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

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1846.

We yesterday traced at some length the several
proceedings which had taken place with respecrto
railway legislation up to the period of the bringing
forward of the Bill and resolutions which had been
adopted as sessional orders, and we showed that as
yet nothing bad been done opposed to the great
principle of non-interference with private enterprise,

which had been adopted and acted on long before the
several schemes now before Parliament had been
thought of or projected, and which had
been recognised and sanctioned at the be-
ginning of the session by the Committee ap-
pointed to inquire into, and report on, the
subject, and afterwards by the House, when
the report of that Committee was brought forward
and received. Should Lord FITZWILLIAM'S propo
sition now be adopted a new element must be taken
into calculation ; the final success of the Bill would be
dependent, in a great degree, not on its own inherent
excellence, not on the wants of the district which
the proposed line was intended to traverse, not on
the moderation of the estimates in proportion to the
hqauna,nistnity
zeonfnwdork to be
remunerating done,
dividendo
for thecapital
expended, prospect
rthe
expended, but on the Parliamentary influence
isw hich
could be secured by the several promoters.
per-
fectly manifest that at the very end of the session,
when much of the public business remained unfinished,
and matters of every kind would be pressed on to
a hasty conclusion, there would be neither
rime nor inclination on the part of the Legisla-
tare to enter into a cool and dispassiinate
-xamination of the relative merits of the several lines,
so as to enable them to weed the projects brought
before them down to the number which it might be
iuppoFed desirable to sanction. Neither would it be
-air to impose on the promoters who had sufficiently
proved the excellence of their own undertaking the
necessity of impeaching that of another railway pass-
' ing through a totally different country, or again
entering into the defence of their own, and bring-
ing up a new host of witnesses, at a vast ex-
pense; in fact, it :would be quite impossible to do
so. All would then depend on the votes of persons
wholly unacquainted with the real merits, and much
undue influence and canvassing for votes would most
undoubtedly take place, and scenes unworthy the
dignity of Parliament would be enacted. It has been
stated that the measures adopted have had very little
effect ; that proceedings have taken place to evade
the objects of the Legislature ; that scrip has
been borrowed or purchased for the purpose
of securing the majority of scripholders required by
the resolutions. We cannot, however, agree with
this statement, or admit its importance, if true. It is
manifest that the person who will consent to his scrip
being lent for the purpose of votes being thereby
given for the further progress of the undertaking
must be well satisfied that such should be the case ;
that scrip should be represented in some manner ;
and it is as little likely that it should be
used for a purpose opposed to the wishes of
its owner, as that the proxy of one of
their Lordships should go to swell a majority on a
question repugnant to the feelings of the noble giver
of that proxy. We cannot, therefore, think that there
is any weight in the argument founded on the loan
of scrip. As little can be accorded to that of scrip
being purchased for the occasion ; if such should be
the case, the purchaser must be fully alive to the ad-
vant?ges of the project, and most anxious for its suc-
cess ; he must step into the shoes of the person from
whom he has bought it, and take upon himself
all the responsibilities incidental to its ownership, if
he should afterwards feel disposed to part with that
scrip, after it has answered the purpose contemplated,
he must do so when the decision has been arrived at;
and if that should be an erroneous one, of course the
scrip will be much deteriorated in value, and he will
have obtained the privilege of voting at a very heavy
expenditure. We do not think that many persons
will be found willing to incur such a risk.
We are not satisfied either that the number of
cases which will receive the sanction of the share-
holders will be so numerous as to create any further
listurbance in the money market, or to require an

expenditure beyond the ability of the country to en-
counter. True it is, that in the great majority of cases
In which meetings hare hitherto been held, the de-
cision arrived at was favourable to their continued
progress, and that, by very large majorities; but it
must be recollected, that these have been the culled
ana selected schemes that have stood the

test of Parliamentary inquiry, and been in almost
every instance reported on favourably, by the several
Committees to which they had been referred, in
which every expenditure had already been incurred,
and which were only waiting for the third readings.
Had it been otherwise, it is very probable that the
result of the meetings might have been different, and

that the persons interested would have come to a dif-
ferent conclusion. The expenditure in the construc-
tion of railways is very different in its effects from a
similar sum being sent out of the country for
any object whatsoever. There is no capital
withdrawn from circulation ; on the contrary,
much money that would otherwise be hoarded
up and lying idle, will be thereby put into
activity ; it will get into the hands of the industrious
and laborious classes, and create a demand for menu-

factures, and infuse new activity into the general
business of the country. Much public benefit will
thereby be effected; a new capital, represented by
the value of the completed railways will be created,
which will be as available for the general purposes of
the nation, as if so many thousand acres of land could
be reclaimed from the sea, or of waste land brought

into cultivation and fertility. After a short time
confidence will, in all human probability, be restored,
and the public will see how great has been the folly,
the insanity which induced them from a panic to
sacrifice their property, and many will be found
willing to invest their savings judiciously, not in the
wild and reckless manner that unfortunately was the
case during the last year when any scheme whatso-
ever, no matter how unlikely to succeed, was
eagerly adopted, and its shares sought for with avidity ;
but prudently and with circumspection, after a full
examination into the prospects of success afforded and

_ .
of the merits of each individual project. Should,
however, the case be otherwise than we have conceived
and the amount of capital required for the com-
pletion of all the sanctioned projects be more than the

country could afford, it would be easy for Par
liament to add a clause authorising the postpone
ment of the project for a certain limite.
time, or extending the period within which the lint
must be completed, or its works commenced. 8..
,uch a cnur•e no injustice would be done to any per

son whatsoever, and the directors would be very un•
willing unduly to press on the work, or to depreciatt
their property by a call, to be enforced during an un-
favourable state of the money-market. Again, i:

may be provided that calls should only

be made at extended periods; and perhaps it '
might be found advantageous to enact that
no new call should be made without the
approbation of a general meeting of the share-
holders, to be called expressly for that purpose, and
to decide thereon, which meeting might be held in a
similar manner and be attended by a like number of
the shareholders to those now rendered necessary by
the resolutions already referred to. Either of these
courses would, as we conceive, have the desired effect
of preventing undue pressure, and no complaint could
fairly be made against them. We trust that the
Legislature will act in this important matter with due
deliberation, and, beyond all things, that there will
for the
be no violation of what we must consider the implied
contract entered into with the h
several persons,
capital
'who,
on the faith thereof, subscribed
ut
public works likely to effect much public
benecefiti.on of
-......--- •
ex

From thefrequent recurrence of collisions of steam-
boats after nightfall, and the frightful calamities
which incessantly result from those accidents, it be-
comes necessary to inquire into the most probable
cause of this frequency, and to devise some means for
effectually obviating it henceforth. It is not un-
usual to hear of such occurrences taking place on the
high seas at midnight, when the smaller craft is run
down instantaneously, with not a single man or a so-

litary plank saved in the catastrophe. These circum-
stances are constantly transpiring, and are generally
regarded as matters of such ordinary occurrence as
only to arrest public attention for an instant on the
perusal of some newspaper paragraph. If it be
remembered, however, that those wretched beings
who are thus dashed out of existence, name-
lessly, and almost uncommisserated, might have been
preserved from such a premature destruction by a
few precautionary measures, trivial enough in them-
selves, but of immeasurable importance as a preven-
tive of accidental deaths, the affair assumes a new
and striking interest. To dilate upon the melancholy
associations attached to the fate of the sufferers would,

undoubtedly, be contemned as the mere babbling of
a mock philanthropy ; but to reduce the question to
one of sheer duty imposed upon the community, and to
say that many of our countrymen encounter death
when a timely interference might have warded off the
danger, places the subject of our comments upon
an appreciable footing. Again, what transpired
yesterday may transpire to-morrow—what has
already occurred to such an one may happen
some time or other to ourselves. That consideration
brings the matter home to each of us, and while un-
doubtedly it may impart an ostensible air of selfish-
ness to our benevolence in regard to such calamities,
it will nevertheless animate that benevolence with a
morepractical earnestness than a thousand other more re-
fined and less egotistical reflections. The most invariable
and glaring characteristics of a catastrophe of this
description are those which transpire upon judicial
investigations into the occurrence : from these it
always appears that no one concerned in the transac-
tion was in the slightest degree to blame—the blue
lights were duly ignited, the look-out was lite-
rally " wide awake," the captain— (a confession
41ways volunteered upon evidence)—the captain was
(marvellous improbability to be guaranteed upon
oath !) sober. Nay, the more enthusiastic witnesikes
are repeatedly enlarging upon the testimony of each
other: one sailor avers that the skipper was " clear
as a whistle in the foretop ;" another ingeniously
hints at his habitual sobriety ; a third, prefacing his
assurance with a "'vast heaving, messmate," solemnly
avouches that he never saw the captain drunk
throughout his existence. And all this spontaneous
evidence as to the abstemiousness of the commander
of the delinquent vessel, possibly, through a trepida-
tion that his employers might say as OTMCLLO did
under similar circumstances—
"— Cassio, I love thee well,
But never more be officer of mine."

Now we are not impeaching any individual, or in-
veighing idly against any particular class ; neither
do we mean to insinuate anything like the suborning
of interested witnesses. We are simply narrating
facts, and commenting upon casualties with the
view of arriving at some definite conclusion as to
the readiest way of preventing the repetition of those
facts and the possibility of those same casualties.
Indeed, we will take the accuracy of such evidence
for granted, and coincide thus far in favour of those
implicated. We will admit, for instance, that the
blue lights were tended with all proper care and
ceremony, that the look-out was vigilant as Argus/
and the captain, as the saying goes, as sober as a
judge; and having admitted all this, we will then in-
vestigate as to the possibility of such an accident oc-
curring after so many elaborate precautions. Ob-
serve, we are alluding to those countless collisions,
where there are survivors from both the vessels
all the survivors telling the same story as
above mentioned. In hazy and foggy weather, or
upon what are called " dark nights," the accident is
laid on all hands upon the condition of the atmo-
sphere; but, seriously, such excuses are altogether
inadmissible. Supposing the fog to be so dense as
to choke the radiation from the blue lights, what can
be more obvious than the necessity of so diminishing
the speed of the vessels as to give both an opportu-
nity for steering clear of eacn other as soon as the
warning is recognisable ? But these accidents are
continually occurring, under the aggravating circum•
stances of a great facility for prevention. The recent
collision on the Mersey is a case in point, and a
ease in which blame appears to be scarcely attachable
to any individual, but to be solely attachable, on the-
contrary, to the system. The circumstances attendant
upon this catastrophe prove how absolutely requisite
a reform is for the arrangement of this most important
question in seamanship. Had the Sea Nymph (the-
steamer sunk by the collision) been constructed Ilke
the more fortunate boat, the Rambler, namely, with
water-tight compartments, the unhappy voyagers
from Ireland, who were upon that occasion destroyed.
might have been enjoying life at this moment. Undei
all considerations, we cannot but repeat it, the matter
calls for a most decided reformation. Whether more
intensely radiating lights, or the employ-
ment of percussion signals in hazy weather, or
an increase of vigilance or a decrease of speed be
necessary, remains to be thoroughly elucidated. Two
things, however, are absolutely certain—first, that
water-tight compartments should be more generally
adopted in naval architecture; and, secondly, that a
system is requisite.

The treaty of commerce lately concluded between
Russia and Turkey is published in the Augsburgh
Gazelle, of which the following is an outline :
" It is to come into force on July 1, and to last to
1856. The contracting parties are to declare six months
in advance if they intend to continue the treaty or
modify it. The articles are 20 in number. The sup-
plementary duties of 9 per cent. for exports, and 2 per
cent. on imports to be added to the 3 per cent. already
long established, are admitted as a principle in the
treaty. Art. 6 declares that the Russians cannot trade
in Turkey in articles manufactured there, nor can they
establish manufactories. Art. 9 reserves to the Otto-
man Porte the right to interdict, in case of necessity,
the exportation of any Turkish produce for a determined
time; Turkey, however, undertakes to inform the Rus
sian ambassador of such articles, and if any exception is
to be made, it is to be in favour of the Russians. Art. 11
excepts from liberty of commerce gunpowder, balls, &e.
When Russian vessels import cannon, they must deposit
them at the custom-hou,e, in order to be sold under tilt
superintendence of the customs' officers, and more guns
cannot be disposed of than will be sufficient for one ves
,el. Art. 11 enumerates the monopolies reserved b'
the Turkish Treasury (particularly leeches). Foreign
salt and snuff can only be sold wholesale. Art 16 speak.
.)f the principalities of Danube and Servia. Such produce
is is introdneed by Russia into these countries is to pa)
3 per cent. entrance duty, and 2 per cent. additional ti
he customs. The transit of Russian articles is fixed at
3 per cent.

Madrid journals to the 27th ult., have been re-
ceived.

A rumour was in 'very general circulation that
some modification was about to take place in the
Ministry, in consequence of which M. PACHECO anr,
certain other members of the Conservative Opposition,
would take office under M. ISTURITZ, who would stil
.emain President of the Council. Accounts had beer
received from Portugal, to the effect that ALMEDI)
)ad pronounced in favour of the insurrection. Gene
-al CALLENGE had concentrated all the forces in th-
irovince of Ciudad Roderigo on the frontier, and of
he 231 he was at Alda del Obispo.
The Three per Cents. were not quoted on th
kiwi rid Bour,e, anal but few private sales took play•.
It 331 13-16. The Five per Cents. were done a
208 21 ter cash; the shares of the Bank of San Fet
Mande, at 380, and those of Isabel, at 196.,

We have received the Paris papers of Monday.
En consequence of the observation of the holiday o
Whit-Sunday at most of the printing-offices, onl3
three papers were published on Monday morning
viz., the Courrier Francais, the National, and tht
Presse.

The Courrier Francais, which has always been an
advocate for free trade, thus comments on the
Passing of the second reading of the Corn Bill by the
House of Lords:—
" The cause of the freedom of trade is gained in Eng-
land ; even the House of Lords, that interested guard.ax,
of the old system, has been obliged to go by the current
of public opinion. If the other nations follow the path
traced by Great Britain—if they enter boldly into the
prosperous road of liberty—it may be said then that, in
a very few years, the whole face of the world will be
changed. No more wars arising out of the imposition of
customs duties—no more conflicts from factitious interests
—no more outcries from manufacturers—no more dis-
orders in the arena of production. Such are the great
promises of commercial liberty, and these are not vain
promises. They are promises guaranteed by know.
ledge, and will soon, no doubt, receive a striking con-
firmation by the conviction of a great nation. But it is
Important that the people of the continent should hasten
to burst the chains by which industry has been fetteret
under the feudal system. Commercial liberty is a pro-
ollowed up
4Tession whto realisation.ich cannot be"
m
too quickly adopted, a.

The Courrier then proceeds to enumerate the diffi-
he of free trade will
w
re the protectionists
have
i etso weiotohte:'
dh iciho tFh
rea
nee, partisans
are so powerful, and where the Government, even if
it has the will, is to little able to carry any great
measure in favour of liberal principles
as regards
commerce. The article of the Courrier concludes as
follows :
" The friends of commercial freedom have a rude task
before them. They have to undergo the arbitary pree.
sure of legal power, and to struggle against the immense
majority in Parliament. But if they have to contend
against the interests and prejudices of the representatives
of the country, have they not for their natural auxiliaries
the reason and interest of the immense majority of the
people? Let them therefore enter undauntedly into the
arena, let them organise themselves with or without
stutlsontyl If h
t... „,orerarsout lug' the Climber throw