The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1848.

Prior to the invasion of Mexico by the armies of
the United States, the possession of the island of
Quadra or Vancouver was of inestimable importance
to England. As a harbour of refuge situated in the
very centre of the western coast of North America—
as a coaling station for our war-steamers in the
northern regions of the Pacific—as an entrepot for
all those commodities which are essential for the pros-
perity of our mercantile and for the absolute safety
of our scientific expeditions—Vancouver's Island was
even then a possession of almost incalculable impor-
tance. The mere circumstance of this island being
enumerated by Lord ASEIBURTON among those por-
tions of ground which England insisted upon retain-
ing when the territories of the Oregon were divided,
shows that at the time of the negotiation of that treaty
Quadra was considered by the British Government as
a spot eminently worthy of retention. Since the

seizure of California by the United States the value

of Vancouver's Island has increased a thousand-fold.
For the Republic of Washington has now so far
advanced to the southward that its commerce,
already flourishing on the shores of the Atlantic
from its mercantile arrangements with Europe, is
beginning to direct its energies across the Pacific to
the fruitful regions of Asia and the Eastern Archi-
pelago. Ultimately the riches of the Orient must
flow from that direction to pervade the populous
nations of the new world, and, as we
observed on Saturday, whenever that time arrives the
straits of Juan de Fuca must inevitably and by ne-
cessity become the principal channel through which
the costly and prolific productions of Hindustan,
China, and the islands surrounding Japan and Borneo
must travel. This is no merely idle speculation ; it
is not the anticipation of a vi..ion which may be rea-
lised in a dozen centuries ; it is a deduction drawn
from facts patent to the whole world, and facts too
which are already beginning that great line of policy
for the furtherance of which Vancouver's Island will
be an invaluable instrument.

We are rejoiced to find that our distinguished con-
temporary the Times has followed out in its im-
pression of this morning the views which we advo-

cat€ d on the evening of Saturday ; and we are grati-
fied to observe that i: coincides with ourselves in
reprobating the precipitation with which this most
important possession is about to be juggled over into
the possession of the Hudson's Bay Company. We
have already remarked upon the suspicious character
of the antecedents to this insane act of transference ;
and now, in addition to what has been already
observed by ourselves, we cannot but express some
astonishment at the rather odd coincidence of Mr.
CHARLES BULLER being among the most prominent
supporters of the scheme of the Colonial Secretary.
Has the Right Hon. Member for Liskeard drawn his
calculations from the traditional opinions preserved
in his late office as Judge-Advocate-General, or has
he culled them from the reminiscences of his secre-

taryship under Lord Dualism ? Has he imbibed
his enthusiasm for the cause of the Hud-
son's Bay Company from the prosecution of
his peculiar duties as Chief Commissioner of
the Poor-law Board is England, or has he borrowed
his inspiration from the remembrance of his toils and
travels in attendance upon the Government of Ca-
nada ? Without some explanation of this retrospective
character it does strike us as being a rather anoma-
lous and bewildering circumstance to see the Right
Hon. and Learned Gentleman, the representative of
the borough of Liskearcl, walking down to the House
of Commons from his offices in Somerset House to
make a long speech in depreciation of Vancouver's
Island, and in furtherance of the spoliative ambition
of the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company.
As to the facilities afforded by the island of Qua-
dra or Vancouver for the purposes of colonization,
we will grant, for the sake of argument, that there
are none whatever, that emigration to that possession is
for a thousand reasons altogether impracticable. Look.,
ing at the matter even in this light, we maintain that
the island is still of too vast importance to sign away
for eleven years, or for a single twelvemonth,
simply because such a transference would be a

convenience to a small but grasping body of
mercantile monopolists. If Quadra were a rock as
barren as the rock of Malta it would be still, from
its situation, most worthy of preservation among the
more valuable possessions of the United Kingdom.
As a military post, as a dockyard, as a rallying point
for our fleet in the Pacific—it would still present to
us a hundred reasons for its preservation. In the
event of the Pacific becoming another Mediterranean
Vancouver's Island would, as our contemporary
the Times, has happily remarked, become a
second Tyne. Not only this—it would
be the Lima of the Northern Continent of America—
the terrestrial Valetta of the New World—the Gibral-
tar of the American dominions of Great Britain.

But in addition to all this, we insist upon it that
the maintenance of our national authority at Van-
couver's Island will tend greatly to promote the now
ripening system of colonization, and to civilize a vast
quarter of the globe, which must otherwise lapse
into barbarity. Under the almost irresponsible
rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, the
condition of the inhabitants of Quadra would be ex-
actly the reverse, for the great policy of that com-
pany is nothing less than the atrocious system of the
game-laws carried out upon a scale of gigantic mag-
nitude. Instead of being solicitous to promote set-
tlements, to multiply colonists, and to cultivate the
soil, the Hudson's Bay Company is only anxious to
abandon the woods and the forests to the wildness
and exuberance of nature, to multiply the number
of wild beasts, and to allow continents, penin-
sulas, islands, the isthmus, the valley, and
the mountain to become one dense maze of boughs
and underwood, peopled only by the bear and the
jackal, and pervious only to the footsteps of
their stipendiary huntsmen. Against the ad-
vance of this desolating system of mono-
poly, our voice shall continue to be raised,
until the necessity of a modification is so far recog-
nised by the Government, that for the purpose of in-
suring emolument to a few individuals, the nation
shall no longer be tricked out of possessions so im-
portant and invaluable as that of the island of Van-
couver.

Although every man is not a farmer, the attention
of all reflective minds is directed at this important
season of the agricultural year to the condition of the
atmosphere and the fluctuations of the barometer.
Bread is sweet to every man's lip, although every
man may not be dependent for his income on the
proceeds of the corn harvest. It is for this reason
that the present deplorable changes in the weather
are becoming each moment of more and more con-
sideration with the indiscriminate masses of the
people. From a communication published in another
column, and addressed to us by our Cowes'
correspondent, it will be observed that the indecision
of a few hours among some of the agriculturists in
that vicinity, proved destructive to a considerable por-
tion of the surrounding crop of wheat. Our readers
will be distressed to perceive, moreover, that this cala-
mitous indecision originated in a frivolous punctilio of
morality—one of those scruples of religion which
belong rather to the Pharisees of Judea than to the
Christians of England. The corn, be it ob-
observed, was already reaped, the stalks
were bound together in sheaves, the sheaves
were propped against each other in stooks—it only
wanted carting and carrying homeward to the barns
for the final labours of the flail, the winnow, and the
millstone. Yesterday (Sunday) was a brilliant day
of sunshine ; but one of those days in which the sink-
ing vibrations of the quicksilver in the barometer de-
clare the beauty to be evanescent. Well, the far-
mers hesitated they had qualms of conscience
as to the possible desecration of the Sab-
bath they debated among themselves the
propriety of a delay—they doubted whether their
labourers would aid them in the " ungodly" work of
harvesting—they regarded their half-reaped fields as
ALEXANDER gazed upon the courtesan--

" They sigh'd and look'd,
And sigh'd and look'd,
And sigh'd and look'd,
And sigh'd again I"
Before their hesitation had ceased the rain settled the
question off-hand, descending upon the country in
torrents, and rotting the ripe grains in the ungar-
nered husks. What miserable folly is this ! What de-
licate distinctions of morality ! If a man broke his leg
in Tavistock- square on a Sunday, according to this
system, no one would be justified in carrying him off
to King's College Hospital. Or, as our correspondent
puts it, the victim of a shipwreck would remain un-
succoured, because the vessel bilged upon the coast
during the hours of church service. There are some
things which admit of no hesitation—which require
action, not debate—speed instead of procrastination.
Foremost among these is, most unquestionably, the
preservation of the corn-harvest of an afflicted
and populous nation. And it certainly appears
to us to be a somewhat overstrained obedience
to the injunctions of the liturgy—this punctilious
neglect of the wheat crops on the score of a religious
scruple ; especially after the memorable incident in
Holy Writ, when the Scribes and the Pharisees were
reproved by the lips of CHRIST because they mocked
at his disciples for pulling handfuls of green barley
as they walked through the cultivated grounds of
Palestine upon the Sabbath.
When shall we be enabled to cease clamouring
against this exaggerated distortion of morality which
beholds sin in the running of a railway train, in the
retailing of malt liquors, in the hawking of figs and
mackerel, or in the harvesting of the corn crops upon
a Sunday in the midst of a fluctuating autumn, and
after a season of extraordinary privations ?

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