The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-12 00:00:00

17R lux ONDO

•
it is a monstrous thing that a small
and insignificant minority should for their own
selfish purposes be enabled to defeat that which would
be really beneficial to all parties. This should be
effectually remedied, and also the opportunity should
be taken away of having a preference given to any.
The moment a debtor's property is disposed of by
sheriff's sale (the most wasteful mode of realising its
value), it is manifest that the party is unable to meet
his engagements at the present moment, or, most
probably, at any future period. The proceeds of
such sale should, therefore, in every instance, be re-
tained for the purpose of general distribution, and
should not be given exclusively to the party by whom
the law was put in motion.
We shall return to this most important subject on
a future occasion.

We are not surprised that the motion made by the
Honourable Member for the Tower Hamlets last
night, for a Select Committee of Inquiry into the
conduct of Lieutenant• Colonel CHARLES OVANS,
while Political Resident at the Court of Sattara,
and into the acts of the Government to
which he was immediately subordinate, and the
other branches of the Indian Administration, was op-
posed and rejected by the parties whose names are
contained in the list of the division. There is at all
times an invincible reluctance on the part of those
engaged in the management of public affairs
to permit any scrutiny into the manner in which they
exercise their delegated powers and authority. Last
night Mr. THOMPSON had to contend with a for-
midable combination, consisting of the members of
the Government, one of whom (in the Cabinet) gave
his sanction, when at the head of the Board of Con-
trol some years ago, to the dethronement of the late
Raja of SATTARA, and is therefore im-
plicated in that transaction, the representa-
tives of the East India Company (Members of
the House), and others, the personal friends
of the party accused, or belonging to that class, who
have ever evinced the strongest repugnance to all in-
quiry into the abuse of constituted authority. The
charges referred to in the motion of Mr. THOMPSON
are specific in their nature, explicit in their reference
to dates, persons, and places, and minute also in their
references to official documents long since made
public, and open to general examination. On look-
ing at the debate, we nevertheless find that the first
opponent Mr. THOMPSON had to contend
with, abstained altogether from noticing those
charges, and preferred to occupy the attention
of the House by statements intended to cast discredit
on the motives of the originator of the motion. This
Gentleman was followed by the Honourable Ba-
ronet the Member for Honiton, a director
and a lawyer, who, though he spoke at great length,
reserved all notice of the motion itself for the end of
his address, and then abstained from grappling with
the facts and documents brought forward by the
mover. The encomiums pronounced on the cha-
racter of the Company's servant were numerous,
profuse, and unqualified ; but we think it would
have been the wiser course, as it certainly
would have been the more courageous one, to have
been frugal in the bestowal of compliments, and to
have granted the inquiry asked for into the
charges brought against that officer. We repeat
it, it would have shown more confidence in the
soundness of their cause, if these Honourable
Members had granted—nay demanded a rigorous
investigation into the alleged official delinquencies,
and have vindicated the honour of Colonel OVANS,
by putting on record evidence in disproof of
charges so grave so and definite. No one can
deny that the Member who brought forward the
motion has mastered the details and explored the
intricacies of the difficult and complicated questions
connected with the Sattara case, and that he has,

from the commencement, courted an inquiry,
which, if not well assured of his ability
to support his allegations, he mast have
known would land him in discomfiture and
disgrace. He_has, again and again, also declared
his willingness to have the accuracy of his statements
tested by any competent tribunal—whether a court of
law in England or in India, a Commission appointed
by the Crown or a committee at the India House,
or the House of Commons. One solitary speech,
therefore, and that but partially applicable to the
matter in dispute, will not satisfy either the public
mind or the demands of English justice, or
have the effect of screening a gentleman who,
doubtless, and deservedly, has many friends, from the
imputation of having, as an agent and instrument,
been guilty of unworthy acts, and of inflicting injury
upon one who was once the friend and favoured
ally of the British Government. We pronounce
no opinion on the merits of the case, in thus
questioning the propriety of the course adopted in
the House of Commons. We say again, therefore,
that
ta i
on
nsoh inquiryav se
been od u
set haat ve been granted, and the
ques
rest
for
ever,
aas
between
the accused and the accuser.

We regret to find so few of the professed friends
of free inquiry and popular government present
last night to support a motion so rea-
sonable and necessary as that which was
the subject of debate. A motion which, in its com-
prehensive bearings, vitally :affected the destinies
of millions subject to British sway in India, was

surely worthy the attention of the avowed advocates
of popular rights at home, and of colonial reform
abroad. Our conquered fellow- subjects in India,
and our helpless allies in that country, are as much
entitled, the one to have their appeals considered,
and the other to 'protection and the benefits
of a liberal and enlightened government, as are the
people of this country to the blessings of untaxed bread
and cheap sugar. We deem it an unfavourable symptom

fiat apeeeb on the Improvement of the law deliveted
in the House of Commons twenty years since. This
great man has not relaxed in his labours. He has
recently introduced a Bill to consolidate and digest
into one statute all the laws of England, as far as
relates to indictable offences and the punishment
thereof, in which the several crimes are defined. He
has promised to follow it with another measure
enacting a mode of criminal procedure ; and, in
addition, he has again directed his attention
to the bankrupt law, in which he has
already effected many valuable improvements,
and on his motion a Bill was read a second
time on Friday last, to consolidate the various
laws relating to bankruptcy, which has been referred
to a Select Committee, by whom its various details
will be investigated, and rendered as efficient as prac-
ticable.
Although an Act for a similar purpose had been
passed in 182.5, which systematised and consolidated
the great majority of the enactments then in force, no
less than twenty•one statutes have since been intro-

duced on the subject. As a natural consequence of
so important a branch of the law being so scattered,
much obscurity has arisen, which has given rise to
many well-founded complaints on the part of the
mercantile interest, the parties chiefly affected.
These complaints will in a great degree be removed
by the new measures, which will elucidate the law
and render it perfectly clear, and easy of comprehen-
sion. Although that is the principal object of the
present Bill, we trust that many valuable alterations
may at the same time be effected. There can
be no sufficient reason why the bankrupt and in-
solvent laws should be henceforth continued separate ,
and distinct. They are parts of the same system.
In both instances the object should be to protect the
honest but unfortunate debtors, and to administer
deserved punishment to the fraudulent and dishonest
one; and at the same time to render the assets of
every person available to the utmost extent
for the benefit of all his creditors, with-
out preference and without exception. This
being the purpose of the codes, why should they not
be amalgamated together and administered by a single
tribunal ? Why should there be any difference in the
nature of the remedies against a debtor, dependent on
the point of whether he is a trader within the mean-
ing of the bankrupt-laws or otherwise ? In neither
case should the party be subjected to punishment, in
the first instance, until he has been proved to
have acted improperly. If he is either
unable or unwilling to pay his debts, and he fails to
make a proposition satisfactory to the majority of his
creditors in number and value, he should lay his en-
tire affairs before the Court for its adjudication ; but
if he is enabled to offer a satisfactory arrangement, to
which the great body of those interested in the
settlement of his affairs are willing to accede,

when wo observe men, clamorous and energetic for
the rights of their own immediate constituents, absent
when the claims of the millions of India are preferred•
There were enough and to spare of such men to have
saved from defeat the motion of last night.

Emigration has latterly become a question of such
profound importance to the population of England,
that any earnest suggestion for the facilitation of
transit between the mother country and her colonial
possessions, is certain to be welcomed with gratitude.
Of such suggestions there is just now anything but
a dearth. Scheme after scheme pours in upon the
journalist in addition to those which may have already
risen into existence in his own imagination ; and each
receives an advocacy from its originator as enthusi-
astic and unconditional as that awarded to the unio❑
of hydropathy and phlebotomy by the illustrious
Doctor Sangrado. It cannot, therefore, be surprising,
that we are beginning to regard with a somewhat
fastidious judgment the plans thrust upon our atten-
tion, whether it be by a correspondent, a bookmaker,
or a pamphleteer. Among the various propositions,
however, which have latterly come under our obser-
vation in reference to this important subject of emi-
gration, there is one to which we would especially
direct the observation of the public, because, to our.
selves, the plan propounded by the writer in question
seems to be about the most ingenious and feasible
that has up to this moment appeared.
We allude to a pamphlet which has just been pub-
lished,* containing the development of a scheme con-
ceived by Mr. FREDERICK JERNINGIIAM, whereby

steam communication between England and Australia
would be marvellously facilitated. The tendency of
the proposal made by Mr. JERNINGIIAM may be at
once conjectured from a sentence which occurs in
page 9 of his pamphlet, (namely, "It was only yes-
terday I received a letter from New Zealand and one
from Adelaide, the former was seven and the latter
six months old,") and from coupling with that sen-
tence the calculations that the line of steam commu-

nication, mapped out by himself, would shorten, the
period of the voyage between the British Islands and
New Zealand to an interval of just about two months.
An excellent chart prefixed to the pamphlet materi-
ally assists in demonstrating the ingenuity of the
proposed track—the outward bound line running
from the English Channel by Cape Finisterre, the
Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, Cape of Good Hope,
and St. Paul's Island to Adelaide, Port Philip, and
Sydney; the homeward bound line running from
Adelaide by King George's Sound, the Mauritius,
Cape Town, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde Islands, and
the Azores to England, with branch lines, first, be-
tween the Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope ;
secondly, from Launceston to Port Philip ; and
thirdly, frum Port Jackson round the islands of New
Zealand. To say the least of it, the proposition is
worthy of a very serious consideration.
As an additional stimulus to the great movement of
emigration from the British islands, nothing could be
bettef conceived than the new association, called the
" Society for the Promotion of Colonization.' which
held its preliminary meeting yesterday afternoon in
the Hanover-square Rooms. Never, we may safely
aver without fear of contradiction, has an association
been more urgently required for any purpose what-
ever than this one for the promotion of colonization?
To our thinking it is the great want of the age—
beyond socialism in France, beyond locofocoism in the
United States, beyond progressistaism in Spain, or
any other of those isms and schisms which are just
now setting mankind more than evor at loggerheads.
The object of the new society, such as it was de-
scribed by the Chairman, the Earl of HARROWIIY,
and afterwards by the humane and earnest voice of
Lord ASHLEY, is to facilitate the transmission of
emigrants from the mother country to those colonies
which are best calculated to afford room for their
industry, localities for their habitation, and crops for
their nourishment. Such an effort has become abso-
lutely- requisite, and when private charity is
useless, and when Government is resolved upon
remaining inactive, it is time for a society of this
character to be formed.

* " Steam Communication with the Capo of Good
Hope, Australia, and New Zealand, suggested as the
means of promoting Emigration to those Colonies." By
Frederick Jerningham, pp. 23, Svo. Charles Dolman,
London, 1848.

SPAIN.
Madrid journals of the Gth have arrived.
The Court was to leave for La Granja at midnight.
The Government adopted every means to prevent
the fact of the Carlist rising in Catalonia and the
Basque Provinces from becoming known in Madrid.
MADRID, BOLLA, JULY 6.—The Three per Cents.,
19i paper; after Bolsa, 19i cash. Five per Cents.,
121 i paper; after Bolsa, 12i cash. Passives, 41
paper; after Bolsa, 4; cash. Coupons, 8 paper.
Bank of St. Ferdinand, 65 paper. Discount of notes,
9; to 10 per cent. Exchange on London, 90 days,
45 50 paper.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
It is said that permission will be asked of the
Assembly to prosecute M. PROUDHON for the publica-
tion of an article in the Representant du Peuple of
Sunday, recommending all tenants and mortagees to
withhold a third of their rents and interests, and
urging them to proceed en masse to the Assembly to
present a petition to that effect.
The Constitutionnel publishes the report of the
medical man who was delegated to make examina-
tions at the different hospitals relative to the allega-
tion of poisoned balls having been used by the in-
surgents during the late conflicts, from which we
extract the following :
" Has the medical examination of the wounds, with
their complications and their consequences, confirmed
or contradicted the atrocious charges made against some
of the insurgents? Has it produced any proofs of the
infernal combination of iron and poison? We are happy
to say that it has not. There certainly have been seized
on the persons of the insurgents, or in their stores,
several projectiles prepared with the most horrible art.
One surgeon has declared in the Gazette Medieale having
seen one ball in which arsenic had been mixed in a large
proportion in the metal of which it was made; and the
same surgeon remarked, with regard to balls covered
with a coppery substance, that the wounds inflicted with
them would have all the character of poison having been
introduced. Balls were also found which had been cast
in a thimble, and to which were attached by a small
nail pieces of cloth coloured with some green substance.
But if some insurgents, in a paroxysm of furious
hate, cart have dreamt of those cruel combinations,
they have not attained their object; either they
have been alarmed by their own inventions, and hesi-
tated at using those poisonous balls, or from their having
passed so quickly through the wounds they have not
had time to produce their double effect ; the surgeons of
the hospitals have not, up to the present time, been able
to discover any of the effects which would have been
produced, or any aggravation in the character of the
wounds which they can attribute to the action of any
poisonous influence."