The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-22 00:00:00

THE_ SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY MORNING, AUGUST 22, 1816

they were treated. We venture to say that a
perusal of that gentleman's work will bring con-
% iction to any unprejudiced mind, and
satisfactorily establish the necessity of according to
the survivors the welbearned, the richly-deserved
distinction. It is not because a long period has
elapsed—that many years have passed away since
those services were rendered—that the nation should
still withhold the honour. The statute of limita-
tions is the last plea that should be put for-
ward by a Government ; the only reason that
such a defence is ever permitted is, that other-
wise the person called on to answer a demand
might suffer serious injury from his means of justifi-
cation being lost by the lapse of time, but it has ever
been considered as reflecting a certain degree of dis-
credit on the person making use thereof. Why, then,
should the British nation meet the well-founded de-
mands of those calling for justice by such an argu-
ment? We sincerely hope that the subject will not
be suffered to drop, but that it will be constantly
brought forward, and kept before the House and the
country until tardy justice is at length done to the
gallant veterans.

The other part of the subject touched upon that
which we have ever considered a most vicious
system, essentially unjust, and productive of much
mischief to the service. We allude to the system of
promotion by purchase. No matter how
well, how efficiently an officer may perform
his duties, how zealously he may devote himself
to the acquisition of the knowledge of,hii profession,
if he is not possessed of wealth to enable him to pay
for that promotion, which should only be granted to
merit, he will be subjected to the annoyar.ce, the
bitter mortification of seeing mere boys promoted
over his head, whose only claims consist of the in-
fluence they can bring to bear, and the length of their
purses—persons who enter the army for the
purpose of playing at soldiers, who play their
parts during the peace campaigns, and who, in the
event of the regiment being ordered for foreign ser-
vice, will frequently vote it a bore, and exchange or
sell out, thus evading the perfsztnance of their duties.
It is well known that large sums of money, far ex-
ceeding the regulation price, are generally paid by
young officers desirous of getting on, and the prac-
tice is connived at by the authorities. If rank was
obtainable only by desert, a better class of
officers would be procured—men who would make it
the object of their lives, and who would with all
their energies seek to qualify themselves for profes-
sional advancement. The officer who has purchased
each step, and at length retires, after thirty or forty
years' service, will find that the money he has sunk,
together with the interest thereon, would give him a
larger income than that afforded by his country as
compensation for his exertions, for all the best
years of his life devoted to their service ; and if he
should happen to die in the interim, the money so paid
s ill be totally lost to his family. Many heroes who
perished in the field of battle, fighting bravely for
their country, paid sums far exceeding that which
they received as pay, and their friends and relatives
had to mourn, not merely the loss of their valuable
lives, but also the sums of money, procured, perhaps
with difficulty, in order to give them advancement
in their profession. Such things should not be per-
mitted to continue. We trust that a full inquiry
will be instituted, and that some better system may
be devised and carried into execution. It is only in
the English army that such things can be found, and
the reproach should as speedily as possible be re-
moved from the British nation.

With peculiar feelings of gratification—we may
indeed say, of exultation—we observe that our illus-
trious countryman, RICHARD COBDEN, is receiving
the congratulations of our continental neighbours.
Un Tuesday evening a grand banquet was given in
Paris to the leader of the Anti-Corn-law League—
a banquet of the more particular importance, first, as
a symbol that the lustre of intellect and the gene-
rosity of heart by the development of which Mr.
COI3DEN has acquired the admiration and affection of
his fellow-countrymen, are appreciated by foreign
nations ; and, secondly, as an augury that the
triumphs of free trade are not destined to be restricted
to a single empire, but that that moral revolution
will ultimately pervade all the civili.ked territories of
tk' T• :4 1,,•t consonant with
that exalted position which France has assumed
among the nations of Europe, that her children should
be foremost in welcoming the eminent man whose
tongue first pronounced the doom of monopoly and
emancipated the commerce of Great Britain. Much
that is instructive, and much likewise that is encourag-
ing may be gleaned from this demonstration in the
metropolis of the French empire. The facts that the
notion of such a tribute orLinated with the Societe
des Economistes—that the banquet was presided over
by the Due D'HARCOURT, a Peer of France, and
President of the Societe des Libres Echangistes—
that many distinguished political economists were
present on the occasion=-that among the most
remarkable pers•mages were M. VERNEZ (De-
puty Governor of the Bank of France) ;
Baron BILLING ( Minister of France at the
Court of Denmark), M. MICHAEL CHEVALLIEB
( Professor of Political Economy in the College de
France), and M. JosEru GARNIER ( Professor of Po-
kical Economy at the Athenee), besides various
Peers and Deput.es, and literary and commercial men
—form a sufficient testimony that the demonstration
was not one of those pieces of domestic adulation
which are occasionally presumed to be the embodi-
ment of public opinion and the spontaneous indica-
tion of a principle. And what makes the knowledge
of this demonstration so peculiarly gratifying to our-
selves, is the earnestness and enthusiasm which it
tended to elicit. The speeches delivered during
the evening were no mere bandying of com-
pliment; the punctilios and formalities, too fre-
quently the characteristics of an after-dinner
oration, were altogether subordinate to those hearts'
emotions which animated the utterance of the differ-
ent speakers with such graceful and potent eloquence.
On rising to propose the toast of the evening, M,
110BACE SAY exclaimed, "To RICHARD COBDEN!
Is it necessary, gentlemen, I should say more ? This
name is on every lip; it kindles in each of us the
same feelings, the same sympathy, and the same ideas.
COBDEN ! It is to us the tableau of the downfal of
feudality in England, consummated under the reite-
rated blows of good sense. COBDEN ! It is the eman•
cipation of those who work, and find in the freedom
of exchanges the complement of their right of pro

perty in the produce of their labour. COBDEN ! It is the
peace of the world in consequence of the ties which
free trade will establish between all nations."
Those were the beautiful and stirring epithets
which were coupled with the name of our great re-
former. The: downfal of feudality !—the emancipa-
tion of the poor !—the peace of the whole world !
We welcome those few, but significant, sen-
tences, because in them we recognise an as-

surance that a foreign population comprehends
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the motives which have actuated the bene-
ficent consequences which will reward, and
the ultimate consummation which will immortalise,
the members, and especially the great leader, of the
Anti-Corn-law League. Those sentiments are an
avowal that Frenchmen do not perceive in our recent
struggle for the abolition of the protective imposts
any of the ignominious palterings of private interest,
but rather the striving of a whole people for their

own improvement and the benefaction of the entire
human family : that while we were endeavouring to

prevent the enrichment of the indolent and affluent
by the taxation of the bread of the industrious and the

poor, we were riving asunder the last fetters of hu-
.

manity, and making one friendly race out of many
hostile nations. As Mr. COBDEN himself most nobly
expressed it, we wanted "the liberty of industry" as
well as " the rights of conscience, the liberty of
speech, and the inviolability of the press"—we wanted
to destroy, beyond all repqration, that villanous
system "by which the balance of peace and war
between two great nations trembles upon the finger
of diplomacy ! " It was because he championed
this gigantic and beneficent revolution, and because
he spoke with the eloquence of a large heart, filled
with great thoughts and splendid aspirations, that
RICHARD Counzx has, in a few years, gained such a
permanent, and catholic, and enviable celebrity. It
is'for these reasons that his name is in such estima-
tion in England and excites such enthusiasm in
France.

Who Ppeech bir. Cops; reflontted to

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