The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-12 00:00:00

Oiteniag nun

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 12, 1848.

London is again thrown into a state of excitement
by the frivolous and irrational conduct of a few
demagogues. In consequence of the announcements
distributed throughout the metropolis during the
past few weeks, to the effect that Monday, the 12th
of June, would be the day of the great Chartist de-
monstration, extraordinary precautions for the pur•
pose of ensuring the preservation of the public peace
have been taken by the authorities, and this morning
the military forces have been concentrated in a vast
body upon the capital. Can any one blame those
precautions on the part of the Government ? Or,
rather, can any one deny that in taking these precau-
tions the Government are only striving to fulfil a por-
tion of those supreme responsibilities devolving upon
them as the guardians of the tranquillity, the lives, aril
the properties of the population ? It were an insult
to the common sense of the country to speak other-
wise. Here is a gigantic city, inhabited by nearly
two millions of human beings, engaged for the most
part in one or other of the almost innumerable opera-
tions of commerce— traders, artizans, workers, those
who toil with their hands and those who labour with
their head, those who are dependent for their liveli-
hoods either upon the clearness of their brain, or
upon the strength of their thews. And in this great
city—the radiating point of all the mercantile under-
takings of England—business has been interrupted
during the last twelve or fourteen weeks, speculation
has been paralysed, enterprize has been disheartened
—by whom ? Why, by a section of that very
class whose interest it is to restore confidence
and to mantain tranquillity. Men calling themselves
Chartists have created all this unwholesome excite•
ment, by agitating for the achievement of reforms by
physical, and consequently by unconstitutional,
agencies. A few of these agitators we believe to be
sincere men—men who conscientiously advocate the
system embodied in the Charter, because they con-
scientiously believe that system to be of a most
humanizing and ameliorative character. But the
mass of these persons who have been brawling about
the Utopia of Chartism, either in the classic areas of
Bishop Bonner's-fields or of the Common at Ken-
nington, are, we believe, actuated less by an
enthusiasm for the noble aspirations of democracy
than by a love of anarchy, and an after-thought of
spoliation. Hence there has been a peculiar wisdom
in fortifying the Bank of England, and in distributing
strong bodies of the soldiery not only in the vestibules
of that building, but also in such Government edi-
fices as the Custom House and the Mint. Every
circumstance both before and after the memorable
10th of April has justified these suspicions on the
part of the authorities, and not only on the part of
the authorities, but on the part of the general
public likewise. The riotous nature of the de-
monstrations, and the seditious and even sanguinary
language of the orators ( ! ! !), have constituted of
themselves a sufficient reason for the alarm so long
experienced throughout the metropolis. And what,
we ask, have been the immediate effects of this alarm ?
The whole arrangements of trade have been thrown
into confusion, the City has presented the spectacle of
a complete mercantile stagnation ; shops have been
closed through fear, and workmen deprived of em-
ployment through disaffection. Such have been the
deplorable consequences drawn down upon their own
heads by these insensate and mendacious brawlers.
Such has been the increase of misery and privation to
themselves, caused by the men who are credulous
enough to believe that pockets can be filled by peti-
tioning, and larders replenished by idle declamation.
With the wishes expressed by the few conscien-
tious Chartists in England we sympathise to the
very uttermost. Do we not ? Is there any one
principle maintained in the Charter which we do not
advocate, which we have not advocated a hundred
times over ourselves ? Are we not agreed as to the
extension of the elective franchise ? Do we not
coincide about the ballot ? Are we diametrically
opposed to each other as to the shortening of the
duration of Parliament ? Have we no community of
feelings with regard to the legislative advancement
of education, the systematic development of a scheme
of sanitary improvement, the reduction of our na-
tional expenditure, the equalisation of the present
most iniquitous system of taxation, the radical altera-
tion of the existing notions about the currency, and a
thousand other of those subordinate questions in
which the happiness, the health, and the prosperity of
our labouring classes are either directly or indirectly
implicated ? Cordially, however, fully, and entirely
as we sympathise with the true and conscientious
Chartists—the few men who are sanguine enough to
dream of the realisation of the six points—we do not
regard, we have never regarded—we can never,
under any circumstances, regard with other than
feelings of the most supreme indignation, those mobs
of disaffected men who prowl about the streets of
our cities under the pretence of a political grievance,
and inspired solely with a love of bluster and idleness,
brawl, notoriety, and agitation.
Against such men as these the Government ought to
act vigorously as they are acting, though the man
FUSSELL was rather fitted for the horsepond or the
stocks than for the dock or Newgate. We would re-
commend, for instance, such remedies as the calling
out of the Fire Brigade against the Female Bethnal-
green Chartist Association, for the purpose of throw-
ing a sufficient allowance of cold water upon their
proceedings, in the event of their disturbing the pro-
priety of the city of London by any illegal proces-
sion. Again, the remedy adopted against these move-
ments of insubordination by the National Guard of
Paris is not altogether unworthy of imitation—we
would command our police and the special constables
to follow the example of that portion of the National
Guard which only the other evening blockaded every
outlet in the neighbourhood of the Porte Saint Denis,
and by that means kept a mob of Socialists or Bar-
bists from their beds from twilight until daybreak.
A few such
good-tempered but stringent modes of
opposition would ou l d speedilytothisial oocmlear commercial our stmreeett;so
of
ma rtaua -t
der s restore
polis that
tranquillity which is absolutely essential for the fulfil-
ment, and
of its great mercantile destinies.

The programme of " The Irish League," the
new Association, in which it is hoped that all
sections of repealers may be cordially united, has at
length made its appearance. We confess, however,
that we are scarcely relieved from the doubts we en-
tertained as to the real character of the arrangements,
or as to the permanency of the new society. We find
that similar doubts have already occurred to the Hon.
Member for Limerick, the quondam chief of the
Old Ireland party ; and it is by no means improbable
that the contemplated coalition may be postponed dine
die, that at the meeting of the Repeal Association this
day it may be announced that the negotiation has com-
pletely failed, and that the moral force repealers
will still continue under their old banners, and
their former leaders. Should the rent flow in libe-
rally to the exhausted coffers of the association, and
the friends of the " ancien regime," alarmed at its
proposed dissolution, shake off the apathy into which
they had fallen and renew their vows of allegiance,
this probability will become an absolute certainty.
There can be no feelings of cordiality or confidence
between the opposing parties. Mr. O'CoNNELr. can
scarcely forget the vigour and energy with which his
proceedings and those of his immediate followers have
been denounced by the physical•force Repealers.

Nor can he very consistently abandon the principles
so long, so patiently, and so successfully acted on by his
lamented father, the deceased Liberator. It is equally
difficult to conceive that the Confederates will
abandon that vehemence of language and firm resolu-
tion to attain their objects by any means which led
to their secession from Conciliation Hall. There
WAS no abatement in the pretensions or softening of
the tone adopted at the meeting on Tuesday last.
Indeed Mr. GAVAN DUFFY distinctly stated that
" the principles of the new association were to be the
principles of the Irish Confederation ;" and Mr.
MEAGHER plainly and unequivocally intimated that
an appeal to physical force will be made within this
very year. He said, " Call me coward, call me
renegade. I accept these titles as the penalties
which a fidelity to my convictions has imposed upon
me. It will be for a short time only. At the end I
see the path which I have been ordained to walk.
No object intercepts my view ; and on the grave
that closes upon that path I can read no coward's
epitaph." And again : "The question as to what
shall be the fate of this island must be this year
determined; the end is at hand, so get arms and pre-
pare." This is scarcely in accordance with the pro-
mise
"the AI r .
nJe.w be
0 'Codisy should b
ri ELLn thee
legal
al
ti
thaten s o
tfutional, and that all violence of expression,
c
and suggestion of counsel contrary to law, would be
excluded."

The details for carrying the proposed amalgama-
tion into effect are quite inadequate to maintain that
efficient control over the language to be adopted at
the meetings which would naturally be required by
the Old Irelanders, unless they were prepared to
waive all their former doctrines, and to participate iu
any course which the majority of the Council might
sanction. The only rule on the subject is that "no
matter can be introduced at these meetings of the
League which shall not have been previously ap-
proved and sanctioned by a majority of the members
of the Council." This can only mean the subject-
matter of the discussion, and not the language in
which it may be urged. It could scarcely be ex-
pected that the drafts of the several speeches should
be submitted to the censorship of the committee, or
that the warlike confederates should submit to the
operations of a new Gagging Act. All that can be
selected, therefore, is the subject of debate, and
each orator will be at liberty to deal with
it according to his own fancy, and if he
trenches upon forbidden ground there is no legiti•
mate means by which he can be arrested in his pro-
gress. Nor is it very probable that the conflicting
parties would readily agree as to what came within
the legitimate sphere of discussion.
Under these circumstances it is by no means sur-
prising that the proposed coalition should not be so
immediately practicable as the repeal press have de-
clared it to be, or that Mr. Jowl O'CONNELL should
caution the friends of the Repeal Association through.
out the country to understand that as yet nothing has
been definitively settled.

SPAIN.

Madrid papers of the 6th have arrived.

The Cabinet crisis continues. General NARVAEZ
insists on the appointment of Senor ORLANDO as
Minister of Finance, but the Duke of SOTOMAYOR
and BRAVO MURILLO object, and declare they will re-
sign should he be appointed. The probability is that
the Duke of SOTOMATOR finds that he has gone too
far in the affair of Sir H. BULWER, and seizes the
first excuse to leave office and relieve himself from
the necessity of offering those apologies to the Eng-
lish Government and to Sir 11. BULWER personally,
which the Foreign Minister of Spain will undoubt-
edly have to do before relations between the two
countries can be re-established.

MADRID BOLSA, JUNE 6.—Three per Cents. 284
cash, 28 5-16 for the Account ; Five per Cents.
134 for the Account; Passive, 5 to si; Coupons, 74
cash. Exchange on London, 42 50.