The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-05 00:00:00

THE SUN,

peoused the opinions we have from time to time put
for ward on this deeply interesting and all-
important subject. We can never have our trade
and commerce really free and unrestricted until
the imposts levied upon the introduction of the pro-
duce of other lands have been wholly, or at least to a
very great degree, abolished. Then indeed England
would become the emporium of the world, the mart
in which the commodities of every nation would be
exchanged. It would be impossible to assign limits
to the commercial activity that would be thereby
occasioned, or to the stimulant that would be
applied to our native manufactures. The
people would be contented and happy, while
the actual burden would be borne by those who, in
justice and equity, should be saddled therewith—the
possessors of that property, for the preservation and
improvement of which, our National Debt was created,
and the great bulk of the national expenditure is ren-
dered necessary. Every person who attentively considers
this vitally important subject, without bias or preju-
dice, must arrive at the conclusion, that every prin-
ciple of justice and equity, of policy and expediency,
demand the substitution " of a direct system of taxa-
tion, fairly and equitably apportioned on property and
income, in lieu of the present unequal, complicated,
and expensively-collected duties upon commodities."
We most heartily wish the Financial Reform
Association good speed in the arduous path on which
they have entered. They must make up their minds
to encounter reproach;yidicule, and obloquy, in every
form, from those interested in maintaining the present
state of things, of evading the demands that should
be made upon themselves, by placing them upon the
overburdened shoulders of the " many" who, with all
their patient industry, are sinking under the
weight. But they need not fear that a de-
cisive triumph will ultimately crown their
exertions. A glorious example is before
them in the rise, progress, and final success of the
" Anti-Corn-law League." Let the leaders of the
present movement exhibit but a moiety of the energy
and resolution of the members of that League, and a
similar result must follow their exertions—and that
in far less time than it required to achieve the first
victory. We are rejoiced to find it announced that
the meeting to which we have alluded is but the first
of a series, in which it is intended to consider the
important questions introduced to the public notice
upon that occasion.

Imprisonment is slavery : and slavery is the surest
means of degenerating the faculties of man. Now
that the punishment of felony is changed from trans-
portation to imprisonment, it becomes necessary to
reflect upon the consequences of the latter penalty, in
order, if possible, to prevent results which might
prove destructive to the whole social system of our

population. It has been found by experience that

the effect of slavery upon an individual, when that
individual has been deprived of all hope of manumis-
sion has conduced to a profound physical and moral
degradation : no stimulus whatever has incited the
bondsman to exertion ; he has lapsed into a depraved
torpor or a brutalised sensuality. From a preva-
lence of this stubborn and unnatural system in Nor-
folk Island, the wretched convicts in that settlement
sank from criminality to criminality until they were
at last wallowing in a slough of sin such
as was calculated to fill the imagination even of
a SUE or a DE BALzAc with astonishment.
Deeds which make us shudder to think
of, and the recital of which causes the heart to sicken
with horror, became the habitual practices, or the
casual recreations of the prisoners in that beautiful
but abused region. And so it would inevitably have
continued up to the present moment, but that a
novel and admirable system was introduced by Cap-
tain MACONOCUIE, R.N.. at the period when he was
Superintendent of Norfolk Island, a system which
gradually diminished the Sloth, and with the sloth the
crimes of the unfortunate felons under his direction.
This system, which was practised for nearly four
years, namely, from March, 1840, up to February,
1844, was christened by Captain MACONOCHIE the
Mark System. Although from certain causes, which
were found to be insurmountable, the system was
tested very inadequately on Norfolk Island, its
correctness was sufficiently proved by the remark-
able change for the better, perceptible among

tha nr,;min.la Tr% .yniAin in as ft+Vlr wordq
System was founded, we may observe that they were
classified in these three divisions :
I. The duration of sentences was to be measured
out by good conduct and labour combined, with a
minimum of time, but no maximum.
11. The labour which was thus declared to be re-
quisite was to be represented by marks, a certain
number of these marks, proportioned according to the
culpability of the felon, being required to be gained
in a penal condition before release.

111. In order to afford additional strength to these
moral restraints and stimulants, the prisoners were
distributed in parties of half-a-dozen, with common

interests, each man thus labouring and refraining for
others as well as for himself.

Without entering more minutely into the arrange-
ments of this scheme of improvement, it is obvious
that the consequences of its operation must by neces-
sity be beneficial, inasmuch as it holds out the most
powerful inducement to good behaviour, and the
strongest incitement to exertion. The men worked
" with a full knowledge every stroke brought them
nearer to liberty." The chief punishment then—
labour—was transformed from an end into a means.
As an end it had been barren and pernicious; as a
means it became rapidly fruitful of advantage to the
convicts, whether in their individual or aggregate
capacities. "In the sweat of their brows" they
earned not only " their bread," but their freedom.

Now that the action of the criminal law has been
reversed, in as far as the punishment of transporta-
tion is concerned, now that the felons are retained at
home, to work in Portland Island instead of in Norfolk
Island, now that the necessities of prison discipline
have consequently become of a more immediate and
complicated importance, the adoption of the admir-
able system contrived by the.ingenious humanity of
Captain MACONOCHIE, appears to us to be the most
rational determination that could be arrived at by our
Government. It is a matter, at least, which demands
the most serious attention of the Home Secretary ;
and Sir GEORGE GREY must reflect, moreover, that
the Mark System is no merely hypothetical sugges-
tion, but that it is, on the contrary, a plan which
has been tried under the most severe circumstances,
in a den of villany and licentiousness, where all
the aids of precept and example, of Christianity and
civilization are little less than invisible. That some-
thing beyond the barren fulfilment of certain duties
is requisite in our places of incarceration, in order to
preserve the prisoners from indolence and vice, has
been forcibly shown by a century of experiment. The
medium of probation must undergo a radical modifi-
cation, or, rather, a complete re-organization ; other-
wise, with the extension of our prisons and the ac-
cumulation of our criminals, we shall inevitably have
a frightful increase in the horrors resulting from a
false system of expiation.

' We are almost weary of commenting upon the
frequent recurrence of some new instance of the
futility of human hopes and the instability of mortal
fortunes. Of such events the present year has already
afforded us an innumearble variety, and now another
is added to the momentous catalogue. The inimit-
able verses of Dr. JOHNSON illustrate the " Vanity of
Human Wishes " far less effectually and less impres-
sively than does the casual perusal of two newspaper
paragraphs now to be met with. The one tells of the
Count DE NEUILLY in his retirement ; the other
chronicles the baptism of a Princess with twenty
names. Another grand-child is added to Lours
PHILIPPE'S numerous family—a child whose birth
was perhaps looked forward to with as much of
anxious and ambitious hope as crowded around the
cradle of the Count DE PARIS. Hopes and ambition
were futile in both instances. The young Duchess
of PORT ST. MARY'S, the Infanta MARIA ISABELLA
&C. &c. &c., the presumptive heiress of the
Crown of Spain, is, it is true, the daughter of
the Duke of MONTPENSIER, but she is not,
as was so confidently expected, the grand-daughter
of the KING of the FRENCH. Little matters it to the
exile of Claremont whether or no the Pyrenees now
exist. Little matters it to Lours PHILIPPE now,
saving only as regards his son, whether or no his
grandchild be the Sovereign of Spain. In a political
point of view the subject is wholly unimportant to
him. And this is the guerdon of his many sacrifices

LONDON,

and his arduous endeavours ! It was for this he broke
up his cordial understanding with England, for this
he sacrificed his popularity in France, for this he lost
his crown, his power, Ids position! Behold the
triumph of the Machiavellian diplomatist. Behold
the issue of the wisdom of the Ulysses of modern
times. He has won, and he has not won. He has
gained the object, the literal object, of his endeavours,
and he has lost, he has utterly lost the real
object at which he aimed. His hand will
never sway the destinies of France and Spain. We
can almost imagine that at such a moment, the birth
of his Spanish grandchild—an event which under
other circumstances would have filled him with exulta-
tion—must be productive of grief rather than of rejoic-
ing. It cannot be but this event must cruelly remind
him of his cherished dreams now so utterly dispelled,
and his cunning schemes now so irremediably over-
thrown. We should not wish to add to the bitterness
of the cup which the dethroned Monarch has been
doomed to drink, we should be loth to aggravate the
weight of sorrow which must weigh down his aged
head ; nevertheless, any sufferings occasioned
by his interference in Spain must be
regarded as a fitting, although appalling,
retribution. We will not again particularise
the unhappily too well accredited enormities of Lours
PHILIPPE'S conduct with regard to the Spanish
marriages. That conduct has been adequately
punished. He has not only not gained the object of
his sinful schemes, but he has sustained a more than
equivalent loss in addition. And now, in his day of
adversity, while he sojourns in exile, the child
which was to have been the crowning evidence
of his greatness, comes into the world only
to make more evident the failure of his am-
bition. Alas ! for human hopes for human
hopes based on no surer foundation than those of
Lours PHILIPPE. Are we wrong in adducing the
birth of the new Infanta of Spain as another instance
of the mutability of fortunes ? Are we wrong in re-
cording this particular instarce, more especially to
the attention of any Sovereigns (if such there now
exist) who may wish to play the same game as that
just played, with such ill success, by Louis PrimurE,
or to any Ministers whom " the brain may reason out
the heart," as it is said to have happened with a late
Minister of France ?

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The Moniteur du Soir of the previous evening had
the following paragraph :
" The reports which have been current respecting
the place designated for the negotiations on the
Italian question are premature. The seat of the
conference is not yet fixed, and it is certain that it
will not be Innspruck."
The Presse of yesterday is more explicit on this
subject. It says—
" The Great Powers, it is said, have not yet agreed
on the choice of a place where the Congress is to
assemble to confer on the affairs of Italy.
" Austria had proposed Innspruck as the nearest to
the scene of war, and most convenient for the different
Cabinets which were to be represented at the Con-
gress. But this selection has not been agreed to by
the King of Piedmont. Charles Albert feared that
the pressure of public opinion in one of the cities
devoted to the Imperial Crown might exercise a dis-
astrous influence on the determination of the plenipo-
tentiaries of Austria and Prussia.
" The King at first desired that the conference
should take place at Paris, but the proposal met with
a decided refusal from our Cabinet. The Sardinian
Government now insists that a town belonging to a
neutral state shall be selected, and it proposes Berne,
or some othar place in Switzerland. This proposi-
tion, it is said, is seconded by the English Cabinet."
The approaching discussion on the manner in
which the President of the Republic is to be elected
at present occupies the attention of all France. The
Committee on the Constitution recommend that the
election shall take platce by universal suffrage. No-
tice of an amendment, to the following effect, has
been given by M. FLocoN :—" The National As-
sembly delegates the executive power to a citizen,
who shall receive the title of President of the Re-
public." After much hesitation, and after several
Cabinet Councils had been held on the subject, the
Goverment on Tuesday came to the determination
to support M. FLocoN's amendment. On this sub.
..thaf-rnocnizw-Lin iqse,,Rainl-several journals
have announced that the Government, informed of
the resolution which had been come to by the Com-
mittee on the Constitution to maintain the articles
in which it is expressly declared that the French
people delegate the Executive Government to a Pre-
sident of the Republic, has itself given up the ides of
causing the President to be elected by the National
Assembly. Unfortunately this report is not confirmed,
and it now appears certain, on the contrary, that the
Government persists in its opinion, and will exert all
its influence to carry the amendment of M. Flocon,
even against the conclusions of the Committee.
" We do not call in question the intentions of those
who have conceived this idea, and who persevere in it.
We do know that the majority of them are actuated
by the most honourable motives : they fear that the
Republic may be menaced, that discontented or mis-
guided minds may be led to make a bad choice : that
the conflict among pretenders may lead to disorders
in the country, and in order to avoid these calamities
they have recourse to an expedient of safety, the ap-
pointment of the President by the Assembly. It is
positively stated that General Cavaignac, in parti-
cular, after long hesitation at length yielded to the
force of the arguments of his friends, that it was
necessary to confide the care of the constitution to
firm and faithful hands; that, in a word, the wisdom
of the Assembly, which had formed the constitution,
would be for the maintenance of the work of the
majority a better guarantee than the vote of the
people, uncertain, divided, and worked upon as it is
by the most conflicting passions.
" We do not in any way underrate the value of
these considerations, the sincerity of these scruples ;
and if we anywhere saw a right equal or superior to
that on which at this moment all the edifice of our
new institutions reposes, we should perhaps allow that
it is reasonable to take such precautions, and to pre-
vent by a judicious choice the possible egarements of
the mass of the citizens.
" But let us nat seek to deceive ourselves. What
is now the basis of public right in France ? Evi-
dently it is the sovereignty of the people expressed
by universal suffrage. From what source do the
powers of the Constituent Assembly emanate ?
From universal suffrage. If the Assembly itself has
faith in that which is its vivifying principle, to whom
should it confide the nomination of the President of
the Republic after having proclaimed the absolute
necessity of the division of power ? Undoubtedly to
universal suffrage. Since, then, that there is a ques-
tion of depriving the country of this right which
belongs to it, and conferring it either definitively on
the Legislature, or temporarily on the present Na-
tional Assembly, what does it signify if not that it
suspects the wisdom of the people, that it is feared
that the majority may be led away, and that it is
wished therefore to guard against the dangers which
may arise from a bad choice ? Is this, we ask, any-
thing more or less than a suspicion of universal
suffrage ; a denial of the sovereign right on which
the new Government supports itself, and a moral
blow, almost irreparable, directed against the Re-
public ?
" We do not, for our parts, contest the embarrass-
ment which might result from an election made with-
out due reflection ; but we rely on the good sense
and patriotism of the majority of the people ; we are
persuaded that the mad hopes which may be enter-
tained will be deceived ; that the dangers which are
apprehended will be avoided ; that, in fact, reason will
prevail over intrigue.
" The almost infallible means to prepare the public
mind and to determine the most judicious choice
would be immediately and unhesitatingly to respond
to the almost unanimous wish of the country, by
seriously organizing the Government in an idea of
order and of progress. Indispensable measures are
indefinitely postponed ; the personnel is insufficient to
meet the immense difficulties both at home and
abroad, and it is not apparent that moral authority
prevails, and hence arise those embarrassments and
those alarms against which it is sought to guard by a
sort of usurpation a thousand times more dangerous
than the danger itself."
The -lloniteur publishes a return of the imports and
exports for the first eight months of this year com-
pared with the results of previous years. The im-
portations of the month of August yielded to the
Treasury 8,656,022 f. In the last year the same
month produced 11,500,000 f. But it is in taking the
period of eight months that the deficiency becomes
the more striking. The duties levied during the
eight months of 1848 only amounted to 54,000,000 f.;
during the corresponding period of 1847 they were
89,000,000 f. ; and in 1846 exceeded 100,000,0001.
The greatest diminutions have taken place in linen
threads, hemp, cast-iron, coal, linens, and zinc of the
first fusion. As to the exports they have been kept
up, and there has even been progress in certain re-

spects on preceding years. It is -the consequence of