The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-24 00:00:00

lirrinneg 4,4 7<%,
UIL

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, Mi.

The proprietors of railway stock are at length
beginning to shake off the apathy under which they
have so long remained quiescent, while the value of
their property has been depreciated, and they have
practically been plundered by those who have
assumed the right to deal therein without being the
actual and iota fide possessors of a single share. The
extent of the grievance is now felt by all really in •
terested; and directors and shareholders will co-
operate together for the purpose of arresting the pro-
gress of the evil that, if suffered to continue, can only
terminate in the ruin of their undertakings, and also
in .inflicting severe injury to the community
in general, who will at length be deprived
of the extraordinary advantages now enjoyed, of
facilities for locomotion which could not have been
credited even twenty years since. The shareholders
may be the first to suffer, but the public ill in
turn have to lament the extraordinary delusion that
prevailed, by which a body of reckless and unprinci-
pled speculators were enabled to destroy, or even
materially to lessen, the beneficial results of the
greatest monuments of national enterprise and
naticesal industry that had ever been constructed.
For some time past it would appear as if the holders
of railway stock were regarded as public enemies
against whom every device was lawful—that, in
fact, it was a meritorious action to injure their
property in any manner whatever. The Legis-
lature was called upon to establish new and
most stringent regulations for the management of
the different lines. The companies were by law
compelled to give certain advantages to the humbler
classes of passengers by starting tl4ird•class trains at
cheap fares every day. We do not quarrel with that
ruls; on the contrary, we believe it to have been a
very proper enactment, and that its extension even
be, end the present limits would be not only beneficial
to the public, but to the shareholders themselves in a
stilt greater degree. It must, however, be allowed
that there has been no such interference with any
otheir description of private property, as to oblige
elirestors to run certain trains whether they would
be likely to prove remunerative or otherwise. A
special tax was imposed on the transfer of
shares, which has proved in the highest
degree injurious to their interests. Other sug.
gestioni Fare also been made, which, if adopted,
would have the effect of creating new and
most vexatious restrictions.
But it is not from the Legislature only that they
hare been exposed to annoyance. The usual facilities
grutted in the money market to those possessed of

any other description of property have been withheld
from the holders of railway stock. The majo, city of
bankers refuse to make any advance even upon shares
in bona fide dividend paying lines. They are ac-
cursed things, which must not be meddled with, and
no assistance, however trifling, will be given if it is
suspected that the parties requiring it intend to devote
any portion thereof to the payment of calls.
Bills of the most solvent parties will not be locked at
if suspected of being in any manner connected. with
railway dealings or a railway origin. Hence, when
calls are made, which could easily be met at a season
of greater commercial activity, they can only be
provided for by sacrificing a portion of the stock at
far less than its real value, to maintain an interest in
the residue, and frequently such a sacrifice is inade-
quate. The stock cannot be disposed of at any
price, in consequence of the panic excited by the
operations of the "Bears."
Those circumstances must be duly regarded by
the railway interest, and measures adopted to provide
suitable remedies. One of the chief impedi-
ments to successful operations has, we be-
lieve, been recently removed. Amicable re-
lations have been restored between the directors of
the great companies, and there is no longer a proba-
bility of large sums being wasted in useless conflicts
before a Parliamentary Committee, or works of doubt-
ful expediency being undertaken, not on account of
their intrinsic value or the benefits that may be de-
rived from their construction, but merely in order to
prevent a rival company from obtaining a footing in
their territory. Considerable losses have been sus-
tained and difficulties occasioned by this practice, but
it has at length virtually been brought to a conclu-
sion, and there is little prospect of our witnessing a
renewal of the battle of the gauges, or that
a similar amount of the shareholders' money should
again be transferred to the pockets of their legal
advisers.

The curtailment of the Parliamentary and legal
expenses that may be expected from the improved
feeling between the different companies, will at once
get rid of one of the heaviest outlays which materially
affected the shareholders. It may safely be concluded
that no new undertaking will be projected or carried
into execution unless the beneficial results that may
reasonably be calculated on are of such a character as
to render it manifestly the interest of the share-
sholders that it should be constructed. The
fear, therefore, of new liabilities beyond the
means of the parties will thus be avoided.
A vague dread of these unknown amounts
has induced many persons to dispose of their shares
at prices which under other circumstances they would
not have thought for a moment of accepting. If the
example set by the directors of the London, Brighton,
and South Coast Railway be generally followed, as
we believe it will be, and that the actual position of
the affairs of the several companies, and the extent of
their present and prospective liabilities, be fully and
fairly set forth, the alarm would Le immediately dis-
sipated and confidence restored. We are convinced
that the true position of any single company is not so
bad as a vague and unfounded terror has ascribed
even to the very best.

An important question—a question involving the
preseivation or rupture of European tranquillity—
was discussed on Saturday last in the tribune of the
National Assembly, and elicited in that sitting a
very brilliant, oration from the lips of the Historian
of NAPOLEON. The subject of this extraordinary
discussion was one calculated to affect, in a material
degree, the vigour and organization of the army of the
most military people on the face of the globe. It
was nothing less than the practice of reneplacement,
or substitution, in the working of the great system
of conscription. I;pen the settlement of this remark-
able section in the martial code of France is de-
pendent the efficiency of her troops, and con-
sequently the security and stability of the
Republican institutions. As if to add, more-
over, to the exceeding interest of the debate,
the advocates of the contrary opinions—those
who maintained the advisability, and those who in-
sisted upon the evil consequences, of allowing the
citizens to find substitutes when called upon to par-
ticipate in the duties of the soldiery—comprised the
names of men who have a hundred times distinguished
themselves, either theoretically or practically, in the
science of battle, and the art of military organisation.
It is a circumstance to which the French Parliament,
whether monarchical or republican, has been long
habituated—to behold M. THIERS discoursing on war
and its exigencies to an auditory among whom are
captains who have grown grey in campaigning, and
whose visages are tawny under the influence of the
march and the bivouac in the arid solitudes of
Algeria. If ADOLPHE TIMERS has not experienced
the vicissitudes of the profession, if his very
mannerisms as an orator are indicative of the habits of
the civilian, if he has never donned the uniform
except within the circumference of the boulevards,
when shouldering the musket against the epaulette of
the Garde National, he has been intellectually nur-
tured into a warrior, his imagination has traversed
Europe in the track of the Imperial army, he has,
to employ figuratively one of the most striking pas-
sages in one of the most eloquent proclamations of
the Youthful Conqueror BONAPARTE, " made forced
marches without shoes, crossed rivers without bridges,
captured fortified towns without artillery, and
bivouacked through the refrigerating nights of winter
without bread or brandy." Theoretically M.
TRIERS is a soldier, and a soldier remarkable fir his
experiences. He has revealed in the closet, if not in
the camp, much of the versatility of the eloquent and
heroic TAClTLYS—wielding in turn the sword of the
commander and the pen of the historian.

Speaking then, not certainly ex cathedra, but as-
suredly 1. histoire a la twain, M. TRIBES grappled with
his subject vigorously, notwithstanding the formi-
dable opposition of a SUBRRVIE and a LAMORICIERE.
In defiance of all official assertions to the contrary,
he laid down the following very axiomatic
deductions that among those races, such as
the Arabs, where every one is a soldier, the
army consists of nomad -and barbarian troops—that
wherever it was the practice with a nation to render
military service compulsory upon, every individual,
that nation acquired no military distinction—that, on
the contrary, wherever, as in Rome, the military pro•
fession was a speciality, a caste composed of the civic
ronzani, a division distinguishable from all the other
divisions of citizenhip, that nation reaped glory from
victory, and emolument from conquest that in
England, for example, the military profession was a
special profession, rendering the national army so
efficient that its only fault was its want of extension
—that the soldier acquired skill from repetition, and
discipline from habit, quite as much as the mechanic,
the artizan, the sailor, or the agriculturist—and that
all the great captains without exception, NAPOLEON,
FREDERICK, TURERNE, MONTECUCULLI, and Prince
EUGENE, coincided in regarding long service as essen-
tial for the development of the efficiency and vigour
of an army. In testimony of this, the orator referred
to the capitulation of Baylen, where the unfortunate
General DUPONT, who had proved himself a hero both
at Ulm and at Friedland, was paralysed into a dis-
graceful submission in consequence of the youth and
inexperience of his forces. As an additional
corroboration of the correctness of his argu-
ment, he reminded the Assembly of the
remark addressed to his Majesty NAPOLEON
by Admiral TEUGUET, " I require old seamen,
while you, people of the earth, with con-
scripts of a few months' enlistment, can gain great
battles I" To which the EMPEROR replied, mon_
sieer r Ansiral, you know not what you say. . . Yes,
it is true people have declared that six months can
make a soldier, but that is false; men who say that
know nothing about armies ; soldiers are not made in
six months, neither in nine months. Ah I certea,
have good soldiers ; but they did not become good
and even eight years' service."
until after six, seven,
And further on, as an appropriate corollary to
the foregoing, M. TRIERS entertained his auditors
with an anecdote, recounting a remark addressed by
NAPOLEON to his Marshals, when, standing upon the
field of Austerlitz, immediately after the victory of
Wagram, he exclaimed musingly and abstractedly,
"Yes, I have no longer my army of Austerlitz !"
" Sire," observed one of the officers, interrupting him
with the respect due to his august position, " Sire,
you have no longer your army of Austerlitz; but are
you not content then with your army of Wagram ?"
Thus replied the EMPEROR—" Yes, it is heroic,
it has given me proof of its heroism ; but

yet it is not the army of Austerlitz ! If I had had
the army of Austerlitz at Wagram, the Austrian
monarchy would be no longer in existence, for
there would no longer be an army of Austrians."
And the explication of this memorable remark was
simply the youth and inexperience of the soldiers of
Wagram when contrasted with the veterans who had
fought so gloriously on the day of Austerlitz. Such
is the skeleton, the epitome, the tendency, of the
remarkable oration pronounced by M. THIERS on
Saturday. It was a brilliant argument in favour
of a system which, in its best moments, has,
rendered the French soldier the first soldier in the world
" as to vivacity, as to spontaniety, as to military apti-
tude." It is a splendid advocacy ofa system which has en-
rolled the names of HOCIIE, of KLEBER, of LANNES
side by side with the sons of the aristocracy ; those of
DESAIX, of DAVOUST, side by side iwith the children
of the bourgeoisie ; those of JUNOT, of Meacnau, of
MuRAT, of MASSANA, of MOREAU ! And it WAS a mag-
nificent panegyric upon a system which has secured to
England the glory of her military as well as of her
maritime puissance. Still, in the moment of our egotistic
pleasure while listening to the eulogiums of M.
TIIIERS, we must remember that even with ourselves
the system is very far from being perfected; and that
if the profession of arms in England is a profession
as distinct as those of law or medicine, it is still de-
plorably deficient in the great desideratum of edu-
cation.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the French papers of yesterday.

The noble manner in which General CATAIGNAC
came forward on Saturday in defence of General
L AMORICIEItE, and the characteristic and disin-
terested words which he uttered on that occasion,
have won for him " golden opinions from all sorts of
men," and are the subject of eulogistic comment in
almost all the journals. The National gives the fol-
lowing graphic account of this remarkable incident :
" A serious and most unexpected incident sud-
denly interrupted the debate. General Lebreton rose
to speak, and quitting the subject before the As-
sembly, took the liberty of making a most unbe-
coming personal attack on the Minister of War.
After a reply from General Lamoriciere as clear
as it was well expressed, General Cavaignac
ascended the tribune, and with that accent in
which is easily distinguished the warmth of
soul and the nobility of heart, he said, ' Ge-
neral Lebreton, regarding General Lamoriciere with
affectation, spoke of fortune and hazard. General
Lebreton made war in Africa with us, and he knows
better than anybody by what services that man
(pointing to the Minister of War) has succeeded in
arriving where he is. As for my part, if anything
astonishes me, it is to see him in the second rank
whilst I occupy the first.' We should in vain endea-
vour to describe the impression which that generous
speech produced upon the Assembly. It appeared as
if an electric spark had run through all the benches
of the assembly, and caused every soul to beat in
unison. No. Whatever dangers may menace the
Republic, as long as it shall have such noble cha-
racters at its service the Republic cannot perish."
The adjourned debate on the Constitution was
resumed in the sitting of the Assembly yesterday,
and it was supposed that the discussion would be
concluded, and the Constitution passed, before the
conclusion of the sitting. On the 1 lgth Article being
proposed, which enacts that the election of the
President of the Republic shall take place immediately
after the voting of the Constitution, M. DUPIN, at
the request of the Committee en the Constitution,
moved that the article should be altogether emitted,
thus leaving it to the Assembly to fix, by special
decree, the day when the election is to take place.
The motion was agreed to, and the Committee
ordered to present a decree, in the course of the next
sitting, fixing the day for the election. When the
post left the Assembly was engaged in the discus-
sion of an article proposed by M. PUTSEGUR, to the
effect that the Constitution should be submitted to
the approbation and sanction of the people. There
can be no doubt but that the motion of M. PUTSEGUIt
will be rejected by a large majority.

PARIS BOURSE—MoNPAY, OCT. 23.

ThREE O'CLOCK.—The accounts received from Vienna
are much more pacific in their character. It appears
probable that there will be no collision between the
people of Vienna and the array. Accounts of the 18th,
trom Vienna, are said to have been received by an
eminent banker, which stated that the Bourse opened
that day, and that the metalliques rose two per cent.
These rumours had a favourable effect, and the prices
both of the Rentes and Railway Shares were exceed-
ingly firm all day. In domestic affairs there was no
news of any kind. For the Account, the French Three
per Cents. have advanced 25c., the Fire per Cents. 35c.,
and the Loan 25c. For Money, the Three per Cents.
have advanced 20c., the Five per Cents. 40c., and the
Loan 20c. Bons du Treisor are at 22 discount; Bank of
France Shares have advanced 20f.; Belgian Bank
Shares are at 645; ditto Five per Cents. are higher;
Spanish Funds not quoted; Roman have risen * per
cent.; Rothschild's Receipts are at 79f. Exchange on
London (30 days), 25 45; ditto (90 days), 25 27k.
Railway Shares for the Account, settling of the 31st of
October:—Orleans have risen 7f. 50c. ; Northerns,
If'. 25c.; and Strasburgs, It. 25c. The others not quoted.
For Money, Orleans have risen 15f., Rouen* 10f., Bor-
deaux and Northerns 2f. 50c., Versailles (Left Bank),
Ilavres, and Strasburgs, If. 25c. each. Marseilles have
declined 5f., and Nantes If. 25c. Lyons are the same
as on Saturday.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWATS AT THE
LONDON STOCK-EXCHANGE, Ocr. 23.

Boulogne and Amiens, i3/—Orleans and Bordeaux, I%
ez div.—Rouen and Havre, 6;42—Tours and Nantes, 1

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 17th have arrived.
The Prince of Clrus, the brother of MARIA
CHRISTINA and of the King of NAPLES, has arrived in
Madrid, accompanied by the Princess, to the great
annoyance of Queen CHRISTINA. The Prince and
Princess of CAPUA landed at Barcelona, and were
stopped by the Carlists on their road to Madrid.
MADRID B•LSA, OCT. 17.—Threes, 19 ; Fives,
9i ; Exchange on London, 48, 50.