The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-06 00:00:00

kTO CORRESPONDENTS.

We are much obliged to " K. D." for his friendly communi-
cation. The matters referred to are ENTIRELY FALSE in
eery particular. Will our correspondent favour us with
his name in strict confidence?

THE WEATHER.—SIIN OFFICE, APRIL 5.
THERMOMETER, Lowest, 41; Highest, 54; Noon, 56,

BAROMETER, 29.40.
WIND N.E.; morning, rain: afternoon, fine.
APRIL 6.

THERMOMETER, Lowest, 41; Highest. 56; Noon, 49.

BAROMETER, 29.17.

WIND S.W.; morning, rain: afternoon, showery.

dlall WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE THIS DAY.
rorning .. 50 minutes after 9. 1 Evening .. 2S minutes after 10.

year of 127,6071. The total charge for the quarter
is 8,477,2061. The total ordinary revenue is, from
the quarter, 9,735,7901. ; and far the year, 47,792,7511.,
showing a decrease on the quarter of 1,121,5041., and a
decrease on the 3 ear of 2,327,2191., yet still leaving a
surplus of income over expenditure of 1,783,3081.

The tone and temper of Mr. O'CoNNELL's speech, on
Friday night, on moving his amendment upon the Pro-
tection of Life (Ireland) Bill, were deservedly recog-
nised by Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Mr. SIDNEY HER-
BERT, and likewise well received by the House. We
fear that Mr. O'CONNELL has frequently damaged the
interests of which he is so powerful an advocate by
having suffered himself at times to be betrayed into the
loss of that equanimity of temper which governed his
observations on the measure under discussion. But the
forbearing spirit he exhibited on the occasion adverted
to will not, we are sure, be without its due
influence amongst his legislative colleagues. He
handled with great ability every topic that
could be introduced in opposition to the Govern-
ment measure. In this respect he left little for
his country to desire. What he did, he did well. His
acknowledged talents always guarantee as much. If he
has failed to prove that the Bill he opposes is not fitting
to be passed, this is to be attributed to the strength of the
deplorable materials on which the Ministry grounded
their application to Parliament, and not to any deficiency
on his part. The sum of Mr. O'CoNNELL's advice was,
to let the law remain as it is ; in other words, to let the
crime of murder rage on (which must inevitably
be the consequence, remembering that the ordinary
law has been declared to be ineffectual for putting it
down), whilst Parliament attempts to root out the
causes that lead to the perpetration of the most fearful
criminal atrocities. We think the Ministry hold the wiser
language, when they recommend that, by enactments
of sufficient vigour, the law shall first be rendered
supreme over the murderer, and that then, or simul-
taneously, if possible, Parliament should address itself
to the task of endeavouring to remove the irritants that
may have goaded the people on to the commission
of the horrid acts recorded against them. Much
of Mr. O'CoNNELL's speech was devoted to allusions to
different Irish political grievances, and so far it was not
very relevant to the matter in hand; for he himself
joined the Minister in admitting that the outrages set
forth partook in ao wise of a political or religious
character. It may then be taken as admitted, that, in
respect to the desired security for life, and the causes
that endanger the same, the religious wrongs or political
ills of the Irish are not the points that demand imme-
diate redress. Mr. O'CONNELL attacked many of the
clauses for their undue severity. This may be per-
fectly just; but they are details for consideration when
the Bill shall be committed. He urged that all
former Coercion Bills had failed, and that the present
was severer in its character than any of its predecessors.
If the previous measures failed, such failure might be
attributed to their inadequacy for their object; and ex-
perience may dictate to us the necessity of a more
powerful remedy than heretofore, if the assassin is to
be brought to his merited doom. But we do not be.
lieve that coercive measures—certainly not the latest
(considered strictly as such)—have failed; on the con-
trary, they have been remarkable for their moral effects.
This was strikingly proved by Mr. SIDNEY HER-
BERT in the official reports: received by the
Government during their operation. In one in-
stance, a return to the Lord-Lieutenant showed that
comparing the year preceding the proclamation against
the county and city of Kilkenny with the subsequent
one, there was a diminution of outrages in 1834 from
1,590 to 331—a difference amounting to 1,259 ! Coer-
cion Acts have not been suffered to expire on account
of any abuses that sprung up ander them, but avowedly
upon the representation of the resumption of social
tranquillity. The storm has been lulled, but the suc-
ceeding calm has always been delusive. Such, how-
ever, would not have been the case had the Legislature,
while it prudently stayed the band of the murderer, care-
fully investigated the vitiated condition of the
country, and provided accordingly by salutary laws.

Inasmuch as this benevolent policy was slighted, and
altogether neglected, the danger and cruelty of which
has been so ardently expostulated upon by Earl GREY

in one House, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL in the other,
so far, it may be fairly said, that measures of coercion
have signally failed. This is doubtless the sense in which
the word failure ought to be applied to all former
Acts, necessarily, under the circumstances, restrictive
of the liberty of the subject. Mr. O'CoNNELL asserts that
the poor man will not be conciliated by the measure—
we feel convinced that he will be so. It is for his pro-
tection that we consider the Bill as conducive to the
highest ends of mercy. Of the truth of this Mr. SIDNEY
HERBERT furnished an admirable and statistical expo-
sition. The landlords who have fallen victims bear
an insignificant proportion compared with the unpro-
tected peasants ; when impunity fortifies, the machina-
tions of the midnight ruffian the afflicted and menaced
cottier is alarmed by the weakness of the law
which he is taught he ought to obey, but
which he finds incapable of affording him protection.
And in this way his fear preponderates over his duty,
and thus, we apprehend, he has too frequently become
the facile tool in the hands of the nocturnal monsters.
lie is drawn into the vortex from which he would in the
first instance gladly have escaped, had he been guarded
by an effective, in the place of an enervated, administra-
tion of the law. The chronic emasculation of all whole-
some authority is painfully evident. At first night was
deemed an indispensable shroud, both for the counsels
of the ruthless conclave and the execution of their
fiendish mandates. Emboldened by the success of their
diabolical schemes against the poor, and under the veil of
darkness, they have fearlessly progressed, and in open
day inflict a sanguinary death on members of more
elevated society, violence on whom under such circum-
stances they had not formerly ventured to contemplate.
And whilst we have to lament that the law has so long

been paralysed, it is not to be doubted that if Parlia.

went should be wanting in its duty, this frighful state
of things would continue to spread with alarming
rapidity. Viewed in this light, we think Mr. O'CoN-
NELL is erroneous in attacking the measure, because
its provisions are principally framed for being
effective at night. True it is that many murders are
committed in the day. Nevertheless, this is, in almost
every case, merely the execution of the terrible sentence
that has been resolved on at the nocturnal meetings of
the confederates. Pursue them to their deadly haunts,
and their designs, both by day and by night, will be most
effectually frustrated. In other respects Mr. O'CON-
NELL'S speech is most valuable. He traces the causes
of criminal pollution almost entirely to the abuses
of property, to the inadequate state of the
relationship between the landlord and tenant.
On this branch of the subject he dilates with
the greatest force, and his remarks are entitled to the
utmost weight. He was the first who laboured to bring
this matter prominently before the country. To the
laudable remonstrances and startling arguments con-
tained in many of his letters were we indebted for the
appointment of the Commission of which Lord DEVON
was at the head, and hereafter, when Ireland shall be
clothed with the features of real civilisation, posterity

will feel itself deeply indebted to Mr. O'CoNNELL. lie

advocates the extension of the Ulster tenant right to the
other provinces—demonstrates how well it has worked,
wherever it was recognised as a custom,
even though unfortunately it was not the law, and how
lamentable have been the effects whenever it has been
resisted. His remarks are most apposite, and we should
rejoice to see them duly appreciated in the Bill, promised

to be laid before Parliament, for improving the condition
of landlord and tenant in Ireland. We are aware how
difficult it will be to obtain full concession in a Senate
composed almost exclusively of landowners to these
salutary measures, for eradicating the prolific sources of
crime, where it may seem to intrench upon their own
territorial rights. But we trust that they will be ani-
mated by a lofty spirit, and consider no sacrifice too
great to disarm those who are bound to look up to them
for guidance and protection—whose interests and wel-
fare are committed to their charge, by a judicious course
of kindness and conciliation—of what they have too often
been taught to consider their only remedy—the wild jus-
tice of revenge.

The petty disputes between Lord ABERDEEN and M.
G UIZOT about the affairs of Greece are below the dig-
nity of great states. Of so little importance are they to
the balance of power, or to political influence in the East,
that we must class them among those personal quarrels
in which even grave statesmen occasionally indulge. What
is Greece to France or England ? What part could
she play in a contest for Constantinople or
Egypt, or any other bone of contention ? Sho
cannot exist upon her own resources, much less pay her
debts; she is constantly disturbed by civil or military
factions ; her King is a non-entity, and her Ministers
are guided by their own selfish or party interests, and
seldom or never attempt to elevate this beautiful and
classical country to the rank so fondly anticipated by
the nations of Europe. Many years of slavery have
of the people,
oerlaaplistey
a ai r
leedn g t
ph
eer
eecze
we
before they e:.rt
defend themselves, or be of service to either of
iarandp
great
geiefseara,nmdusmt
powers that took them under their protection ; yet these
powers are constantly at variance with each other re-
specting her internal policy. One considers it a master- j
otr9ko of statenaszatlip t 9 get WAIN 11141254434 d fig

MIVROCORDATO, a second works into the hands of ME-
TAXIS or MAVROCORDATO, and a third rejoices in sedition
and bankruptcy, with a view to obtain more power in the
south of Europe. And as if to render these disputes
more ridiculous, Sir R. PEEL and Lord ABERDEEN give
importance to them by speaking at M. PISCATORY or
rather M. GUIZOT, and by reproaching and even me-
nacing the Greek Government while under the direction
of CoLETTI, the favourite of France. M. GulzoT returns
the compliment, and though he professes not to discuss
words which " might have been spoken in another
House of Parliament," he condemns them as improper,
and considers it unbecoming to use similar language.
It would be well for England and France if an end were
put to these unseemly contentions; they only tend to
weaken Greece and encourage a third power, who occa-
sionally assumes tho functions of a protector, that she
may in due season come in for a share of the plunder.

Like many other notions upon the principles which
should regulate states, the opinion that penalties are
necessary for the suppression of crime, and for the pre-
servation of social order, is gradually fading from the
popular mind, and at the present moment is all but ex-
ploded. The grand law of nature, that a truth must
ultimately develope itself before the gaze of the million,
and become proportionately recognised, is in this,
as in various other instances, meeting with its
realization. Flaying, disembowelling, scourging, broiling,
decapitating, and divers other equally ferocious punish-
ments, were employed in former times for the suppres-
sion of vice : the remedy proved ineffectual after long
practice—it was slowly abandoned. More recently, nay
up to our own generation, expiatory means have been
used by the Legislature with the same hopes, the same
intentions, and the same ill-success : hard
labour, the penitentiary system, solitary con-
finement, fines, transportation to penal settlements,
and strangling by the hangman. These measures—
comparatively more lenient, but actually severe—have
been adopted ; criminals have flocKed, session after ses
sion, to the treadmill, the colonies, and the gibbet ; and,
notwithstanding all these efforts to purge crime from the
principality, the calendar has been stocked with a fear-
ful catalogue of offences, the list of felons has increased
with our multiplying population. Having had these
facts impressed upon us by the experience of past
ages, and beholding in them the insufficiency
of any expiatory method alone to eradicate the evil, it
becomes apparent that we have hitherto proceeded upon
false premises, that our regenerative efforts have been
aimed in a wrong direction, that we have battled solely
against the results of social disorder, and entirely, or
almost entirely, neglected the application of any correc-
tives to the region in which that social
disorder was propagated. These opinions, main-
tained at first individually, are extending
themselves throughout society ; new lights are stream-
ing upon the mind of the people ; normal schools are the
first indications of a vast moral revolution ; the sole re-

liance upon penalties, as a means for the expulsion of
vice, is becoming equally obsolete with the reverence for
a protective system as a means of benefiting agriculture.
That offences against the laws both moral and social
originate generally in the mental incompetency re-
sulting from ignorance, is a fact authenticated
by the official returns of the kingdom. That thousands
would be reclaimed from a state little, if at all, elevated
above the brute creation, by a wholesome instruction in
the plastic period of childhood, is beyond a moment's
cavil. This cumulation of evidence consequently re-
solves itself into the belief that the education of the desti-

tute multitude would be far preferable to the present
criminal policy, in a charitable point of view, while
it would the more effectually prevent that dissemina-
tion of villany which now throngs our gaols, ani hulks,
and a fair portion of our colonial possessions. Many
have advocated this principle, more have awarded it an
expressed or tacit approbation. Mr. HILL, of Birming-
ham, and Mr. C. PEARSON, of the city of London, have
endeavoured to expedite the adoption of such measures,
and Government, by the words of its Home Se-
cretary, as well as by its proceedings in our gaol
administration and with reference to Ireland, appears
to intimate anything but a hostile feeling towards the
doctrine. Our attention has been just directed to a ser-
mon delivered before Mr. Baron PA.RHE and Mr. Justice
MAIILE, during the Lent assizes, 1846, at Bury St.
Edmund's. As the expressions of a clergyman of the
Church of England upon a question so liable to en-
counter opposition among the ministers of different
religious tenets, as being likely, in their opinion, to
interfere with the promulgation of their several creeds,
the language contained in this discourse is deserving of
some especial notice. In the ideas as to the preferable
character of education over punishment, the reverend
gentleman fully acquiesces ; but he expressly stipulates
that it be " an education large, comprehensive, generous,

and unexclusive !" This is a declaration most creditable
to the liberality of the clerical speaker, and the more

creditable to him, possibly from his discarding all anxiety
for "the proselytizing activity of rival religionists." He
arrogates not to himself any right to propound a scheme
suitable in all particulars to the great exigency of the
nation. He contents himself with exposing our own
direct participation in the crimes committed every
year by allowing thousands to grow up in the most
blind unconsciousness of right or wrong, of re-

ward or retribution from GOD or from man.
He stigmatises all previous efforts in the cause of the
ignorant multitude as mere " palliatives and make-
shifts," and endeavours by all the powers of rhetoric
and argument to enforce upon us the necessity which
exists for some comprehensive interference on the part
of our legislators. No plan, however, must be adopted
without the most mature deliberation. The
following things must be kept in view during
its concoction, according to this philanthropic
clergyman :—" We must show to the economist
that it will be cheap, to the utilitarian that it
will be of incalculable benefit, to the politician
that it would strengthen the bonds of society, to the
moralist and the philosopher that it will purify the
mind, and to the Christian that it will chasten
the soul." That these qualities are necessary
we feel assured—that they can be harmonised and
combined we are sanguine. In alluding in this particular
manner to the sermon from which we have just quoted, we
are actuated by two wishes ; first, to acknowledge a ge-
nerous effort in a generous cause, and coming from an
authoritative quarter ; secondly, to hold out an ex-
ample to other ecclesiastics who are desirous of benefit-
ing their fellow-men.

Madrid journals of the 28th ult. have been received. The
Gazette of that date publishes two royal decrees—one abo-
lishing the tax on house-rent, and the other modifying the
tax on trade and professions. These interfere materially
with Senor Moo's new system of finance, and will cause
considerable loss to the revenue, but, according to the official
organ, they were levied in such an objectionable and unfair
way that open resistance to them could scarcely be prevented.
There is still, however, to be a fixed duty on trades, but to
be levied in a less objectionable way. It was confidently
stated that NAAVAEZ had invited both MON and PEDAL to
enter the Cabinet, but that for the present they had refused.
It is not unlikely, however, that MoN will be found neces-
sary for the very existence of the Ministry. No Spanish
Minister for many years has shown such skill and honesty
in financial reforms. It was said that, after some difficulty,
Generals CONCHA, COTONER, CORDOVA, and ARAOZ had ob-
tained permission to travel into foreign countries.
The Three per Cents, closed on the Madrid Stock Ex-
change on the 28th ult. at 321 cash, and 321 A for the 30th
April ; the Five per Cents. at 22 for the 30th April.

In the French Chamber of Deputies, in a discussion relative
to the Greek loan, M. DE HAURANNE took occasion to
blame the policy of the French Government, as well as that
of England, towards that country. The three Powers were
divided. "In 1840," he said, " the Pacha of Egypt was at-
tacked by England and Russia, because he was suspected of
being too favourable to France. In 1846 M. CotErri found
Russia and England opposed to him, because the same fault was
imputed to him. He did not suppose that the Minster of
Foreign Affairs could be at all suspected of uniting with either
England or Russia to combat the friends of France; but
every one must remark that, wherever the interest of France
prevailed the entente cordiale disappeared—it :vas only
practised where the English had the advantage."
M. GUIZOT said he " would not undertake to justify
the conduct of the English Government relative to
Greece; it was evident that France considered it objectloh-
able, since she supported the very contrary lint to what
England had adopted. Since M. CoLErrx had arrived at
power, England did not follow the same course as France had
done, and in that he considered her to be wrong. He had
several times represented to the English Government how
injurious such conduct was to the Government of Greece; he
had not been able to convince her of the fact, and he had
continued to pursue the policy of France in Greece. n
—Prore
the revolution of 1843 France, England, and Russia7aat '..o4uagahbteetno
of the same opinion as to the consequences
had much con-
s
emanate from that event, and their couns
p
d regularfollow
Gov
tributed to give Greece a constitution ''s
an
ment ; Englandandoßfcuosislioa afte:wards began to
seeprna--
it the policy
rately their own line I
_wet. But what was the result? was
was the friends
of Eng`ald which prevailed in France? No, it
so that f`
,1 France who were at the head of affairs;
th-
spoke- reproaches of the lion. Deputy who had just
, .-.iseemed altogether misplaced. He should content
uimself with declaring that the French Government would
persist in its friendly conduct towards Greece, and that the
Minister of France in that country should persevere in the
conduct which he had adopted, in the counsels which he had
given, in the support which he had lent, and that he shoul(
be approved of and upheld in such conduct by the Freud;
Government." Thie, together with the strong remark

C'S
r•-•,,,
k"t
TAU, • MAC
t
I_7 1--
`'.47, 7). •
• 114
•IF•91M11141/4.A,
•

SECOND 'EDITION.