The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-19 00:00:00

T ILE SUN, LONDO

dual requiring men for the cultivation of his land to I
obtain them, on making application for that purposp
to the superintendents of the works, who would,
thereupon, assign a sufficient number, and if
the persons specified refused to work in
the manner indicated, they would forthwith
be discharged from the public works, and com-
pelled to find employment as they best could from
private sources. It is puerile, therefore, to say that
a sufficiency of labour could not be obtained. We
fear that the true cause for this culpable negligence
is, the idea that has unfortunately been too prevalent,
that the Government would not only supply seed
sufficient for the lands, but that they would
also send the labourers from the public works
on the lands of the small proprietors and tenant-
farmers, and that thus they would be brought into
tillage without either trouble or expense to the occu-
pants. There was nothing of greater consequence
than that their minds should be disabused of this
impression, that they should know the full extent of
the assistance that can be afforded to them by any
possibility. The manly and decided manner in which
the Premier spoke out during the past week, in which
he so positively stated that nothing would be done by
the Government fur the cultivation of the soil,
must have this effect when it has been
generally known throughout the country. The
landlords are now fully warned : they know what
must await them if there is a perseverance in the
grievous error. The withdrawal or diminution of
the potato crop will occasion a necessity for a con-
siderable increase in the quantity of grain, and yet
there will be a lamentable deficiency on the average
of ordinary years. Let not the proprietors suppose
that England would again step forward as
she has done on the present occasion. Of
course she would not, under any circum-
stances, suffer the people, whatever might be
their faults, to perish by wholesale. They should be
relieved, but the cost of that relief would be levied
from the properties of those by whore default it was
rendered necessary. An efficient poor-law will be in
force ; let them beware how they multiply the claim-
ants on the fund. Able-bodied labourers will be en-
titled to out-door relief, and must be provided fur,
either in industry or idleness, and the employ-
ment which is now optional will in a brief
period become compulsory. What might fairly
be regarded as a national calamity, when
occasioned by the visitation of PROVIDENCE, will
be looked on in a very different light, when its origin
may be traced to the negligence of a particular class.
And this country would nu longer sanction the appli-
cation of its finances (the amount of the taxation
levied on the industry of its artizans as a relief fund)
until the entire means of the defaulters were ex-
hausted.

We do not offer these observations from any feel-
ing of hostility to the Irish landlords, but as a means
of awakening them from their trance before it is
too late. It is not to reproach them fur the errors
or mistakes of former times or bygone years, or to
create a public feeling against them, but because
there is as yet the opportunity of retrieving their
position. The golden moment has not yet gone by.
" There is a light cloud on the moon,
iris passing, and will pass full soon;"
and if that period be taken due advantage of, all will
yet be well ; otherwise, we shudder at the contem-
plation of the misery and suffering that must
be the result. The landlords are placed
in the vanguard, they must sustain the first
brunt of the encounter, but all other classes
in Ireland are deeply interested in averting so
fearful a calamity. The Roman Catholic clergy pos-
sess extraordinary power and influence over the minds
of the people. Surely there never was a time when
that influence could be more legitimately exercised.
If the proprietors set their own shoulders to the
wheel, and are aided by the clergy in their several
districts, there will be little danger. The relief com-
mittees also should exert themselves. Twenty per
cent. of the labourers will be discharged
from the public works on Saturday next ;
a new sphere of employment should be pro-
vided, and what could be more proper than
that which will provide for the maintenance of
the people during the coming year? Huwever be-
neficial the measures may be which tend to the ulti-
mate regeneration of Ireland, the present one is of
paramount importance, and cannot with impunity
be further postponed or delayed.

Under the head of Naval Intelligence from Ports-
mouth the following paragraph was published in a
morning paper of Wednesday :

"Preparation was n ade this morning for inflicting the
punishment awarded by the court-martial upon John Savage,
A. 13., deserter from the St. Vincent, but an Admiralty order
came to hand just in time to stop that portion of the sen-
tence from being inflicted. The imprisonment and forfeit of
all pay will be put in force at ouce."
The circumstances of the trial were these :---The
prisoner, an able seaman of her MAJESTY'S ship St.
Vincent, was absent from his duty on the 6th inst. ;
the same morning he was found concealed on board
a schooner lying in Portsmouth harbour. Charged as
a deserter before a court-martial, which assembled last
week to try him, the prisoner made no defence.
He received, however, a good character from Captain
MILNE and the master-at-arms of the St. Vincent.
The Court passel the following sentence :—" The
prisoner to receive fifty lashes on his bare back with a
cat-&-nine tails on board the St. Vincent; to forfeit
all pay due for his services ; and to be imprisoned in
Winchester gaol for twelve calendar months with hard
labour." We rejoice that the Admiralty saved the man
wthiastwe,lyhaednmAodnmishiredal DUN
the
DI tosuasendolfiisc
from corporal infliction. We hail this fact as a guarantee
officialm oncs(: fide augnunegs
m
the debate which ensued on Mr. Humes motion for
returns of corporal punishment on board her MA-
JESTT'3 ships, not to suffer officers to be influenced,
in punishing or pardoning offences, by the fear of
annual lists being laid upon the tables of the Legis-
lature; but, on the contrary, to give them distinctly
to understand that, for the proper discharge
of their duties, they were alone amenable to
the Board of Admiralty—they were intent,
as far as in them lay, on consulting the feelings
of the public, consistently with the mainte-
nance of discipline in the service. We have, in the
case before us at once an eat nest of their sincerity
and humanity. Next to the desirableness of abolish-
ing
the cat-o'-nine tails, so soon as we shall have
succeeded, by improved methods of organisation, in
manning our ships with a superior class of men, is
that of a just discrimination in the use of this instru-
ment of torture and degradation. We certainly
do not desire to reflect upon the officers forming the
court-martial which decided upon the above sentence.
There were amongst them men of ability, experience,
and distinction in the service ; and we are not of
those who, when men have performed a painful duty
to the best of their judgment, and because their sen-
tence does nut happen to accord with our own
views, rush to the conclusion that they
are less benevolent than other people. But
-we consider they would have exercised a sounder
discretion had they confined their sentence within
the limits to which it has been reduced by the Ad-
miralty. Desertion is a serious offence, but it may
become much aggravated according to circumstances.
If the offence were largely on the increase, presenting
difficulties in the way of keeping up the requisite
complements of men—if it were committed on
foreign stations, or in periods of actual war, in such
cases, so long as the power of corporal infliction
remains vested in the officers, it might be exercised in
the least objectionable manner ; but we hold that,
if at all, the lash should be reserved for the worst of
criminals. Amongst this class the able seaman in
question could not be classed ; fur both his captain
and the master-at-arms commended his character.
The sentence he will undergo is sufficiently severe
for his offence, which he committed in a harbour
where there could, or ought to, be no difficulty in
supplying his place on board the St. Vincent. We
highly approve of the course pursued by the Admi-
ralty, and we hope that the sound discrimination
which they herein evinced will not be without its
due effect upon all future courts-martial.

A letter from Cairo, of the 16th ult., states that
the corn crops of Egypt for the present year are of
the most promising appearance. In some parts of
Lower Egypt the ear is beginning to form, and the
harvest will be got in by the end of the next month.
Of the last year's harvest there still remains in Egypt
about 600,000 ardebs (1,032,000 hectolitres) of corn
of every species fit for exportation, which makes the
total amount of grant of this purpose, from the