The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-25 00:00:00

attalt,
,„

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1848.

But that the prolongation of the Parliamentary
session is becoming rather a bore than otherwise, we
should certainly estimate ourselves as in some mea-
sure grateful to the Hon. Representative for You-
ghal, inasmuch as he yesterday evening elicited from
the lips of the Prime Minister the most delightful
speech delivered in the House of Commons during
the year of Grace 1848. Lord Joust spoke, indeed,
with all that rhetorical tartness of manner for which
he is unrivalled—an acidity of sarcasm beyond even
the seholastic gibes of the Hors. Member for Buck-
inghamshire. Nor is the success of the Noble Lord
surprising when we bear in recollection that he had
been long goaded, aggravated, and worried on to this
display of his satiric abilities. In his remarks of last
night he paid off the scores of a protracted annoyance.
He endeavoured to compensate the House by
one speech of surpassing bitterness and of superlative
derision for the miseries of ennui which it had borne
with so much heroism in consequence of the pitiless
loquacity of Mr. THOMAS CHISHOLM ANSTEY. And
that the endeavour of the Noble Lord was eminently
realised we take to be sufficiently proven by the
cheers and laughter by which his allusions were
greeted.
To enhance the discomfort with which the House
yesterday evening listened to the commencement of
the discussion on the consideration of the Diplomatic
Relations with Rome Bill, Sir JOHN TYRELL backed
up the factious opposition of Messrs. ANSIFEY and
URQUHART. While the Member for Youghal had
the frivolity, we might almost say the indelicate ab-
surdity, to protest against the proposed measure as
" insulting and derogatory to his Holiness the POPE,"
because it designated that potentate as " Sovereign
of the Roman States," the Hon. Representative of
North Essex had the effrontery to read a private letter
to the assembled Commons of England—a letter
which branded one gentleman with cowardice and
another with treason—simply for the purpose of
offering an additional obstruction to the
htitnane and ennobling scheme of the Govern-
ment. Why—if we may be pardoned for
treating the preposterous objection of Mr. ANSTEY
seriously—the title given by the Bill to Pope Pius
IX. is so far from being either insulting or dero-
gatory to the position of that illustrious man, that
it is the loftiest title which any Protestant Legis-
lature could with any degree of consistency bestow
upon the chief bishop of Catholicity. In fact, to
style him " Sovereign Pontiff," or, as Mr. ANSTEY
himself suggests, " Supreme Pontiff of the Roman
Church," would be to recognise his rank in his
ecclesiastical capacity, and the sole object of the
Bill in question is to recognise Pius IX. in
his political capacity. Were the Government to
act, otherwise —to establish diplomatic relations
with the POPE, as Pope, instead of with him as
Sovereign of the Papal States—it would be acting
in a manner unjustifiably unconstitutional.
Nothing can now retard the reconciliation of the
hitherto estranged Cabinets of St. James's and the
Quirinal. The Liberal Administration will have
the credit of erasing from the statute-book of Eng-
land enactments which have until now rendered the
interchange of correspondence punishable and repre-
hensible, or at the least will explain away those
misapprehensions which have heretofore prevented any
overt communication between the two Governments.
In defiance of the factious opposition of such rancor-
ous quibblers as Messrs. ANSTEY and Ungunsnr, in
spite of the bigotry of Sir JOHN TYRELL and the
fanaticism of Mr. SPOONER, the most generous, if not
the most practically useful measure of the present
session, will be very speedily triumphant—a conside-
ration of the more importance inasmuch as Rome will
inevitably be the central point or metropolis of
United Italy. Whatever may occur either north-
wards or southwards of the Papal States, either
in the kingdom of the Sardinians or of the
Neapolitans, the Eternal City is already re-
garded as the spot on which the League
of Italian Princes will become visible. No matter
whether Lombardy be erected into an indepen-
dent state or annexed to Piedmont, or retained by
Austria, whether Venice be proclaimed a Republic
or held under the yoke of Germany, whether Sicily
be resigned to the younger son of CHARLES ALBERT
or to the Prince of CAPUA, or to any other personage
whom the Sicilians may accept as their Sovereign, no
matter whether the King of NAPLES be hurled from his
throne by an infuriated population, or the ter-
ritories of the Grand Duke of TUSCANY be
enhanced by the absorption of the minor duchies,
such as Parma and Guastalla—under all cir-
cumstances, Rome will inevitably remain the
centre of the Italian movement, and that, not only
from its geographical position and its historical asso-
ciations, but also from the fact of the words of libera-
tion having been first articulated under the shadow of
the Vatican,and the standardof nationality having been
first unfurled by the anointed hands of the PONTIFF.
In his last preface to "Rienzi," written towards the
commencement of 1848, Sir EDWARD BULWER
LYTTON declared his ;conviction that the regenera-
tion of the Roman peninsula must ultimately come
from the young blood of Sardinia. While we coin-
cide with our distinguished author, however,
in looking to the realms of CHARLES ALBERT
for the vigour and the acti •
on of the
regenerative movement in Italy, we must
aver, in like manner, that to ourselves it appears
equally inevitable that the intellect and the guidance
of that glorious movement will still continue to ori-
ginate in the Council Chambers of the Eternal City.
Sardinia may be the hero, but Rome will be the
monitor. Rome is the MENTOR, Sardinia the TE.
LEMACHUS, of the Italians.

On Wednesday we pointed out that the four wit-
nesses delegated and selected by large and influential
commercial bodies to represent them, and express
their opinions on the late monetary crisis before the

Committee of the House of Commons, were unani-
mously opposed to the Act of 1844, which they be-
lieved " to have considerably aggravated the commer-
cial distress of 1847," and consequently recom-
mended that "it should be amended by the in-
troduction of some power to abate its restricting
regulations." In addition to that most powerful
testimony, we find Messrs. MURRAY, BRISTOW, AN-
DERSON, and BALL, the parties representing the Pro-
vincial Bank of Ireland, the Northern Bank of Ire-
land, the City of Glasgow Bank, and the Union Bank
of Scotland, all of the same opinion, in which three
of the most influential persons connected with the
metropolitan money market, and six persons who re-
presented important manufacturing establishments in
the provinces, and two eminent writers, fully coin-
cided. This then was the evidence which the impartial
and unprejudiced Committee so cavalierly set aside,
relying upon the opinions of four individuals
as of superior weight and authenticity to those of the
remaining twenty. Who then were the favoured few,
who carried with them such strong conviction to the
minds of the Committee ? SAMUEL JONES LOYD, the
putative parent of the inculpated measure, the man to
whose sinister influence the nation is indebted for the
formidable difficulties it has encountered, the misery
and suffering inflicted upon thousands of industrious
and once happy families, he, of course, chaunted the
praises of the Act, and justified all its provisions,
even those which compelled the Government to sanc-
tion its temporary suspension. The Governor and
Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England, and one
of its directors also advocated the same view.
These were the only persons who had the hardihood
to enter the lists in defence of what has been justly
termed " the supplement and corollary to the Act
of 1819," while, on the other side, we had the
universal feeling of all those connected with
the banking, the commercial, and the manu
facturing interests of the country. We feel
that such a disparity justifies an appeal to the
common sense and intelligence of the community at
large from the decision at which the carefully selected
and well-chosen Committee arrived, or rather which
Sir CHARLES WOOD prepared and the obedient ma-
jority so readily sanctioned and adopted as their own.
It may appear strange that the Committee, who might
have summoned witnesses whose views were more in
accordance with those of the majority, should not have
at least produced sufficient testimony to render their
report less glaringly opposed to the weight of the
evidence. In truth, however, the certainty that was
afforded by the composition of the Committee ren-
dered the parties on trial indifferent to the nature or
amount of the proofs that should be brought forward.
They were certain of a verdict, and they did not
take the ordinary precautions to justify their decision
:o the public in general. They could not refuse to

examine the parties who were delegated and chosen
by such important constituencies. They could not
act towards them as they did to Mr. Wu.LiAm
BLACKER, a gentleman whose sound judgment and
enlarged and comprehensive views rendered him a
peculiarly eligible witness, if their object really was
to elicit truth and to obtain a clear insight into the

various opinions entertained out of„ doors with respect
to the working and operation of the Act. Mr.
BLACKER had been one of its most uncompromising
opponents from the earliest period, and before it had
received the legislative sanction or become the law of
the land. He had published a prediction, afterwards
so completely verified, that " when any serious com-
mercial pressure should arise Parliament would either
have to be assembled in order to repeal or suspend it,
or Ministers would have to suspend it on their own au-
thority." The well-established character of Mr.
BLACKER as a clear-beaded and intelligent
man of business, an able and lucid writer,
would appear to demand that he should
have been called upon to explain his opi-
nions, and bear the test of the strictest cross-
examination to which he could be subjected. The
Committee, however, positively, and without assigning
any reason whatsoever, refused to hear his evidence, or
to permit it to go forth to the public as having been
taken before them. We rejoice, however, to state
that Mr. BLACKER has not been silenced by this unfair
determination ; he has given to the world a state-
ment of the evidence which he was prepared to offer
on the subject, and we venture to say that it will not
prove the least convincing or satisfactory to those who
desire accurate information and fair and incontro-
vertible deductions from admitted facts. When ex-
amining the evidence more in detail, which we pur-
pose doing from time to time during the ensuing
vacation, we shall regard Mr. BLACKER'S evidence,
not as if it had only been tendered, but as if it had
actually been delivered, as most undoubtedly it ought
to have been.

We may, therefore, reasonably conclude, from
the treatment of Mr. BLACKER, that it was not
from any forbearance on the part of the Com-
mittee, but because they could not procure
persons prepared to come forward in justifica-
tion of the measure, and to let their opinions
stand the test of the strict examination to which they
would undoubtedly be exposed by those discontented
with the present state of the law—and their name is
legion—that further evidence v+s3 not brought forward
to neutralize that which could not be rejected or set
aside.

SPAIN.
Madrid journals of the 19th have arrived. They
contain no news.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The Moniteur contains a decree convoking fifteen
electoral colleges to fill up the vacancies in the
National Assembly. Three of these vacancies are in
the representation of Paris.
In the sitting of the National Assembly, M. Goy's,-
CHAIM, the Finance Minister, presented his project
for a tax on all moveable property. He said—" The
tax in question should be proportional, and the great
object which the Government had in view was to
restore that equilibrium which the Monarchy had
promised, and which the Republic was destined to
carry into effect. The sum which he expected to
raise was about 60,000,000 f. a year from a general
income of 3,760,000,000 f., or in round numbers of
3,000,000,000 f., which would give a rate of about
two per cent. The manner in which the tax should
be divided should be made to depend on the ordinary
contingent of taxation in the departments. Salaries,
gains from agricultural pursuits, from commerce,
rente, shares, everything in fact that constituted
moveableiproperty, were to be included in the opera-
tions of the tax." The project was ordered to be re-
ferred to the Bureau. _ _ _

According to the Constilsitionne/, Mr. RICHARD
O'GORMAN has succeeded in effecting his escape from
Ireland. He landed from a fishing•boat at St.
Brieuc, a small town on the coast of Brittany, near

Brest.

The rumour that a revolution had taken place in
Russia was current in Paris yesterday, but no one
attached any credit to it.
The Minister of Marine has proposed a grant of
ninety millions to the French slaveholders as an in-
demnity for the emancipation of their slaves.
The Messager says—
" It is asserted that the Government is resolved to let
things follow their own course in the discussion of the
inquiry. An application for the authority of the Na-
tional Assembly to prosecute Louis Blanc and Caussi-
diere is already prepared, and will be brought forward
by the Minister of Justice. The Assembly, it appears,
is resolved to go through the debate without an adjourn-
ment, and even to hold a night sitting, if necessary."
The publication of the Gazette de France, which is
edited by the Abbe DE GENOUDE, has been sus-
pended. A meeting of the editors of the Paris daily
papers has been called, of which the Presse says :
" The object of the meeting is for the purpose of com-
ing to an understanding as to the adoption of one of the
following resolutions, which became necessary from the
fact that the liberty of the press no longer exists either
iu fact or in right, since the journals may be suppressed
or suspended without being seized, which would be a
notice of their danger, or without trial to condemn them.
The resolutions to be proposed are either—lit, That the
journals shall cease to appear; 2d, They shall abstain
from all discussion, and limit themselves strictly to the
publication of facts; 3d, That they shall publish a com-
mon protest; or 4th, That the editors will draw up a col-
lective petition to the Natioeal Assembly, who could not
have wished, in voting the decrees of the 11th August
last, to leave the press under a regime incomparably
worse than that of the censorship."
BOURSE, PARIS, THURSDAY, Auc. 24.
THREE o'CLociL—The Bourse opened to-day, with
every appearance of continuation of the rise of yester-
day and the day before, but several speculators having
: i:
endeg
,u
sfr eod to realise their profits by selling, the Rentes
gradually gave way, and closed about per cent. below
the p
Fire yesterday. There was no news to account
for the fall.
For the Account, the French Three per
Cents. and
per Cents. have fallen 25c. each ; Loan
is the same as
yesterday. For Money, the Three per
Cents. and F
Bons du Tres per Cents. have also fallen 25c.;
or ate at 23 discount ; Bank of