The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-26 00:00:00

Oxenins

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1846.

When it was originally proposed by the directors
of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway to discon-
tinue Sunday travelling upon that line of communi-
cation between the metropolis of Scotland and the
most populous manufacturing city in the United
Kingdom, we took occasion to condemn that pro-
ceeding in the most emphatic language we could
command. Little time has elapsed since the appear-
ance of that proposition, but it has been sufficient to
enable the public to indicate their opinions upon the
question, and also upon the principle which is in-
volved therein. Scotland is too enlightened to yield
to the delusions of fanaticism, and hence the indigna-
tion which was expressed by every unprejudiced
journalist has been responded to in a marked
and significant manner by the population
of that portion of the British empire.
It was self-evident that the beard of direc-
tors to any public company, to any company deputed
to, promote the advantages and facilitate the inter-
course of the community, was exceeding the powers
entrusted to it by Parliament, in the extraordinary way
above-mentioned. Having been enabled by the Le-
gislature to interfere with individual rights, to cut
through private domains, and to purchase perforce
different portions of private property situated between
Edinburgh and Glasgow, for the purpose of construct •
ing their railroad, the directors of this, as of every
similar company, were simultaneously invested with a
responsibility which, by their recent decision against
Sunday travelling, they have not fulfilled. The com-
pany was enabled to carry out its original intentions
solely upon the implied understanding that it would
faithfully perform its duties as an instrument of public
good. It was virtually held responsible, on its in-
corporation, for the continuance under its novel
auspices of all those innocent and lawful advantages
hitherto enjoyed by the localities at its termini. The
mail bags, which had previously been carried by
coaches upon the highway, were to be conveyed hence
forth by the steam-engines of the company. Passen-
gers in like manner were to be granted similar privi-
leges as heretofore upon the new line of transit;
there were to be second and third-class carriages,
instead of the outside places of a stage coach or an
omnibus; there were to be first-class carriages
instead of the inside places of stage coaches;
there were to be luggage trains instead of
carriers, vans, and waggons. It was naturally
expected, indeed, by the community that the Edin-
burgh and Glasgow Railway Company should give
them ample compensation for the loss of those vehi-
cles which were removed from the ordinary road by
the arrangements and engagements of that company.
That was the tacit understanding between all the
parties concerned in these transactions. It was just
that the population should exact so much : it was the
bounden duty of the company to ensure so much.
Everything has prospered with the Edinburgh and
Glasgow Railway ; the speculation has proved remu-
nerative; its system has given universal satisfaction;
the board of direction has afforded all reasonable facilities
to the people; the people have reposed every confidence
in the board of direction ; there has been a mutual
cordiality between the company and the public, for
whose benefit the former was instituted. Matters
have continued in this satisfactory condition ever
since the formation of the line, when everything is
suddenly thrown into a state of the most miserable
confusion by the spurious morality and religious fa-
naticism of four sapient, and, doubtless, very excel-
lent individuals. At their instance alone, the usual
means of communication between Edinburgh and
Glasgow is denied to the inhabitants on fifty-two
days in the three hundred and sixty-five. Igor the
gratification of their own saturnine piety, the thou-
sands who have toiled from Monday morning to Sa-
turday night, are, on the only day afforded them for
the relaxation of their exhausted bodies, compelled
to remain immured in the unwholesome byways of
the cities, and are, by that unnatural imprisonment,
incited to debauchery and drunkenness.
It affords us the highest gratification to observe
that the Town Council of Edinburgh has considered
the recent adjudication of the directors sufficiently
important to warrant its particular interference. On the
occasion of the last meeting of the Town Council we
observe that a long discussion ensued upon the pro-
position of Mr. C. B. TAIT, to the effect that
the city authorities of Edinburgh should, before
Parliament, protest against the tyrannical enactment
of the directors. After a somewhat bitter colloquy
upon the merits and demerits of the affair, that pro-
position was accepted by a majority of thirteen in a
room of twenty-seven. The right of the corporation
of the Scotch capital to interfere in the manner pro-
p ,sed was justly maintained by the Lord Provost
after it had been 'discredited by one of the Bailies.
The right, indeed, is manifest nay, the
Town Council has not merely a right to
protest, it has a positive duty to perform in uttering
that protestation. By stopping the Sunday trains
more injury is inflicted upon the industrial population,
than that of a simple interference with their conve-
nience. In the prevention of travelling on every
seventh day, the health, the probity, the sobriety,
the very morality of the people are concerned. By
denying the poor artizans their innocent privilege of
beholding GOD'S creation on the Sunday, of breathing
a pure atmosphere at rare and precious intervals, of
visiting the sick and dying on emergencies, of joining

their parents in worship in the village churches, with
which all the recollections of their childhood are
associated, their self-opinionated religionists are car-
rying out their bigotry to an unbearable excess.
Employing vehicles themselves upon that seventh
day, they are indignant that the poorer classes should
be desirous of purchasing sixpenny railway tickets.
Looking to the religion of the thing, it is calculated
that several hundred individuals have been hitherto
enabled to attend the churches and chapels of Edin-
burgh, or of Glasgow, who, without the assistance of
a railway, would be altogether deprived of religious
instruction. Again, it is preposterous for the
directors to prohibit this Sunday travelling on
the plea of its immorality when the clerks upon
their establishment are employed during a consider-
able portion of every Sunday. A more preposterous
or more bigoted act was never conceived by any
similar association than this proceeding on the
Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway; it is calculated to
be prejudicial in a sanatory point of view, and, above
all, is inimical to the cause of true religion.

It is alike curious and interesting, it is, indeed,
useful as well as highly subservient to the ends of
morality, to note how frequently sinister objects, in-
tended to be reached, through the prosecution of
schemes skilfully devised and deeply laid, are hap-
pily crossed and rendered nugatory by incidents,
which craft and subtlety, and vigilant circumspection
oftentimes fail to foresee. The records of history are
replete with instances of the evil machina-
tions of states having been seasonably sub-
verted by the most trivial circumstances,
and most ordinary events. It is well for
the interests of the human race, that flagitious exam-
ples cf national honour disregarded, of solemn treaties
'contemptuously slighted, with the degrading conse-
quences they have entailed upon the countries, by
which such shameless acts have been authoritatively
sanctioned, should be stereotyped on the pages of
general history. They serve as great international
beacons to warn sovereigns and their ministers against
the inimical results of attempting, by a narrow,
crooked, and insidious policy, to deceive and
overreach neighbouring states, with which they
affect to maintain the most amicable and
honorable relations. Were history not pregnant, as
it is, with such high moral lessons, treachery would
be at a premium, and the code of nations nothing
better than a sickening digest of Machiavellian
duplicity.
The Peninsular intrigues to which the wily KING
of the FRENCH, in a wary and underhanded manner,
has not hesitated to stoop, to effect a Spanish mar-
riage, not merely for the miserable object of grasp-
ing a considerable dowry for his son, not merely for
the contingency of his descendants mounting the
Iberian throne, but also for the purpose of gaining in
Spain, through the influence thus nuptially acquired,
in contravention of existing treaties for the conser-
vation of the balance of European power, a maritime
and commercial influence of an exclusive character,--
such conduct on the part of Lours PHILIPPE has been
deservedly rebuked, and taught us the propriety of
keeping aloof from the contaminating ways of his
faithless dynasty.
The accidental tour in Spain of one individual, in-
stigated to make it for the renovation of his health,
promises to be the simple and efficacious means
of thwarting one of the leading considerations which
doubtless prompted Lours PHILIPPE to bring about
the marriage of the Duke of MONTPENSIER with the
Infanta Dona Lursa. Mr. COBDEN, M.P., has
nobly sacrificed the repose needful to his deteriorated
health, and voluntarily entered upon a mission the
object whereof cannot be too much lauded. The
great reputation with which he left his native
shore has been, to his honour and their honour,
fully appreciated by the mercantile communities
of every Spanish province which he has happened
to visit. The homage that: has been every-
where paid to him, has been fully justified,
not only by the signal services he rendered to our
United Empire and other countries, through the tri-
umph he achieved this year for the principles of free
trade, but also by the enunciation of the soundest data
of political economy which, in his own peculiar, for-
cible, and felicitous language, he has never failed to
impart to the various civic banquets to which
he has been invited. That a general and
profound sympathy exists in Spain with the
great cause espoused by Mr. COBDEN is evidenced by
the welcome with which his presence has been so
enthusiastically greeted in all the leading cities in the
Iberian peninsula.
Our columns of to-day contain a report of a grand
entertainment to the Member for Stockport, at Ma-
laga. His speech will be re id with interest. An
entire perusal will alone do it justice. He again
enforces the broad, intelligible, and sound principle,
that for the purposes of revenue only, and not for the
exclusive benefit of classes or private individuals,
ought custom-house duties to be imposed. " The
custom-house," observed Mr. COBDEN, "is alienated
from its legitimate object when it is made use of for
the purpose of rendering more lucrative the under-
taking of any private individual, and preventing
others from following the same trade. The sole and
unique object that can justify the creation of taxes
and duties, is, as I have said, the provision of a reve-
nue or resources for the state. This is the basis of
all our present operations in England." Mr. COBDEN
happily, and with becoming modesty, adverted to the
generous and confident spirit in which England has
led the van in favour of commercial liberty. He ex-
horted his hearers to promote the discussion
of freedom of trade, which was certain of being
successfully adopted wherever the people were en-
' lightened, and he expressed his conviction that the
mind of the Spanish nation would soon be animated
by a due sense of the inestimable advantages
attendant upon unfettered mercantile intercourse
between all nations of the earth. "Free trade,"
exclaimed Mr. COBDEN, " is the presage of peace be-
tween nations ; this magic word, peace, expresses in
a thousand ways the progress of humanity and civili-
sation ; and you, the people of Spain, will see, with
us, that the dearest interests of the great family cf
the human race are involved in our prin-
ciples 1" These ennobling truths were ap-
plauded to the echo in Malaga, as they were
in Madrid, in Cadiz, in Seville, and in Barcelona.
We rejoice to receive such gratifying intelligence.
With the spread of free-trade principles in Spain,
under the luminous auspices of Mr. COBDEN, the
crafty schemes of LOUIS PHILIPPE, for rendering the
commercial interests of Spain exclusively instru-
mental to the augmentation of those of France, will be
completely vitiated.

The King of DENMARK has dissolved the Diet c f
Schleswig. In the sitting of Dec. 14th, the Royal
Commissioner read the following letter from his
MAJESTY :

"From the minutes of the proceedings of the Diet of
Schleswig, I have seen with regret that the said As-
sembly, in place of being occupied with the Bills earnestly
required by the country, and with those proposed by the
Diet itself, has discussed certain propositions contrary
to the Act of May 28, 1831, and which tend to change
completely the constitution of the Duchy of Schleswig,
and to bring about its separation from Denmark. Al-
though the Diet has several times been informed that it
is incompetent in this respect, it has not paid any atten-
tion to the information. The Commissioner having re-
ceived an injunction in conformity with paragraph 50,
not to accept the petitions of the Diet, the President
maintained that the right of petitioning was there-
by suppressed. There was every unwillingness to
attack in any way this right ; and if the Diet had pro-
posed changes on the subject of the interpretation of
paragraph 50, regard would perhaps have been paid to
them. The President, however, insisted that the order
of the day should be changed—the Commissioner for that
reason was unable to accept the petitions, which decided
the majority to quit, without any sufficient reason, the
hall where the sittings were held. This proceeding by
the majority, contrary to its duty, and the illegal con-
duct of the President, which has incurred our disappro-
bation, rendering all further discussion impossible, we
hereby declare the present Diet of Schleswig dissolved.
Pained as we aro to find ourselves obliged to have re-
course to this sad necessity, we shall always be most
ready to give our dear and faithful subjects of the duchy
of Schleswig proofs of our unceasing paternal solicitude,
and to protect the independence of that duchy, its union
with the other parts of the monarchy, the rights estab-
lished, the Danish and German nationality of its in-
habitants, and to labour for well-being of each by useful
measures. With such views we commend it to the safe
keeping of God."

A Frankfort journal of the 21st states, on the au-
thority of a letter from Vienna, that the Austrian
Cabinet had not decided as to whether the answer to
the note of Lord PALM ERSTON on the Cracow affair
shall be given in its own name alone or in that of the
three Courts. It was supposed, however, that a col.