The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-21 00:00:00

3AM4

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1846.

The attention of the House of Commons was on Tuesday
drawn to the quarantine laws by Dr. BOWRING, who moved
that an address should be presented to her MAJESTY, for the
production of the correspondence or extracts on the subject
of the quarantine laws, which had taken place with foreign
Governments since the last returns, to be laid on the table, and
that the House would see with pleasure such relaxations in
the existing system as might be compatible with a due le
gard to the public health and the general interests of the
nation.

Nothing but the protection and welfare of the country at
large could for one moment justify the continuance of a sys-
tem which has been truly described as impeding science, pro-
ducing immorality, obstructing travelling, and restricting
commerce, navigation, and manufactures, besides being in
many other respects hurtful. Our Legislature have happily
seen the necessity of affording the greatest possible faci-
lities to trade and freedom of intercourse with all nations.
Any delay or difficulty has been found to be productive of the
most injurious effects, to be a national evil of the greatest
magnitude. Amongst the many regulations by which our I
commerce has been fettered, none have been found more
vexatious or costly in their maintenance than the quarantine
laws. Commerce has been taxed for their support to the
extent of from 1,000,0001. to 2,000,0001. sterling per annum.
The delay was frequently ruinous in its results ; and we have
the authority of Mr. HUME—and there cannot be a higher
one on any question of calculation—that no less a sum than
120,0001. was annually expended by this country in keeping
up the system. But this is not all. Many valuable lives
have been sacrificed, which might have been preserved bad
proper assistance and aid been afforded them—had they been
removed from the confined and pestilential air which
they were compelled to breathe, to a purer and
more salubrioui atmosphere. Englishmen have ever
been ready to incur a danger—to risk their own
lives in the cause of humanity—to afford assistance
to him requiring it, to mitigate the sufferings and soothe the
pangs of the afflicted ; but, by these oppressive and heartless
laws, we are prevented, as a nation, from doing that which
no one with a benevolent heart would hesitate about for one
moment. The sufferer is cut off from communication with
his kind—like the leper of old he is banished from society, is
unable to procure the comforts, the attentions so necessary
to him in his illness. Many who arrive in perfect health
perish from the operation of the sanatory laws. Had they
even the supposed efficacy formerly ascribed to them, it is
doubtful if it would not be purchased at too high
a price, if the remedy be not worse than the disease. But it
has ever been found that the countries in which those laws
have been most rigorous, most strictly acted up to, have
suffered the most from the diseases which they attempted
to keep out. A better opinion now seems to prevail on the
subject of contagion. The Royal Academy of Medicine in
Paris, after having instituted the strictest inquiries, under
the direction of the French Government, with a view to
their giving an opinion on the quarantine laws, have
arrived at the conclusion that the plague is endemie
in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, and that its
breaking out is to be attributed to the spontaneous
action of local and atmospheric causes, and not to its impor-
tation from distant quarters, that it is an epidemic disease,
and that it is propagated by atmospherical influences, and
not by contagion, and that it is not conveyed by goods or
merchandise. Surely such an opinion, deliberately arrived at by
men of the highest medical authority, who have taken the
utmost pains to procure the most authentic information from
which they might draw their deductions, should
be considered perfectly conclusive on the subject,
and should lead to the total abolition of those
laws all over the world. Comparatively little will be effected
unless the prejudices of other nations can be removed. We
trust that this is possible, as the Governments of the different
countries now seem to be quite alive to the great importance
of the question and most anxious to adopt any measures for
the improvement of the system. The glorious movement
which has taken place for the perfect freedom of trade will
be aptly followed out by the amelioration of those laws and
the abolition of all restrictions.

The split which has taken place in the Repeal party in
Ireland, which is widening every day, is not calculated to
raise our respect for the consistency, gratitude, and prudence
of the Irish character. One of the most violent Repeal
journals published in Dublin, which is supposed to represent
a new generation, has for some time cast off Mr. O'CONNELL
as a leader, and now almost declares open war against him.
What the objects of "Young Ireland" are it would be diffi-
cult to say, but, judging from their organ, they consider the
Liberator too lukewarm in the cause. They would not only
go for a repeal, perfect and unadulterated, shackled neither
by the claims of royalty, nor the guardianship, however
nominal of a British Parliament, but would at once esta-
blish a pure republic, independent as much of England as
the rest of the world. So determined is their hostility to
this country that they indulge in the highest raptures of
enthusiasm on anticipating her defeat in India or Canada, or
the wide ocean, and would willingly join the Americans or
the French, or any other nation called our national enemy,
for the sake of humbling, and even destroying, their nearest
neighbours. This is all very foolish, and very extravagant.
Most people are of opinion that Mr. O'CoissiEm., has gone as
far in the cause of repeal as any leader can prudently gowith-
out exciting a civil war. Judges and juries have admitted by
their decisions, that he has even gone too far and exceeded the
limits of the law, yet a new party springs up who are to de-
prive him of the post which he has filled so long, and se ably,
under different denominations in his native country, and ab-
rogate at once the peaceful and loyal system by which, with
all his violence, he has effected such important and beneficial
changes in Ireland. No man, if we except, perhaps, \Vasa-
INGTON, ever did so much for his country as Mr. O'ConNxr.i.,
and in one respect be has a vast superiority over the
American, for what the one did by the sword, by a
tedious, a doubtful, and occasionally a hopeless war, the other
has entirely effected by peaceful agitation, and the most ex-
traordinary observance of the established. laws of the land.
During his dictatorship, or by -whatever name his peculiar
and unbounded authority may be described, he has raised the
character of his countrymen a hundredfold, and obtained for
them privileges, and rights, and just claims, which, under the
operation of the dangerous principles adopted by "Young
Ireland," he would have attempted in vain. He
carried the Catholic question solely by legitimate and
peaceful means. An insurrection at the time of the
Clare election would have frustrated the whole scheme.
It would have let loose the Orangemen of the north, decided
the waverers in England, roused to the highest pitch of in-
dignation the vast numbers of enemies to the cause, whether
Churchmen or Dissenters, and the ordeal, the horrible
cruelties, the bloody scenes of a civil war, must have been
endured before the Legislature could have taken one step to
redress the grievances of the Catholics. The cause would
have been thrown back for half a century; the men who
lived in 1829 would never have seen the consumma-
tion of Catholic Emancipation, and the numerous reforms
which have followed in its train would have shared the
same fate. It contributed much to Parliamentary Re-
orm in England; through its influence and the prudent tac-
tics and l'er'eralloo of M O'Coszsrsu., the tithe question
in Ireland was settled,
epic. b...actess was abolished, the Irish
ecclesiastical staff was
proportions, municipal reform wao r
mett,,hbinrg like moderate
conferred by
what
is an additional proof of the blessings
reform, a Tory Government is now engaged inylrepaace.fal
further measures, of a healing and liberal character, for
giving satisfaction to a long oppressed and patient people.
Few men at the age of seventy can look back with
such satisfaction to the labours of forty years as Mr. O'CoN-
IIELL. These are admissions which the impartial are com-
pelled to make, for facts cannot be denied, and though we
reprobate as much as any party the absurd cry for repeal,
and the violent language by which it is too often rendered
still more obnoxious, we cannot shut our eye& to the nume-
rous advantages which Ireland has gained within the last
twenty years, nor to the merits of the man by whom they
have been chiefly accomplished. But O'CONNELL, is to
be thrown aside, as an old almanac, and who
is the new occupant destined by "Young Ireland"
for the throne ? WILLIAM SMITH O'BrtiEx ! He is
l functions in
HENY, practising the royal functions
already, if we are to believe one of his most enthusiastic
supporters, a Mr. DO
his cell. " I visited him," said this gentleman at Conci la-
tion Ha 9, on Monday, " in the Cellar of the House of Com-
mons, and I can tell you lie is there acting the king." The
announcement was received with "thundering applause."
But this orator said something more—something ostensibly
in his own praise—but evidently directed with the most
bitter hatred against another. " I have worked," said
he, "unselfishly, and maintained a character on which
a lie has never been written." These words have no doubt-
ful reference, and the meeting altogether was of a very
stormy character, yet Mr. DOITENY concluded by saying,
" there was no disunion among Repeaters." May we not,
therefore assert with truth, that such scenes (for this was
not the first), say little for the consistency, gratitude and
prudence of the Irish Repealers ? The Orange clubs take
courage at the news, and Exeter Hall before the month of
May has closed will ring with shouts of triumph at the ex-
pense of DossErsv, and the Nation, and Young Ireland.

With the exception of the modification of the sugar duties,
all those great commercial changes which were proposed by
Sir ROBERT at the commencement of the present session have
now passed through the House of Commons, with the most
emphatic sanction of our representatives. The Customs'
Duties Bill, which augured for itself days of impatience

and nights of opposition almost innumerable, passed
the third reading in the Lower House without either
discussion or division, and was immediately conveyed to the
Peers, where, saving a few irascible objections from his
Grace the Duke of RICHJIOND, it was read a first time with
nearly equal facility. Thus our legislative aristocracy have
a balance of remissions submitted to their consideration ;
they are called upon simultaneously to withdraw an accumu-
lation of protective imposts from agriculturists and manu-
facturers; and this call is rendered doubly forcible from its
being itterated by the acquiescence of the people and the
approval of the Commons. A somewhat desultory
conversation occurred upon the announcement of
the third reading, that conversation originating in
certain inquiries, put by Mr. STAFFORD O'BRIEN to the Go-
vernment, in reference to agricultural statistics. This,
though rather beside the question, is undoubtedly a matter
of considerable importance, as by the reduction of those
statistics to a tabular regularity, a more definite notion might
be formed as to the operation of the measures now gliding
almost imperceptibly through the only remaining division of
Parliament. Nor have the Ministry regarded the inquiry as
one admitting of apathy or inattention ; according to the ex-
planation given by Sir G. CLERK, several devices have been
employed for the collection of voluntary information in the three
great divisions of the kingdom, namely in England, Scotland,
and Ireland. It appears that much caution was neverthe-
less found to be absolutely requisite, so as to allay in some
measure the jealousies of the agriculturists at what many
of them erroneously regarded as a species of inquisitorial
curiosity. Upon this point Mr. BRIGHT very justly ob-
served, at a subsequent period of the evening, that the
farmers were labouring under a complete misapprehension
as to the object which caused that anxiety for
statistical intelligence, seeing that the Hen. Member for
Manchester, when he originally propounded the necessity for
some such information, was actuated solely by a wish to
confer advantages upon the agriculturists themselves, not
from any desire to pry into their proceedings. A various
success has, however (in consequence, it may be, of the con-
tinuance of this misapprehension, or possibly from the ineffi-
ciency of the officers selected for the gleaning of such in-
telligence), attended the delicate advances of Government.
Very satisfactory results have, for instance, attended the in-
quiries made over an area of some 6,000 acres in the county
of Cavan, that success being principally attributable to the
spontaneous courtesy of the landowners ; again, through the
instrumentality of the parochial schoolmasters of the county
of Edinburgh, a considerable quantity of information has
been acquired in that neighbourhood; whereas, in the
northern division of Hampshire, where the matter was con-
signed to the interposition of the poor-law officers, the re-
turns have been very inefficiently supplied. Whether a
separate machinery of investigation may not have in
the end to be resorted to, as the only reliable
mode of obtaining these statistics, remains exceedingly
questionable at the present moment, so much disinclination
has been evinced by the agriculturists to comply with the
demands of Government. Nothing but a most stolid mis-
conception of the whole affair can possibly have incited
them to such a preposterous evidence of a disinclination to
satisfy inquiries so reasonable and so inoffensive. By resort-
ing, however, to a double application of the scrutiny, by
imitating the compensative position of the measures now
before the House of Peers, or, in other and plainer words, by
demanding statistical information in the factory as well as
the homestead, upon the cotton trade as well as upon the
cultivation of acres, this antipathy to divulge their doings
might be effectually removed from the mind of the farmer,
the wishes of the Noble• Member for Lynn might be com-
plied with, and the precise consequences of free trade might
be traced, in the fluctuations of those mercantile and
agricultural statistics. A more judicious appendix could
scarcely follow the acceptance of the new policy, as these
tables would form a Parliamentary microscope through which
we might the more readily and the more accurately observe
the ramifications of free trade, and discern to the smallest
tittle the manner in which the gradual and per-
manent opening of the ports affected us as corn-
growers and as throwers of the shuttle. The expense
of such a novel order of commissioners, or rather of
such an army of appraisers, is undoubtedly a matter which
demands every consideration; but their organisation would
tend so materially to simplify the views taken of the com-
mercial relations of this empire, that the advantage
derivable from the labours of such a body promise infinitely
more than a mere compensation of the outlay. And in the
event of the scheme being brought to maturity, it is desirable
that the information should be full and copious ; hence,
we conceive, that a mere application to the returns of the
Customs, or even to the Factory Inspector, as recommended
by the Hon. Member for Durham, would prove altogether
insufficient. If any statistics are to be obtained, surely it
would be desirable to have them recommended by their per-
spicuity and their accuracy, otherwise they might as well
remain uncollected. Under all circumstances, however, the
individualities might be filtered down into generalities before
they reached the Parliamentary printers ; the aggregate cal-
culations would be alone necessary. Howbeit we shall wait
patiently until the voluntary system is shown to be wholly
impracticable, satisfied that Government will then take deci-
sive steps for the acquisition of the desired intelligence.

A letter from Constantinople of the 29th ult., in a German
paper, states that the British Ambassador to the Porte, Sir
STRATI/ORD CANNING, had an audience of the SULTAN on
the 28th, to take leave on his departure for London, whence
it was believed he would not return. Mr. WELLESLEY, the
first Secretary of the Embassy, was to act ad interim as
Charge d'Affaires.

The Post Ampt Gazette of Frankfort publishes a letter
dated Posen, flay 7, from which we extract the following :
"The excitement not only continues in the Grand Ducky,
but is assuming even a more grave and alarming character.
Hitherto the nobles and clergy alone have taken part in the
revolutionary proceedings, but now symptoms of rebellion
appear among the peasantry. The people have been much
excited by the arrest of several of their priests, and in some
places sanguinary conflicts have ensued. At Wreschen, the
Karnorniks have assembled, and demanded a partition of
the land. Gnesen is said to have been a theatre of great
disorders, and a battalion is about to be marched to the en-
virons of this town."

Madrid papers to the I.lth have arrived.
The Gazette publishes a royal ordonnance conferring the
rank of Li:mt.-General on Major-General VILLALONGA.
The accounts from the provinces are on the whole very
satisfactory, but the Eco del Comercio gives from Grenada
an article stating that General Roscau, Count D'ALcov,
Captain-General of that province, had been guilty of an
atrocious outrage, which created a strong feeling of indig-
nation. On the 3d, as Don Jusxo BANQUERI, son of an ex-
member of the Royal Council, was walking with two friends
near the convent of San Felipe, a person called out " hats
off," and the order not being obeyed, the hat was forcibly
taken from the head of Don JusTo, who was afterwards
knocked down with great fury. The aggressor was General
RONCALL

The Hera?,lo states that the Grand Duke CONSTANTIWE,
of Russia, and the Duke and Duchess of SAXE COBOUIRG
Guru*, who had arrived st Gibraltar, have been treated
there with much distinction by the British authori-
ties. A letter of the sth instant, from Lugo, in
the Cato/ico, says :—" The ringleaders of the revolt
have either fl-3 or concealed themselves. One lieutenant
only has been arrested. He was preparing to escape from
the town. Besides the twelve officers shot at Garral, two or
three captains have been executed in the same way at Be-
laugos. On the 4th a sergeant was shot at Betanxos for
having struck the son cf General SANS, Minister of War, who
was his officer."

The works of the railroad at Aranjuez have, at length,
commenced. About 400 men are employed on them.
MADRID BOLSA, MAY 12.—There are no quotations in the
Bolsa list to-day. The Three per Cents. are reported to be
324 to cash. Exchange en London 37.

We have received the Paris papers of Monday.

In relation to the rumours that have of late been in
circulation as to the existence of a misunderstanding
between the Austrian and Sardinian Governments, the
Journal des Debats has an article which in some
measure tends to confirm those rumours, and to show
that Austria is displeased with the liberal policy of Sardinia,
and has shown her displeasure by commencing against Sar-
dinia that most absurd, inglorious, and losing of all wars, a
war of tariffs, while the King of. SARDINIA, like a wise
prince fights hostile tariffs with free trade, and must
eventually conquer. The article is also interesting, as show-
ing the great progress which sound commercial principles
are making in Italy.

i sahretdicl
in
Use Debats:—
L
The following
Byadecree,
published theil
the King of Sardinia has lowered do%)efficial Gazette of Turin,
customs'
veral articles of commerce, such as brandy,refinedduties on se-
all kinds, green fruits, millinery, and pweeal . sugars of
sure is not only an act of wise commercial n.
This Inca-
reform, it has also
a political bearing, of which it is well to point out at once
the origin and the object. For some years past it may have
been remarked that the Sardinian Government
had made a
sensible progress in the path of political moderation. By
ace
turns we have seen p i regulations mitigated, the censor-
ship made more tole
instruction placed ' tolerant, the principal direction of public
in the country,
but at the andsam'at* very devoted to the reigning dynasty,
hitherto been the unevery
hostile to the Jesuits,
who
Albert has well comprehended only directors of instruction. Kig hail
Charles
ani-
mosity have had their
riednded that violence and political
hoisted the standarr oiru his states,
and
hehas
progress, which, while it satisfies the gradual, and hence-
forthpositive
country, will, at the same time, ethe legitimate w?shesivoef
the probability of sanguinary revolutionsremove more and more
and violent dis-
orders. Men of superior minds, who a
Piedmont, in lending their assistance tore very
numerous in
have eagerly embraced this favourablethe Government,
ren-
dering themselves useful to their countr opportunity of
Abbe Gio-
berti, a philosopher and theologian of greaty merit,a
signal for the movement, by the publication of gave the
Italy, at once political and moral. The eloquenta Nvork on
writer,
caring little for the radical utopian ideas of many of his
countrymen, has demonstrated in his work, in a most pe.
remptory manner, that to secure the progress and future • wel-
fare of Italy, it was necessary to enlist the princes in the
national cause, by renouncing those fatal attempts at revolu-
tion, which have so much contributed to maintain a disas-
trous separation between them and their people. M. Gioberti
did not fail on this occasion to encourage King Charles
Albert to enter on this novel plan. Some time after this,
Count Cesar Balbo, one of the most noted personages at
Turin, and a distinguished writer, published a work, dedicated
to M. Gioberti, and entitled "The Hopes of Italy," in which
he insisted, in clear and positive terms, on the independence
of Italy. At other periods, any writer, before he would have
ventured to publish such sentiments, would have secured his
ety by. flight. Far from this being the case, M. Balbo
rtesides quietly at Turin, and is received at Court with the