The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-15 00:00:00

Coupons, 11/ for the 10th instant. Eichange on
London, 41 60.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
On Sunday a meeting of the Deputies of the Op•
position was held, the numbers present exceeding
one hundred. The object was to consider the line of
conduct they ought to pursue in consequence of the
vote of the Chamber on the last paragraph of the
Address. The meeting declared unanimously that
the Address, as voted, was a flagrant and audacious
violation of the rights of the minority, and that the
Ministry, in assuming the arbitrary power of putting
a stop to the meetings of the people, had violated one
of the most sacred principles of the Constitution, and
one of the most essential rights of citizens.
It further resolved that, in the present circum-
stances, it would not be prudent to resign their seats.
With respect to the Reform banquet in the twelfth
arrondissement, a committee was appointed to com-
municate with the committee of electors, and to
arrange with them for the attendance at the banquet
of the Deputies of the Opposition, the banquet being
got up as a protest against the arbitrary pretensions
of the Government. It was also resolved that no
member of the Opposition should join the deputation
appointed by the Chamber of Deputies to present the
Address to his MAJESTY.

This assemblage took place in the Place Madeleine,
and the manifesto of the Opposition, containing the
above statements, appeared in the Paris papers of
yesterday morning.
It would appear that this manifesto has caused no
little alarm to the Ministry of Louis PHILIPPE, for
the Journal des Debats hastens to assure the public
that the Government will soon introduce a Reform
Bill, and supplicates the Opposition to suspend the
agitation which already presents so formidable a
front. The reply to this is in the fact that the Re-
form banquet appointed to be held is to take place in
the heart of Paris.

The Mayors of arrondissements, in Paris, who be-
long to the Opposition signified their intended resigna-

tion if Government persisted in obstructing the
Reform meetings. A report was current that the
Prefect of the Seine had already resigned. A long
conference was held, it is presumed, upon these
urgent matters between M. Guise; M. DUCHATEL,
and the Minister of Justice.

On Sunday another significant circumstance

transpired. Sixty officers of the National Guard
sent an address to the Opposition Deputies, in which
they offered their services as an escort to the Reform
banquets, and as a guard against any obstruction to

:be fulfilment of the intended demonstration.

The receptions at the Tuileries continue. The
KING is in good health, and enjoys daily drives and
walks.

DEL CARRETTO, the late Minister of Police at
Naples, had reached Marseilles.
From private letters from Berlin it would seem
that Baron ALEXANDER VON HUMAOLDT is lying
dangerously ill.
There is no longer any hesitation as to the Reform
movement. The ,banquet is definitively fixed for
Thursday, or, at the latest, Sunday next. Every
man jack among the Opposition Deputies will at-
tend. Besides these there will be the opposition
National Guards, armed only with their side-arms,
since it is the etiquette that theY cannot otherwise le-
gally appear in arms except when summoned by their
chiefs.

There was a report prevalent yesterday in Paris
that SO officers of the National Guard had adhered

to the:manifesto of the Opposition Deputies, and avowed
their determination to attend at the banquet of the
12th arrondissement. The Government are resolved
at this moment to prevent the banquet. Their means
for enforcing submission to their will are immense.
The army in Paris and its environs is numerically
equal to the National Guard. Every barrack, every
post, every guard-house of the hundred that are in
the capital is fortified and safe from a coup de main.
The officers of the staff are studying the plan laid
down by Marshal GERARD for resistance to a revolt.
Every military post in Paris, and every one of the
forts that surround and command it, is gorged with
ammunition. There were no proceedings of any
interest in the Chamber of Peers yesterday. In the

Chamber of Deputies the project of law for defini-
tively regulating the budget of 1845 was discussed.
The Three per Cents. closed on the Paris Bourse

yesterday at 74f.; New Loan, Isf. ; the Five per
Cents., 1161. 60c. ; the Orleans Railroad Shares,
1,183 f. 75c. ; Rouen, 862 f. 50c.; Havre, 417 f. 50c.
Great Northern, 540 f. ; Avignon, 5281. 75c. ; Vier.
zon, 507 f. 50c.; Bordeaux, 475 f.; Boulogne, 365 f.;
Basle, 157 f. 50c. ; Paris and Strasburg, 403 f. 75c. ;
Tours and Nantes, 382 f. 50c. ; Paris and Lyons,
890 f.; Spanish Three per Cents., 315; ditto Pas-
sive, 4i.
MARSEILLES, FEB. 9.—Marseilles and Avignon,
552 f. 25c.; Northern, 5451.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, FEB. 14.

Boulogne and Amiens, 13%—Dutch Rhenish, 13/4—North-
ern of France, 11%.

ELECTION COMMITTEES.
(THIS DAY.)
WEST GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

The Select Committee appointed by the House of
Commons to ascertain the truth of the allegations con-
tained in the petition presented against the return of
Mr. Grantley Berkeley met for the first time this
morning in Committee-room No. 22 ; Mr. Granger in
the chair.

Mr. SergeantWrangham, Mr. Sergeant Kinglake, and
Mr. Merewether appeared for the petitioners ; and
Mr. Crowder, Q.C., with whom were Mr. Cooke and
Mr. Westley, for the sitting Member.
The usual preliminary resolution having been passed
by the Committee,
Mr. Sergeant WRANCHAM opened the case for the
petitioners, who, he said, were certain electors of West
Gloucestershire, and they complained of the return of
the sitting Member solely upon the ground of want of
qualification. The Committee were no doubt aware
that a qualification for Members of the House of Com-
mons had been required since a certain year in the
reign of Queen Anne, but the most important Act upon
this subject was passed in the ninth year of the reign of
Anne, which recited a former Act, and was entitled " An
Act for Securing the Freedom of Parliament, by further
qualifying Members to sit in the House of Com-
mons." That Act was afterwards amended by an
Act passed in the thirty-third year of the reign of George
the Second, which extended the provisions of these
qualifying Acts to Ireland, and which provided that all
knights of shires should have a qualification in land of
6001., and all burgesses who represented boroughs should
be required to possess a qualification of 3001. per annum
in land. These Acts remained in force down to the com-
mencement of the present reign, when by the statute of
the Ist and 2d Vic., chap. 48, these Acts were altered so
far as the subject-matter of the qualification was con-
cerned. The amount remained the same, but it was not
thought expedient or just, seeing that property of dif-
ferent descriptions had grown up since the passing of the
33d of George IL, any longer to continue the quali-
fication comprised only in the possession of land, and per-
sonal property, under certain circumstances, was admitted
to be a just qualification. Now, by the declaration
which the sitting Member had made of his qualifica-
tion it appeared that he founded his qualification upon
a rent charge of property in West Gloucestershire,
amounting to 7001., and an income derivable from money
invested in the funds. The money invested in the funds
amounted in the whole to 51,1421.145. 4d., and produced
an annual income of 1,5341. ss. 7d., but the latter sum
was subjected to a number of incumbrances, and after
providing for these incumbrances there only remained
an income of 2021. ss. 7d. The incumbrances consisted
pf annuities, which the sitting Member had granted
Is various parties. In the first place, there
was au annuity of 400/., granted to Mrs.
Grantley Berkeley, in the year 1824. In the year 1828
there was an annuity of 5161. a year granted to the Old
Rock Insurance Company, since transferred to the
Economic. In 1830 there was a second annuity of 86/.
a year granted to the same office. In 1839 an annuity
of 951. per year was granted to a gentleman named
Haskel. In 1842 an annuity of 1351: per annum was
granted to the Economic Life Office ; and in 1845 and
1847 Mr. Grantley Berkeley granted two annuities of
501. each to the Family Loan and Endowment Society,
These incumbrances, therefore, reduced the income of
Mr. Grantley Berkeley, derivable from funded property,
to 2021. ss. 7d. With regard to the rent charge of
700/., the Committee would find by the evidence
that Mr. Grantley Berkeley had no control over it. 'lt
was a rent charge, vested in certain parties in trust, to
pay at their discretion the proceeds to Mr. Grantley
Berkeley or to his wife. Since it had been left the
proceeds had been paid to Mr. Grantley Berkeley, but
the trustees had it within their power to withhold the
money. It would be clear, therefore, if he could sub-
stantiate this statement by evidence, that Mr. Grantley
Berkeley had no qualification, and he had no right to sit
for the Western Division of the county of Gloucester.
It was decided by the Committee that the onus lay
with the petitioner, to prove that Mr. Grantley Berkeley
was not qualified to hold a seat in the House of Com-
mons without calling upon that gentleman in the first
instance to make good his qualification.

GREAT MARLOW.
The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the
truth of the allegations contained in the petition pre-
sented against the retera of Thomas P. Williams, Eig
and Colonel Brownlow Knox for Gi..,t assian-
bled for the first time this morning, in CorainitteQ•room
I`TO. 24 ; Sir John rakington in the chair,