The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-16 00:00:00

latiming

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1847.

There is an evident brooding over the probabilities
of the approaching session of Parliament in indivi-
duals possessing every diversity of political opinion.
All are looking forward with irritable curiosity to
the proceedings about to be commenced by our legis-
lators. In the Spanish Peninsula the Cortes have
already met, and already has their quiescence been
interrupted by the seizure and incarceration of Senor
OLOZAGA, the leader of the Opposition. In France
the Chambers have been already opened, and already
has M. GUIZOT submitted to the deliberation of the
Deputies the correspondence illustrative of the Mont-
pensier marriage. By these means the inquisitive-
ness of the English public has been very sensibly
heightened ; the popular attention turns alternately
from the still silent avenues of St. Stephen's to the
drawing-rooms of Chesham-place ; expectation is
sleepless with the multitude, preparation is continual
with the Ministers. On the evening of Tuesday the
curtain will be raised. Throughout the whole of the
recess of 1846-47, it is a matter to be regretted that
the perfidious proceedings of four of the Conti-
nental Sovereigns should have so far interfered
with the exertions for internal reform in Great
Britain as to have nearly monopolised the attention
of the people and of the Government. Even now
the diplomatic epistles which have recently passed
between Lord PALMERSTON, the Marquis of NOR-
MANDY, Prince METTERNICH, M. GUIZOT, M. DE
BRESSON, Count DE FLAIIAULT, Mr. BULWER, and
Count JARNAC, are occupying an inordinate portion
of observation on either side of the Channel. It is
most unfortunate that these importunate difficulties
should have arisen precisely at the moment when the
calamities of Ireland, the penury of Scotland, and
the deplorable prevalence of crime throughout the
empire, call for the immediate and energetic
interposition of the Legislature. Nevertheless,
it is absolutely necessary for the preservation,
of peace that the misunderstandings which have
arisen between the Courts of London, Paris,
Madrid, St. Petersburgh, Berlin, and Vienna, should,
if possible, be cleared up with all reasonable celerity
and judiciousness. It is consonant, indeed, with the
course hitherto adopted by modern statesman-
ship, that the complication of the interests of
the different kingdoms of Europe should be
satisfactorily disentangled before the energies of the
popular representatives can be turned, with any
degree of safety, or even of efficiency, to the further
removal of national abuses, and the further advance-
ment of the spirit of social and political reformation.
Without this preliminary caution in the department
of Foreign Affairs, the embarassments of the country
are necessarily increased. Were a Government to act
on the inverse principle, it would be imparting mo-
tion to the machinery of legislation from the centre,
just when a variety of obstructions bad insinuated
themselves, from the outside, among the connecting
bands and the fly- wheels of that legislative machinery.
The consequence of such an egregious blunder would
be more than a momentary hitch—it would pro-
bably be some dangerous and destructive colli-
sion. Hence it is not only advisable, but abso-
lutely requisite, that the wounds which have
been sustained in the friendship of our own
Government and those of the principal European
states, should be healed before the Legislature can
turn with any safety to the consideration of the
gangrenes which have been festering for centuries in
the moral and physical condition of the population of
the United Kingdoms.
After all matters appertaining to the balance of
European power, awl the restoration of European
cordiality, have been settled—whether by the supple
agency of the diplomatists, or otherwise—our Minister
will be in a position to enter upon the fulfilment of
their numberless and propitious. promises. Ireland
still pleads for the salutary assistance—not of alms,
but—of good government. Scotland pines under the
grievancea of agricultural destitution : the crofters
and cottars of the Highlands and the Hebrides
are perishing with want ; but they are an
enduring and long-suffering race, their very
silence in the midst of so much desolation is more
persuasive than the most eloquent and impassioned
supplication. Ireland, therefore, requires assistance
from the Legislature, and Scotland requires assist-
ance from the Legislature; and that assistance,
while it must be of an administrative rather than of
a charitable nature, must be energetic and im-
mediate.

Education, again, is a question which must speedily
force itself upon the scrutiny of Parliament. The
cry for education is no mere idle clamour, born in a
day and dying in a day, like the ephemerides. It is
the Voice of a Necessity, which has been increasing
during many years, from its first feeble mut-
terings to a deep thunder-tone which cannot
be hushed without the removal and utter anni-
hilation of that necessity. As Lord LINCOLN
showed from the statistical information of a
gaol chaplain; quoted by ourselves yesterday, the
ignorance of the multitude in enlightened and Chris-
tianized England is appalling, both from the intensity
of its darkness and the extent of its diffusion. An
ignorance, too, not secreted in corners, and buried in
unknown quarters of the community, but floating
visibly upon the surface, startling the hearts of better
and wiser men. The spawn of that Ignorance is Crime ;
and that Crime procreates itself with a horrible ra-
pidity; it multiplies the officers in our criminal courts,
it chokes up our prisons and penitentiaries with male
and female criminals, with children scarcely able to
lisp, and old ni.n venerable in iniquity. From the
hulks, from the gaols, from the penal settlements,
from the nolice-c0ur,.....‘ and the sessions courts, from
the lock-up-room in the
the condemned cell ird fa):1)
Lingdom, that earnest
manest station-house in the
ln is ascending
wail for moral and intellectual he.t
if con-
audibly. It izp Sppplication now ;it ms 17: ,
temned, merge iato a command. Shall it be aaia that
this want of knowledge has been grievously exam.,