The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT or Tim Tanta JOURNALS.

The Saturday Review points out that the facts we have
about the antecedents of either party are about equally
bad. The journalist gang send seconds, one of whom is
armed with a revolver, to arrange a duel; M. Pierre
Bonaparte awaits seconds whom he has invited to arrange
a duel according to duelling laws, but takes care to have a
revolver ready in his pocket. This is about six of one and
half a dozen of the other. Fonvielle and :Noir go armed
on a pacific errand—the one with a pistol, the other with
a sword-stick—because they expect to meet " an Ogre;"
Bonaparte receives what he believes to be a couple of M.
Rechefort's seconds armed, because, as it would seem,
he thought nothing was safe in such company. The
point iu M. Bonaparte's favour is that, even according
to Fonvielle's account, he declined any communication
with Grousset's friends, on the very intelligible ground
that his first business was with M. Rochefort and the
21Iarseillaise. The point against M. Bonaparte is that to
ready with a revolver is not the usual way of
receiving hostile seconds, and that this looks like a pro-
inAitated plan to shoot them, or one of them, or some-
b..dy. But as both parties to an interview which by all
the laws of duel ought to be pacific attended it fully
armed, it seems that neither party can make much of this.
And when two or three men .well armed are resolved to
quarrel, it will always be difficult to say who is the
aggressor. To improve the occasion with any remarks on
French journalism would be impertinent. The Marseillaise
and Rochefort party are trying to make capital out of it.
The incendiary and treasonable article publisbed by M.
Rochefort in the Marscillaise after the Auteuil affair has
been very properly taken up by M. 011ivier, and he is to
be prosecuted by the Government. But the Marseillaise
is exceeded in violence by the Reforme. It is by no means
too soon for a Constitutional Government—and the lesson
applies elsewhere than in France—fairly to face the
dangers to society which exist in treasonable journalism
as it is.

The Spectator thinks that the French Empire is terribly
unlucky. In the very instant of repentance, at the very
moment when it was transmuting itself horn a despotism
into a free government, an incident occars which brings
all its wont specialties into the fullest relief, an incident
NN hick seems to a hostile population to justify, or indeed to
demand, a cry for its extinction. A Prince of the Impe,-
rial House, a man not indeed within the line of succession,
bat still outside the law, commits, or rather is believed by
Paris to commit, under the circumstances best calculated
to rouse Parisian hostility, the crime which perhaps alone
among crimes Parisian instinct instantly condemns—a
cowardly murder. It is just possible that Pierre Buonal-
pnrte, tl►e Prince now in detention in the Conciergerie, is

guilty only of a homicide which opinion in France, if
satisfied as to all the circumstances, would partially
excu:;e ; but so intolerably unfortunate are the circum-
stances, so incapable is the &fence of proof, that there is
not only no chance, but no possibility, of the first popular
idea ever being corrected by sincere and sufficient evidence.
The effect has been most terrible, so terrible indeed that
had the Ministry shewn the slightest disposition to shield
the accused it might have produced an insurrec-
tion. The strongest of all French feelings, the
right to equality before the law, the right to be safe
from the insolence of rank, was roused to frenzy by an
incident
.which scorned to imply that one family held
itself beyond reach of the law, even to the extent of
slaying the unarmed. It would be so in any country,
but in France, where the sentiment of equality is scarcely
dietinguishable from the passion for freedom, where, in
fact, respect for personal dignity is the basis of action
rather than respect for individuality, an outrage of this
kind excites a kind of horror. " After-Troppmann, Buena-
parte !" would not seem to a French workman the ridicu-
lous exaggeration which it does to us. There is no reason
that we know of to believe that the Prince will not he
fairly tried, the High Court being a tribunal adopted by
the Emperor, but organised by the Republic, and there is
certainly none for visiting his offeace upon his cousin, but
it will be visited nevertheless. If the Prince is acquitted,
the acquittal will be declared to be due to contempt of
the people ; if he is condemned his sentence will diminish
the respect felt for the Imperial family ; if he is declared
insane, the most probable verdict, the incident will be
quoted as a proof of the ferocity which has grown up under
the Empire. In any case, it is a severe blow to the
dynasty, given just at the moment when it seemed as
It it were about to enter upon a new and brighter
career. That never-failing Neme;sis of despotism, the credit
it gets for the bad weather, follows hard on the Napo-
leonic ; egime.

The John Bell declares that extra-parliamentary utter-
ances are becoming rather a nuisance. To the mass of
members they have always been so; but now that their
novelty has worn away they are getting tedious, if not to
those who attend them, and rarely perhaps have an oppor-
tunity of hearing any political speeches, certainiy to those
who have to read them. Indeed it seems, now that they
are established institutions, a work of supererogation to
chronicle them. But Mr. Bri:;ht's speeches are certainly
exceptions to any general rule. There is something in
them, and one never leeks in vain for good Saxon language.
But even on his combative nature has fallen that compara-
tive state of dignified torpor which invariably enervates
the occupants of Downing-street. No longer was the
Tribune of the People a free lance. Even he felt the
weight of official responsibility. The most remarkable
feature in the speech in our opinion was, his entirely
ignoring the existing state of Ireland, and his deprecating
the land question being made a party one. Even in this
speech the old animosity is apparent ; but who would have
believed two years ago that he could make so safe and
Ministerial an address? It has been well described as an
appeal from Mr. Bright the Tribune to Mr. Bright the
Minister; but to have heard the member for Birmingham
deprecating motions on going into supply, and complaining
of the cumbersome character of parliamentary proceedings
is- exceedingly refreshing. What would he have said had
such a speech been made by another Liberal Minister had
he been in Opposition ? The only practical deduction
that we can gather from the speech is, that though he has
'the will to do so, he does not see the policy of quarrelling
with his more moderate colleagues ; he hopes, we presume
gradually to dispel their class prejudices.

It has been announced, says the Economist, that the
Bank of England will make arrangements for extra
advances, in consequence of the unusual funds which the
operation of last year's Budget will now give them. In
this quarter there will be a larger collection of revenue
than ever before, and the public deposits will be therefore
larger than ever before. Accordingly, the Bank will adopt the
same course as they have always taken at the close of the
quarter and when the Government account is full—viz.,
lend to bill-brokers and others to carry on their usual busi-
ness, so that the legitimate trade of the country may not
be impeded. At first it might seem immaterial, as far as
respects the rate of interest, whether this money should
be concentrated in the Bank or be scattered outside it;
and in fact the effect of the concentration will not be very
great. But it will have some effect—and the nature of that
effect will be slightly to raise the value of money. This
Will happen for two reasons. First, the Bank of England
is a less anxious "seller of money," so to speak, than
the bill-brokers and bankers in Lombard-street.
Secondly. Under the well-known system (somewhat
resembling that of a Dutch auction) under which the
value of money is settled in England, the rate of interest
more•easilyremains high when the Bank of England is full
of money than when it is more empty and when more of
tho money is outside. For these reasons the effect of the
policy of the last year's Budget will be as a rule to raise
the interest in the early part of the year when money,
front the single collection of so much annual taxation,
is on a sudden poured into the Bank. This year the effect
will be but temporary if, as is announced, Mr. Lowe uses
the money he possesses to pay for the telegraphs he has
bought. Of Course such use of the money can be but tem-
porary : annual income must be devoted to annual expen-
diture; it is only the surplus which can be applied to the
purchase of permanent property. But still for the moment,
and to whatever extent Mr. Lowe uses in this manner. his
temporary funds, he will take the money out of the Bank of
England and distribute it in the outside moneymarket, and
sb for the time restore the equilibrium that existed before
and which the sudden coming of the tax-gatherer disturbed.
This spring vial therefore be like ordinary springs in the
money market. The full effect of the now system will not
le seen till next year.

The Engineer has received advices from the Cape
stating that Mr. Welburne has obtained a concession froth
the Natal I.O.slative Council for three million acres of
land, including " Newcastle " coalfields, and a subsidy of
.£40,000 per annum, to carry out a project of railway and
eolonisatien extension to Natal.

THE ST. PANCRAS INQUIRY.-:--Tlif3 inquiry at S.
Pancras into the statements against Dr. Ellis was pro-
ceeded with yesterday. The evidence taken went to show
that proper ventilation existed in the rooms of which Dr.
Ellis complained and the construction of theinfirmary was
of a good description.

Statisticians estimate the total population of the
globe at 1,228,000,000 souls. Of this number 360,000,000
belong to the Caucasian race, E 62,000,000 to the Mongo-
lian, 190,000,000 to the Ethiopian, 170,000,000 the
_ _

Maylayan, and 1,000,000 to the Indo-Amerieau race. The
number of languages spoken is 3,642, and 1,000 different
k' religions are numbered. The annual mortality is put down
jat 83,333,333, says Les Jfondes, or 91,554 deaths per day,
3.780 per hour, or G 2 per minute.
.

FOREIGN NOTES.'

FRANCE AND THE COUNCTL.

The text of the despatch forwarded by Count Darn, the
new French Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the Marquis
do Bonneville, the French Ambassador at Rome,
has been published. Count Daru says that
one of his first acts cn taking office was
to call for the instructions forwarded to M.
de Bonneville by his predecessor. After having delibe-
rated in council, the new Ministry give their assent to
these instructions. The work undertaken by Pius IX. is
noble and worthy cf sympathy, but it is full of difficulty,
and requires, above all things, "an enlightened senti-
ment of the necessities of our epoch." There is no
danger, in the opinion of Count Darn, with regard to civil
independence and liberty of conscience in France, which
are even better secured by public reason, and the attach-
ment of the people, than by the laws of the Con-
stituticn. But what the Government is most
concerned for is the maintenance of the good relations
between Church. and State, which have subsisted in
Fiance since the commencement of this century. The
Concordat of 1361 has, happily, conciliated the liberty of
the Church and the rights of the State. M. Darn ex-
presses his anxiety to avoid controversies whose effects
cannot be foreseen, at a time when so much prudence
is necessary to preserve for the Church, with the
liberty of its chief, the guarantee of its independence. He
hopes that such considerations will have weight at the
Vatican, and he relies on the exalted intelligence of the
Holy Father, on the experience of the assembled
Church, and the patriotism of the French episcopacy,
which he believes to be well acquainted with the
wants of French society, and incapable of incurring
the responsibility that would accrue to it if it agreed
to compromise the advantages of the Concordat, "In this
sense," adds the new Minister, " you can express yourself
boldly on all occasions, when you will have to make known
the opinion of the Emperor's Government, and such is the
language which his Majesty's Ministers propose to hold in
person when they shall be called on to expound to the
great bodies of the State the policy which the Cabinet
thinks fit to pursue with respect to the Council."

THE GERMAN BISHOPS.

The Roman correspondent of the Berlin Pest says that
the German bishops have resolved to present an address
to the Pope, in which they protest against the regulations
that are imposed cn the Council, and claim a right to
make independent motions. They consider it intolerable
that two commissions should have a right to examine,
,revise, change, and mutilate al they please every
wish and proposal before it can be discussed. It
is expected that similar representations will be made
by the French bishops. The Rome authorities were pre-
pared to find the doctrine of infallibility opposed by the
French and German ecclesiastics, but they are surprised
at the resistance of the North A mericzn and Eastern
bishops. The latter say that the proclamation of this
dogma will be the surest means of alienating their
churches from the Holy See, while one of the North
American bishops lately declared that no one ought to be
elected Pope who had not passed three years in the United
States, and thus seen what a modern Liberal Government
really is, and what it is possible to do under it. The
Worth German Gazette says that if the German bishops
should find themselves in a difficult position on account
or their demeanour at the Council, the German Govern-
ments are in duty bound to lend them their support.