the Sonderbund was prin-
cipally the work of tie Jesuits and their associates ;
" Ia virtue of the decree of the Federal Diet, dated
3d September, 1847, which declared the Society of Jesuits
to be incompatible with order and tranquillity in Swit-
zerland, and invited the canton of Friburg to expel them
from its territory;
" Wishing to secure to the civil authorities the liberty
of action necessary for the lasting pacification of the
canton, and being invested with extensive powers con-
t., rred on them by the resolution of the popular assembly
held on the 15th November last ;
" We have decreed :
" 1. The Jesuits, corporations, congregations, teachers,
and professors affiliated to that order, are banished for
ever from the Fri burg territory.
"2. This measure applies to the Jesuits, the Liguo-
rians, the Marianites, or Freres igno, antins ; the
Brethren of the Christian Doctrine, the Sisters of St.
Joseph, the Sisters of St. Vincent of Paule, and the
Nuns of the Holy Heart.
" 3. Congregations and corporations of that descrip-
tion shall not in future be permitted to settle in the can-
ton under any denomination or pretext whatsoever, to
purchase property in it, or to direct public or private
establishments for the education of youth.
"4. The individuals belonging to those orders and
congregations shall quit the canton within the space of
thrice twenty-four hours from the publication of the
present decree.
" 5. All the property, moveable or real, possessed by
the abovementioned corporations, is to become the pro-
perty of the State, and its proceeds to be applied to
public instruction, To that effect it is to be sequestered,
and, after an inventory of it shall have been taken, it
aball be placed under the civil administration. The
cession or sales of any part of said property as far back
as the 15th of October are declared null and void.
"6. The directors of the departments of the police
and finance are respectively charged with the execution
of the present decree.
"7. The present decree becomes obligatory imme-
diately on its promulgation, and shall be published and
posted up in the usual places.
"The President SCHALLER.
"The Chancellor Dr. BERCHTOLD.
" Friburg, Nov. 19."
The state of siege was raised the same day. A
letter from Berne of die 20th says—
" It appears that the Commander-in-Chief will act,
with regard to Lucerne, just as she has proceeded
against Friburg ; that is to
,say, the Federal troops will
successively take possession of all the points that lie in
the march, and then invest Lucerne until it capitulates.
A letter from Upper Emmenthal of the 18th says—
' Yesterday the Lucernese attempted to make a sortie
upon the Bernese territory at Uffluson, between Willi-
sau in Lucerne, and Hartwyl in Berne. To accomplish
this they cleared the road of all the wood they had
strown upon it, in order to impede the march of the
Federal troops ; filled up the trenches they had cut
across the road, and demolished their redoubts,
in order to gain a more easy entrance into
the canton of Berne. But General Dufour promptly
sent troops to the threatened point, and the Lucernese
immediately beat a retreat. The leaders of some of
the columns on entering the canton of Lucerne re-
solved that they would, when their troops should have to
pass over the mines made by the Lucernese, send for-
ward all the women and children who remained in the
villages, and thus secure, as it were, a safe conduct
through these dangerous passages. Rather unsatisfac-
tory news has arrived by estafette from Tesino. While
the canton of Vaud keeps the Valais blockaded, so that
the force of this canton is paralyzed, the Commander-in-
Chief of the Valaisian troops has conceived that a large
portion of them might be usefully employed in the pri-
mitive cantons. Consequently, from the beginning of
this month four or five battalions have passed the Furka,
one of the mass of the St. Gothard mountains, in order
to reach and enter the canton of Uri ; whence these
troops were moved in the direction of the canton of
Tesino, to reinforce the troops which already occupied
the St. Gothard. This unexpected reinforcement, which
msde the force of the League at this point amount to
nearly 4,000 men, allowed of their assuming the offen-
sive with great vigour. On the 17th, after a murderous
action, they carried Airolo, where the Casellini battalion
and a company of carabineers were all that were posted
to meet this attack, which was at the same time favoured
by a fog. This small body was obliged to fall back on
Faido, distant three leagues, and thence probably on
Bellinzone, where Colonel Luvini has concentrated all
his forces, viz., four battalions of infantry, four com-
panies of carabineers, and one battery and a half of
artillery, in the intent, as he writes, of bringing on a
decisive battle."

According to advises from Aarau, the General-in.
Chief of the Federal troops had ordered two bat.

talions of the division of Gmur to advance, by
forced marches, to Ticino, across the canton of the
Grisons. It was expected that they would arrive in

time to cut off the retreat of the column of the
League.
Accounts had reached Berne late in the evening of
the 21st instant that the Grand Council of Lucerne
had determined, by a majority of only three votes, to
persist in resisting, by force of arms, the execution of
the decrees of the Diet. A loud cannonade had been
distinctly ht and at Berne, in the direction of the Em-
menthal, where, it appears, the bridge of Gisiknou
was attacked by the Federal troops. The military
operations against Lucerne were not expected to
commence befare the 23d.

By a royal decree of the King of PRUSSIA, all
affairs relating to the principality of Neufchatel are
in future to come under the head of the " Home De-
partment." 1 his decree is a mark of the KlNa'a
approbation of the conduct of the authorities of Neuf-
chatel in the affairs of the Sonderbund.

According to the Frankfurt Gazelle, it is to the
firm decision of Prussia alone that an armed inter-
vention of the great Powers has not already taken
place in Switzerland.

A Berne journal of the 21st announces that the
troops of Zug and Schwytz had made an incursion
into the canton of Zurich, but had been driven back