The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-10 00:00:00

PitaritinA :-.lllt

LOYAL SURREY THEATRE.
Lessee, Mrs. Frances Davidge.
THIS EVENING
Will be performed a new Drama, entitled RABY RATTLER ; or,
The Progress of a Scamp. Characters supported by the whole
strength of the Company.
After which, the favourite Ballet of L'AMOUR ET LA FOLIE.
To conclude with TEMPTATION ; or, The Fatal Brand.
Bo:•offioe open from eleven till four o'clock.

BRAINTREE CHURCH-RATE CASE
JUDGMENT OF LORD DENMAN.
GOSLING V. VELET.

In the Court of Queen's Bench yesterday, Lord Denman
delivered the judgment of the Court in this case, which has
excited considerable interest. The Noble and Learned Lord
reviewed at great length all the authorities in similar cases,
and went over the whole of the facts with great care and
minuteness.
The Court held that the meeting at which the rate com-
plained of was made was duly and regularly called—that the
parishioners were bound by law to pay the expense of re-
pairing the church and every other expense neeessary for the
decent and proper celebration of the services of the
church—that the proper way to do so was by
imposing a money rate, and that that rate should be made
in
ayestry assembled. In the case before the Court it appeared
.i. the meeting had been properly called ; that the proposi-
tion for making a rate for the repair of the church had been
duly put, an
was s and that an amendment was proposed, which
- supported by the majority of the meeting, object-
mg to the maki
that it was opposed to any
compulsory rate, on the ground
ings; that thechaeicl to their conscientious scruples and feel..
an refused to act upon that amendment, which was carried
fore, the maj • by a large
ority left th majority; and that there-
other amendment PrrehPaotsed, the rate, as originallyproposed,
was the course of -
e meeting, and there being no
was agreed to. '
and the Court was of
and l
that it was regular,roceeding
that the rate was pro elinion
made.
amendment f
Had the
majority of the meetdgr ProposedegtY i_a and
a'on
amount or the rate, or moved anyf
the meeting, the
nent and relevant to the objectof the
circumstances of the case would° r
was
proposedcaue(vas wholly beside
as the ma-
but as it was, as the amendment have been altered ;
the object for which the meeting
that
jority did not propose any pertinent amendment, but on the
contrary left the church, the court must look
amendment, and the opposition which took upon
if it had not been made at all. Under all the circumstancesi'ace,as
of the case, the Court held that the parish was bound tore
pair the fabric of the church, that the proper way to do so
was by money rate, and that in the case before the Court
the rate had been properly and legally made, and they must,
therefore, decide in favour of the defendant.
The Bishop of London sat on the bench, on the right of
Mr. Justice Patteson, during the delivering of the judgment,
after which he left the Court.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1847.

Prussia must ever regard as one of her most me-
morable anniversaries the 3d of February, 1847.
On that day a constitution was given to the Prussian
people by FREDERICKWILLIELM IV., and by the royal
ordinance in which that glorious announcement was
made the representative system of government was
formally incorporated in the Legislature of the king-
dom. It is with joy and exultation that we publish
the twenty-three articles of this constitution—joy in
the conviction that it is, perhaps, the most certain
means of ensuring the everlasting prosperity of the
kingdom—and exultation in this new testimony of
the progress of the great civilizing spirit of the age,
and of the indomitable advance of the principles of
popular liberation. The knowledge of the magnifi-
cent and substantial boons conferred upon them by
their monarch—and conferred upon them, too, not
grudgingly in the constraint of an insurrectionary
movement, but spontaneously, and even unexpectedly
—must impart a generous and beneficent enthusiasm
to the patriots of Germany. We confess that
the concessions proclaimed in the royal or-
dinances are wanting in that completeness of applica-
tion to every social exigency which so peculiarly
characterises the constitutions of Western Europe ;
we confess that the catalogue of legislative innova-
tions contained in those royal ordinances are particu-
larised by many extraordinary deficiencies, and that,
beside our own matured and now venerable system of
popular representation, that bestowed upon his sub-
jects by FREDERICK WILHELM is marvellously
crude and insufficient ; but, convinced that this
unparalleled act of royal generosity is only the
starting point of a grand and systematic in-
provement, we are satisfied with the constitution just
created at Berlin, and the Prussian population will
assuredly be satisfied in like manner. They will be
more than satisfied ; they will imbibe from this testi-
mony of confidence in themselves an increased
affection and an enduring loyalty for a SOVEREIGN, who
has himself evinced such loyalty to their inalienable,
but hitherto unacknowledged rights. By this noble
declaration in the cause of freedom and civilization
the King of PRUSSIA has seized a talisman more
potent than that of MERLIN and a wand more
magical than that of PROSPERO : he has transformed
the enemies of his dynasty into its upholders and
its guardians : be has solidified the unstable founda-
tions of his throne into the adamant of national love.

Monarchs have heretofore endeavoured, with a few
L illustrious exceptions, to perpetuate their power and
, Mille lAL Au nerepnartr mi.!, nn by 11v stresn
the chains of their authority, and by extending the
- bounds of their several dominions. In the
increased dimensions of their territory, and the
profounder exercise of their despotism, they have
seemed to recognise the only means of ensuring the
reverence of the million, and of rendering their
empire perpetual. Heretofore the nations of the
earth have only emancipated themselves by the most
terrible .exhibitions of their wrath and of their strength
Hitherto, in all ages, and in all countries, liberty
has been baptised with blood. Before the genius
of freedom could be appeased the people have
invariably been compelled to pour out the libations of
battle. The republic of America was only raised
under the protection of the sword of WASHINGTON.
The thraldom of the Bourbons was only dissipated by
the storms of a revolution such as the earth had never
seen before. The petty dictatorship of Holland was
only destroyed by the revolt against the Stadtholder.
The liberal constitution now enjoyed by the Grecians
has been bought by butchery and insurrection.
BOLIVAR had to maintain the independence of his
country by the fullness of his bodily courage and
the excellence of his strategy. SANTA ANNA is
compelled to guide his fellow-countrymen through a
similar ordeal. And England herself, the favourite
of fortune, was necessitated to realise her
own - emancipation by the subjugation of JOHN,
by the decapitation of CHARLES, and by
the expulsion of JAMES. It is because history tells
us that these bloody and horrible catastrophes have
been hitherto inseparable from the progress of
liberal opinions, that we conceive Prussia is entitled
to such deep and cordial felicitations. In the con-
stitution granted to Prussia by the reigning SOVE-
REIGN a representative legislature is per-
manently establishment. The people are hence-
forth to have a voice in the fabrication
and administration of the laws by which they are
governed. All the members of the eight provincial
Diets are to be assembled at the option of the
Monarch in one grand United Diet of the kingdom.
An upper house, entitled the Chamber of the Herren-
stand, will consist of all the Princes of the blood
royal and of all the nobility of the empire. A lower
house, entitled the Chamber of the Rittersiand, will
comprise the delegates, or rather the representatives,
of the various classes and provinces of Prussia. To
their wisdom will be submitted, excepting in cases of
singular emergency, the propriety of any novel impo-
sition of taxes, and of the regulation of the national
exchequer. By this means the sceptre will here-
after be virtually in the keeping of the people. It is
more than a consolation to see in these ordinances of
FREDERICK WILHELM, that the lever of civilisation
is already acting upon the absolute monarchies of
Northern Europe.

To reflect that France possesses a Legislature
which fails to represent the sentiments, the honour,
and the interests of her people, is a melancholy truth ;
and that this should be her actual position, sixteen
years having elapsed since a revolution was effected
to protect her liberties from the encroachments of
regal sway and to remove the fetters which restrained
the free expression of popular sympathies, seems
quite an anomaly. Yet, such is the fact. How-
ever glorious and sudden may have been
the efforts which France has made from
time to time to secure a state machinery which
should faithfully represent the interests, desires, and
honour of the great body of her people, and however
satisfactorily they have seemed for the moment to
have accomplished their national hopes, the vices of
her rulers have invariably sufficed, gradually, to
undermine and stealthily to deprive her of the
blessings of constitutional liberty. Year after year,
since 1830, have the Chambers of her Parliament
by degrees more faintly reflected the morality
and intelligence of the French nation. If con-
viction of this were previously wanting, the
beneath a
recent proceedings in their Legislature in connexion
with the Mont
preonostiee; marriage must by this time
neighbours. its in the minds of our con-
tinentalhave completly
disgust them with ninuch a conviction is enough to
come restless and, discon-
tented wonder that they
formshouldenf gbaerchical
presents,
overnment which, despite
institutions. No
stifle,
g
generation after etitro.-
1 of their past efforts,
stalmg the legitimate ex-
_
tion, the recusant phase of
The subscription at Home for the Irish sufferers
SMOULIt3 to upwards of 2,000 L

:pression of the national will. They must look with
f - wonder and envy upon the different results which attend
the operations of our Constitution. In England,
whenever the people at large have resolved upon the
expediency and reasonableness of any change in her
tlfairs, external or internal, her system of representa-
tho n is found to be in that healthy condition that the
teration desired is certain of being effectuated ;
and were our representative system ascertained to be
imperfect for the object coveted, we should set
about widening its foundations, as we did
in 1830. In France, the bearings of the
political machinery are quite the reverse. There
the will of the KING is omnipotent, that of the
p eople a cypher. Hence it would be a great error to
c. 3nfound the character of that enlightened country
w ith the acts of the Government. There is no cor-
respondence between the one and the other. Louis
12 HILIPPE is, in fact, the perpetual Prime Minister of
the State, and filling this anomalous position in con-
tsexion with the possession of sovereignty, it follows,
from the infirmity of human nature, that extensive
personal interests take precedence in his
Imind over those of national consideration. The
'fact that Louis PHILIPPE sent for M.
THIERS with the view of inducing him, as the chief
of the Opposition in the Chambers, to abstain from
.discharging his duty as a representative, by forbear-
ing to raise a discussion upon the Spanish marriages,
is strong evidence of the direct influence he does not
ihesitate to exercise in matters where legislators ought
Ito be left free and unbiassed to deliberate upon points
~of intrinsic importance to their country's welfare.
:In our time such an unconstitutional act as this
'would never be dreamt of or attempted by our Sove-
:Thign. Such an endeavour would never have been made
"by the holder of the French sceptre, had M. GUIZOT'S
,conduct, to which he was instigated by his wily
master, been honourable and worthy of the dignity
.of France, instead ofhaving been tortuous andflagrantiy
-unjust. But as this was not the policy of his Minis-
•terial dupe, Louis PHILIPPE, when no credit could
'be gained, was only anxious, in the interview which
,he insidiously commanded from M. Tnisns, to screen
GUIZOT from merited disgrace, and himself from
;national censure. Fortunately, the regal manmuvre
:failed, and the fulness of the treachery of the French
Court has been rendered glaringly manifest by the ample
debate which has since ensued in the Chamber of
Deputies. M. GUIZOT may, and no doubt will, re-
main in power with the aid of a packed majority,
ewhilst France herself must continue to suffer humi-
Riatien. Neither do we see how the French nation
.can in future be spared the repetition of similar and
:indelible acts of degradation on the part of her
public servants, except by effecting a radical
change in the Constitution. The number of
iplacemen in both Chambers, particularly among
?the Deputies, is notorious, and an outrage
'upon national liberty. This horde of bribed
dummies of the State must be expelled, or reduced
;within decent limits, numerically commensurate with
the chief offices of the Executive. Moreover, when-
ever our neighbours shall succeed in carrying this
essential reformation, they must vigilantly guard
Against and control any subsequent attempt to in-
crease the patronage of the Crown, more especially
within the precincts of the Legislature. Till this
be accomplished, and rigidly adhered to, France must
remain a stranger to the benefits and blessings of
constitutional independence.

We are well aware that many intelligent and well-
disposed
gentlemen have looked upon a large and ex-
tensive system of emigration as a panacea for the ills
tof Ireland, as the sole means of alleviating per-
manently the distress in that country, while others,
actuated by less amiable motives, see in its adoption a
way by which they may escape the odium they would
,otherwise incur should they attempt to carry into
execution their darling project of clearing their
estates, and turning their unfortunate cottier tenants
from the spots where they were born and brought up,
and banishing them from their native land. The
advocates of the system wilfully shut their eyes to its
many objectionable points, and to the enormous ex-
penditure that must take place if the measure be
adopted to the extent demanded, and which would be
absolutely necessary in order to create the result they
do‘rire—a sensible diminution in the amount of labour

len drones that are invited to seek their fortunes on a
distant shore. It is not those who press as a dead
weight on the property of the country, and are
burdens on its resources, that are to be expatriated,
but the strong, the active, the intelligent, the indus-
trious labourers—persons who, if any opportunity j

was afforded to them, can readily earn daily bread for
themselves and families by their own exertions and the
Sweat of their own brows. It would be the greatest
inhumanity to export any other class, to banish those
who should perish by a miserable and lingering death,
if abandoned to their fate unregarded. It is a wilful
casting away of the real strength of the country, of
the producers of national wealth, of the consumers
of exciseable products, and the contributors to the
public revenue, to deprive us of those who could alone
with justice be assisted to emigrate. Those persons
may now be unable to obtain a profitable employ-
ment_for their labour. The money of the State should
be employed in opening favourable channels for their
industry, and not in driving them from our shores.
At best, emigration can afford but a temporary benefit;
the reduction thereby occasioned will speedily be
filled up by the annual increase ; a continued drain
equivalent to that increase must be kept up, and even
that, expensive as it would be, will only keep
things in statu quo, and not improve our condition in
any respect. The real remedy must be in the in-
creased productiveness of the country.
The only thing that could possibly justify the
wholesale deportation desired would be the fact,
that the land of the country was inadequate
to produce a sufficiency for the support of
its inhabitants, and most assuredly this is not the
case at present. Let us just look to the actual cir-
cumstances, to the enormous quantities of live stock,
of oxen, sheep, calves, pigs, of wheat, oats, barley—in
fact, of every description of agricultural produce
usually exported from the Irish to the British
shores. Are these evidences of a country un-
able to provide for the food of its inhabitants ?
Let us examine its capabilities. Fourteen mil-
lions of acres nominally in tillage, but the pro-
duce of which, it is calculated by competent persons,
might be quadrupled by the proper application of
that surplus labour that exists in the country ; four
million acres of land as yet unreclaimed and un-
cultivated, untouched by the spade or the plough,
but which might be converted into arable and pas-
ture land, to pay 10 per cent. on, the necessary
outlay. Surely, with such opportunities for the
profitable employment of the entire population, the
Commissioners of Public Works were justified in
saying, "It may be doubted whether the country
does contain a sufficient quantity of labour
to develop its resources." Sir R. KANE
was rather below the mark when he stated
" that Ireland might be made to produce sufficient for
the support of seventeen millions of inhabitants."
And the calculations of the celebrated OLIVER, in his
work on population, founded on statistica tables
drawn from official returns, are little, if at all, ex-
aggerated "That the resources of the British
isles was sufficient to provide labour and subsist-
ence for six times the amount of the present popula-
tion."

Away, then, with the idea that a wholesale trans-
portation must take place. If there must be a
system of colonization, let it be a home colonization,
and let the parties be engaged on the reclamation and
improvement of the millions of acres now lying waste
and unproductive, in extracting the hidden wealth
from the soil, and converting the barren heaths and
the trackless hogs into rich and fertile holdings. The
same or a lesser expenditure than that which would be
required for emigration would accomplish this magical
transformation.

Madrid papers of the Ist inst. have arrived.
It is stated that the QUEEN has refused to accept the
resignation of General PEZUELA, the Captain• General
of Madrid. The Minister of Marine hes not yet been
appointed. The documents relating to the Montpensier
marriage are to be laid before the Cortes in a few days.
The QUEEN has ordered a considerable sum of money
to be placed at the disposal of the authorities of the
Maeztrazgo to relieve the sufferings of the population.
S'nor PAVTA 11,1ir1y expected in 'Madrid,
MADRID BOMA, FEB. I.—The Three per Cents.
were done at 32i for cash ; the Four per Ceuta. at 20i ;