The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-22 00:00:00

iiLo vying aim

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1847.

The Anti-Gold-law League held its third public
meeting last night. A new regulation was announced,
the result of which will be highly beneficial. Every
member, by the former rules, was required to
pay an annual subscription of 10s. to the society, in
return for which he was to receive the several publi-
cations that may from time to time be issued by the
League. Although the amount was small in propor-
tion to the vast benefits that would be conferred upon
the industrious and productive classes by the attain-
ment of the objects of the society, yet in the present
difficulties and embarrassments of the country, and
the want of profitable employment, the effect of our
scanty and insufficient circulation, even that trifling
sum is a matter of serious consideration to very many
of the hard-working artisans and operatives, who
would gladly lend their aid to reform the monetary
laws, and to restore the national prosperity which,
through the operation of these unjust and impo-
litic enactments, has been so fearfully impaired, if not
altogether destroyed. They are aware that they
are the parties most deeply interested in the question.
Our wealthy merchants may be impoverished, our
trade and commerce may
rich
be seriously, perhaps irre-
parably, injured. Thetrader
unaccustomedmay have t o relin-
quish his luxuries, and to submit to
pri-
vations ; but to the man who earns his daily bread by
the sweat of his brow, who toils faororsmidays out of
ttiiybY
seven, that he may support his
his own
exertions, it is of still more vital importance.
The
former may, from the wreck of his property,
something to keep himself', and those morel) imme-
diately diately dependent on him, from actual want, but;
poor man's only capital is his labour, and if the
demand ceases—if there is no longer a market for
that labour, the consequences to him, and to those
dearer to him than life itself, must indeed be fearful.
7She home that is as dear to him, and as highly valued
as the magniaeent mansion is to the proprietor of
countless thousands, must be abandoned. He can no
longer enjoy the society of the partner of his choice,
fbe participator in his jus, the soother of his cares,
or of the helpless pledges of their mutual affection.
Stern necessity will enforce their separation, and he
must drag on a 'retched existence in the union
workhouse, deprived of all that rendered life desir•
able, becoming a burden on the national resources,
instead of being the producer of the national wealth,
and a valuable contributor to the national exchequer.
Such will be the fate of the working man if matters
are suffered to remain in their present condition,
without some amelioration or improvement—if
our rulers do not evince some sympathy for the suf-
ferers, and endeavour to mitigate the evil, to
relieve the general distress. The National Anti-

Gold-law League desire to bring back our prosperity ;
they point out the ciuce to wh;eh our clifri.rlmr4
may fairly be attributed, and they state the remedy.
To ensure the ultimate triumph of their principles,
they require the cordial co-operation of the people ;
there is no person, however humble, whose services
will not be valuable ; it is not the largeness, but the
universality of the contribution, that will be effective.
The committee have, therefore, wisely determined to
make their association accessible to all, and
with that view have lowered the annual subscription
from 10s. to 2s. 6d., but those who pay the smaller
sum will not be entitled to receive the publications
of the society.
Already the League numbers amongst its members
persons of every shade of political opinion. Protec-
tionists and Free-traders, Whigs, Tories, and Radicals,
combine together to get rid of the monster grievance
by which all are affected. This is as it should be.
Union is strength, and however w idely parties may
differ on ordinary questions, there should be a general
movement to attain a national benefit, in the advan-
tages of which all may participate. There are no
parties in the State uninterested in the question, and
it has not as yet been taken up as the watchword of
any particular party. All may, therefore, exercise
their own judgment free and untrammelled by
party considerations. No person who is fully
alive to the vast importance of the topic can
suppose that the possession of office by any
set of men, or the triumph of any party, is
to be weighed in the balance against the
monetary reforms that are so urgently required, so
essential to the welfare of the country. As the Free-
traders made the repeal of the corn-laws, the aboli-
tion of protective imposts, and the destruction of
every species of monopoly, the condition
of their support, the Anti-Bullionists of the
present day should pursue a similar course ;
their first inquiry of any claimant for
their suffrages must be what he proposes to do, with
respect to the monetary laws. If he desires still to
maintain the principle of the Acts of 1819 and 1844,
he should be opposed in every manner, no matter how
efficient he may be in other respects, and how fully
his opinions on all other subjects may coincide
with our own. But if he is prepared to
repeal those statutes, and to introduce a system
by which a sufficient circulation will be main-
tained at all times, and the currency placed on a sa-
tisfactory foundation, he will be entitled to, and should
receive the most strenuous support. The present laws
cannot be retained in their present state, the demand
throughout the country from all classes for their
revision is too powerful to be opposed. Some
alteration will undoubtedly be introduced in
the coming session of Parliament, but the danger is
that the present mischievous principle may still be
retained. To be really useful, to afford a permanent
and not an evanescent prosperity, the golden basis
must be altogether destroyed—every effort to main-
tain bullion at a fixed and unvarying price must be
abandoned, and free trade in money, as well as in
every description of commodity, must be granted—
the last and worst of the monopolies must be
abo' ished.

Although there are few circumstances of a novel
character in the intelligence received yesterday by

:he Overland Mails from the Indian and Chinese terri-

tories, there is sufficient to render the inquisitive ob-
server at home speculative as to the consequences of
recent casualties in those dominions. It is impossible,
through all the confusion of the petty dynasties and
quibbling Governments of the Asiatic race, not to recog-
nise the gradual but luminous diffusion of those divine
lights which stream perpetually from Christianity
and Civilization. In spite of the blunders of preceding
administrations and the turpitude of preceding ad-
ministrators, in spite of the spoliation effected by the
more avaricious of the Europeans, and the
excesses perpetrated by marauding adventurers from

;he west, the influence of those two congenial systems

—the systems of Civilization and Christianity—is
visible already in the social condition of the Oriental
multitude. They betray their efficacy even in the
midst of the depravities of a civic population, of the
brutalities of a licentious military, of the intrigues of
an unprincipled Durbar, of the cruelties of a profli-
gate Ranee, of the guile of a Wuzeer, and of the

audacity of a Maharajah. Posterity will be able
more readily to distinguish the advantages which
have been ensured to the millions of Asia by the
establishment on the southern extremity of their
continent of a settlement of British merchants and
missionaries. Those advantages have developed them-
selves and are developing themselves so gradually as
to be scarcely perceptible even to the analytic scru-

my of contemporaries. They will be discerned with
distinctness after the lapse of half a century. Time
and history will proclaim their progression.
Among the more significant tokens of this advance-
ment on the frontiers of our Indian possessions, as
recounted in our last dispatches, are, first, the possible
transference of authority over the dominions of the
NizAm from the hands of his Highness to those of
the Company; and, secondly, the anticipated abdica
tion of the King of DUDE in favour of the Anglo-
Indian Government. Both of these potentates have,
through their most barbarous policy, entailed
merely wretchedness and degradation upon their
unfortunate subjects ; both of them have con-
sequently forfeited all claim to the obedience
and affections of the multitude. The glory of their
dignity consists principally in a nominal elevation,
and an exclusive enjoyment of various social and
pecuniary dilemmas. Those dilemmas are entirely of
their own fabrication--they are the deplorable results
of their extravagance, and the • execrable fruits of
their duplicity. In the territories of the NIZAM
are manifest the bankruptcy of the executive, the in-
decision of the administrative, the anarchy of the
people, and the desperate indolence and incapacity of
the sovereign. In Oude there are only to be seen
an abhorred ruler, an exhausted society, a relent.
less and brutal Led soldiery, barrenness in the fields,
idleness in the populous cities, poverty, despair, pri-
vation, profligacy, and continual recriminations every-
where. Every man in Oude is a POCOCURANTE in dis-
position, and a DIOGENES in want. The whole race
stale, flat, and unprofitable." There
used up—blasé—"
is an imperative necessity for their transference to
some more vigorous and sagacious Government
There is a lack of new institutions of such a novel
and irresistible incitement as shall at once extricate
the people from their lethargy, and thereby elicit from
their industry and from the soil those resources which
must restore them to comparative affluence, and prove
singularly remunerative to their protectors.
Among the miscellaneous information received by
the Overland Mail, the most gratifying is the incar-
ceration' of the perfidious and debauched Ranee
CHUNDA of Lahore in the fortress of Shaikpoora.
Like another infamous Queen-Mother nearer home,
she has been so long and earnestly striving to infuse
some of her own duplicity and viciousness into the
plastic intellect of her child, the young MAHARAJAH
,1
that it has become doubly and trebly advisable to re-
move her from such a dangerous contiguity. Her
incarceration, while it may possibly injure her
digestion, may correct her morals and contract
her ambition. DHOONGUR SINGH-popularly known
as the ABD-EL-KADER of Rajpootana—has still es-
caped, scatheless and powerful, although his influ-
ence has been somewhat deteriorated by the adroit
capture of his follower JOWAEIIRJEE—a capture
which redounds to the credit of the party of Beeka-
neirs, commanded by Lieutenant SHOWERS. Another
royal
personage has been reduced, by the ordinary
vicissitudes of the East, from the luxuries of command
to the sorrows of captivity, in the person of
the ex-King
melled in the ofN
fortress
E ps. Jr Lo,f
safelyvc.,evalpoo . tra r n
Such-
is the situation of • affairs along the northern
frontiers of llindostan, simultaneously with the de•
parture homewards of Sir CHARLES NAPIER. In re-
ference
to that distinguished Captain
and enlightened
administrator, we observe that the ;grumblers about
Sinde are reviving their most splenetic and insidious
allusions. It would appear as thong% the return to
England, after a prolonged absence in the service of
his country, of the Hero of Meanee and the Con-
queror of Sinde, were chosen by these malcontents as
the most ungraceful opportunity for the ebul-
lition of their flagrant and calumnious
ac-
cusations. The people and institutions of Great
Britain are not, however, to be influenced by these
shameless misrepresentations. They will evince a
becoming gratitude for the patriotic civism and
ir CHARLES NAPIER.
brilliant achievements of S