The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-02 00:00:00

i*tnintif 4.ltatt

LONDON, WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 2, 1846

Accounts from Ireland are both encouraging and
alarming. The proceedings already taken by
Government for the amelioration of the miseries of
its people, and the character already acquired by the
Ministry and their officials, as friends of that popula-
tion, have instilled a balm into Irish society; have
allayed all the heartburnings and discontentment of
the multitude ; and have prepared the way for the
better: egislation and the social re-organization of that
populous, but impoverished community. In this re-
spect the aspect of Ireland is all sunshine; in another
it is all darkness and desolation. Preceding intelli-
gence of the failure of the potato crop was but feebly
indicative of the reality. By former packets we wert
assured that the murrain 1 ad developed itself with
immeasurably greater rapidity, and had committed
even at this commencement of the season infinitely

greater devastation throughout the country
than on the occasion of its appearance in 1845.
Terrible, however, as was this picture, it is as nothing
to the confirmations of the account, now arriving week
after week at Liverpool and Bristol. From one extremity
of Ireland to the other—eastwards, westwards, north-
wards, and southwards—that vegetable pestilence has
extended, withering the foliage of the adjacent hedges,
blasting the verdant stalks and leaves of the potato
plant to a brown and pestiferous decay, and soddening
the tubers with the most ineradicable rottenness.
That beautiful epithet, applied to his country by
MOOHE and his brother melodists, is no longer appli-
cable. " The Emerald Island" is now a mockery to
a land reeking with noxious vapours and fruitless
fields. The "green isle of the ocean" presents
a landscape now more deplorable than wilder-
nesses of sand. Its population behold their toil
in cultivating the earth rendered useless by
an alarming freak of nature ; they find their
scanty provisions turning into poison round their
hovels ; they hear of considerable quantities of
oats and wheat exported from the markets of Lime-
rick and elsewhere, and they are assured, as they turn
to obey the promptings of hunger, by devouring their
infected potatoes, that they might with equal wisdom
consume proportionate quantities of arsenic. No
language, however sombre, can convey any adequate
impression of the mournfulness and the inauspicious
gloom which pervades the inland, and even the sea-
ward districts of Ireland. Nevertheless, it is suffi-
cient briefly to say that such is literally the con-
dition of her people. We have no ambition to harrow,
the feelings of the public by detailing the pangs of
their countrymen. We never took pleasure in
lingering over the woes of UGOLINO, or over
such spectacles of sufferings as that described by
DANTE, in his narrative of purgatory, where
one phantom tore the hair and scalp of his
enemy off with his teeth, and glanced up for
an instant at the bard with his jaws dripping with
blood, and clogged with hair from the prosecution of
his devilish banquet. Our sympathies do not
attract us in such a horrid direction. A calm and
explicit statement of the broad fact will be amply
sufficient for our purpose :—the potato crop is destroyed
throughout Ireland—cholera has already appeared in
those quarters where the contaminated roots have been
devoured—starvation and contagion must inevitably
follow, unless efforts are made to eradicate the dis•
ease already generated, and to supply the deficiency
by the importation of provisions and the giving em-
ployment to the sufferers.
Impressed with the reality of the emergency, it
becomes of next importance to inquire whether the
movements and propositions of the Executive are
proportioned to that emergency. We think not. The
Administration has proceeded upon the right prin-
ciple ; we believe the various members of the Cabi-
net to be actuated by the most generous sentiments
towards the Irish population, and yet we are per-
suaded from our hearts that more remains to be done,
if they would effectually allay the social and corpo-
real and moral pangs of that heretofore doomed and
luckless race. Soothing syrups are inadequate to
calm a body so racked and tormented ; the devil, by
which its constitution is rent and contorted, must be
exorcised before anything like a healthful calm can
be restored. Fifty thousand pounds—calls upon
baronies—recommendations to the merchants of
Ireland to import Indian corn and meal for home
consumption, and such like precautions, are not suffi-
cient, we are assured, to restore the community to
peace, plenty, and contentment. They are, as pre-
liminary measures, admirable. And for having so
far answered to the call of a whole nation for protec-
tion and assistance, the Government has acted wisely
and nobly. It has, indeed, entitled itself to the
emphatic commendations and support of Mr. O'CoN-
NELL. "I am bound to say," exclaimed the Libe-
rator, on Monday morning, " I am bound to say the
Government shows the utmost degree of anxiety to
afford relief!" That is precisely the position of the
question. Lord JOHN RUSSELL and his colleagues
have shown themselves, and we believe them to be,
the true friends of Ireland. They have shown them-
selves to be thus animated with sentiments of good-
will to that island by the conciliation of their Parlia-
mentary and Ministerial behaviour, by the appoint-
ments under Government, by the expressions in
which they have alluded to Irish destitution
and Irish distress. They have shown it in
the measures passed through both Houses
immediately before the prorogation of Parliament.
The Ministers have indeed evinced the utmost
anxiety to relieve ; but the question immediately
under consideration is, not as to the anxiety to relieve,
but as to the relief itself. We are compelled to think
thus from the calamitous condition of Ireland ; and,
thinking thus, we are most anxious for activity, acti-
vity, activity. Nevertheless, we are really sanguine of
the ultimate safety and happiness of Ireland, because
we are likewise sanguine that her MAJESTY'S Ministers
will be as vigilant as they have already proved them-
selves wise and generous.

According to our promise we resume the consi-
deration of the Report of the Committee of Rail-
ways. The other recommendations on the Com-
mittee are, first, that " No future lines, either for
main trunks or branches, should be ceded, except for
terms of years." We do not think that the policy of
this suggestion is quite so clear as that of the others
to which we have already called attention, now that
the principal and most remunerative lines have
been already constructed or sanctioned by the Legis-
lature, and a variety of other projects have been
embarked in, which have only been postponed until
the next session of Parliament; which, if then ap-
proved of, could not in justice or equity be made sub-
ject to the operation of a law not in existence when
the capital was subscribed and the preliminary
expenses incurred. The lines which are not included
in either of the above categories do not afford so
tempting a prospect to capitalists desirous of per-
manent investment, as to lead to the supposition that
they will be undertaken and carried into execution, if
the proprietors are to be entitled to them only for a
limited term of years, in place of in perpetuity, as
heretofore. The Government must, therefore, in all pro-
bability, either construct them with the public money,
or suffer the wants of the country to 'remain unpro-
vided for; either of which courses appears to us
highly objectionable. We think that the Government
should never enter into competition with the subjects
in fair and bond fide speculations; the prosperity of a
country is owing to the wealth of individual mem-
bers more than to that of the State itself. And we
think that greater happiness and benefit to the nation,
in general, will be obtained by the large amount of
capital represented by railway, being permitted to
remain in the hands of the proprietors, than if it had,
on the expiration of the terms of years for which
they had been conceded, become the exclusive
property of the State. We think the true and
just principle is, that the most perfect freedom
of action should be conceded to every person
in any enterprise in which he may think it desirable
to embark. If the Government are to be suffered to
become traders, to embark ha any project or under-
taking, because it appears likely to prove profitable,
the natural and probable result will be, that indivi-
dual enterprise will be extinguished in that particular
branch where the nation itself starts as a competitor
and rival. We profess ourselves to be free-traders in
the most extended meaning of- the term, and we con-
ceive that, by such an interfe.muce, the energies of
the people would be cramped and fettered. The
public have a right to demand: that the fullest con-
trol and superintendence shall be exercised by a com-
petent body over the enanagt!ment of the different
companies, so that the nation al interests should not
be prejudiced by the exclusi ye rights conceded to
them, but with that exception„ -which necessity de-
mands, it should be left in the hands of the pro-
prietary.
The second recommendatit m, that full and ac-
curate accounts of the pr( )cce dings of railway
companies, embracing their • whole receipts and ex-
penditure, shall be laid from ti rat to time before Par-
liament, we fully assent to ; the greatest degree of
publicity, should be given to all their acts in order
that it may be fully tested wh ether the mode of their
management is correct in pr inciple, and beneficial
both to themselves and the pubaic in its results—in-
deed the due control and superir itendence, the necessity
of which we have advocated, de anands this publicity to
give it effect. The third and fourth recommenda-
tions, we have already alluded to, and expressed our
approbation of, and also the filt la, which has already

been partially acted on by the formation of the new '
railway board, to which all the necessary powers will
be accorded next session. The preliminary inquiries
thereby suggested will be valuable, not merely in
deciding what lines are necessary for the supply of
the wants of the country, and how far a given project
may be conducive to that end, and providing Par-
liament with such information as may be of use
to enable it to legislate in the way most beneficial
to the public, but also in materially diminishing the
extraordinary amount of preliminary expenses, legal
and otherwise, the magnitude of which is one of the
greatest blots and abuses on the English system. The
Parliamentary expenses of the Great Western Rail-
way are stated to have been 1,0001. per mile, of the
London and Birmingham 6501. per mile, and of the
Eastern Counties, of fifty-one miles, 45,0901., while
the other preliminary expenses amounted to no less
a sum than 48,6501., making no less an expenditure
than 93,8401., before one single shilling was expended
in the actual construction of the works. This fearful
waste of the public money is a grievance to which
there must be placed some limitation. If returns
could be obtained of the solicitors' bills of costs and
other expenses incurred during the progress of the
mania last year, in the several schemes that never
even came before Parliament, or did not obtain the
legislative sanction, a sum total would be
presented that would astound the public. When it is
stated on good authority that the solicitor's account in
one Bill, which never went beyond the Standing
Orders' Committee of the House of Commons,
amounted to no less a sum than 82,000/., and this
exclusive of the expenses of engineers, and various
other outlays, some notion may be formed of the
aggregate of the 700 schemes, and upwards, which
came to an untimely end, or at least did not receive
the sanction of the Legislature. They certainly
manage things far better in France, in this respect,
when we find, that in the Rouen and Havre line, the
expenses incurred in the inquiry before the board,
and up to the time the Act was obtained, amounted to
only 7001., about the one-hundredth part of what it
would have cost in this country—indeed, we fear that
the great facility given to the creation of costs
and law expenses was the original and ex-
citing cause of a very large proportion of the
crude and undigested schemes by which the country
was last year deluged, and which did so much mis-
chief in its results. A lawyer wanted business, and
forthwith a railway was got up for his especial
benefit. He had his staff of provisional committee-
men ready, who, dazzled by the premiums at which
every new scheme came out, and, reckless of the lia-
bilities and consequences entailed upon themselves,
too readily lent the sanction of their names to any
undertaking.
The only remaining recommendation is, " that the
companies should he obliged to carry the Post-office
mails by passenger trains, free of all charges, and at
times when there are no passenger trains for the ad-
ditional expense thereby occasioned." Now we
cannot assent to this suggestion. We see no reason
why the Government should be permitted to take the
property or the labour of individuals without a fair
recompense therefor ; every facility that is re-
quired for the public service should be given,
and at a fair and reasonable rate; but that pressing
into the public service gratuitously what may be
obtained by paying for it, is one of the most objec-
tionable features of a despotic power. We think
that point may be fairly left to the control and super-
intendence of the new board, to decide on a fair and
equitable adjustment of the question between the
companies and the public. The same may be said of
the case of soldiers, sailors, and other bodies of men
in the public service, the alterations respecting which
have not been considered by the Committee. On the
whole the report may be considered a most valuable
document, affording data and premises on which the
public may be enabled to arrive at just and reason-
able conclusions ; and much is due to Mr. MORRISON
and his coadjutors for the zeal and ability with which
they conducted the inquiry entrusted to their charge.

It appears that the person who sent the box of
explosive materials to the Prince of SAMos, at Con
stantinople, with the intention of murdering his
Highness, and the explosion from which wounded
his servant and physician, is a certain CONSTANTINE
STAMATIDES, the friend and associate of M. COLETTI,
the Prime Minister of Greece, of M. PISCATORY, the
French Ambassador at the Court of Athens, and who
accompanied the French Admiral TUEPIN as inter-
preter, during his recent voyage in the Archipelago.

The question of the Jesuits was considered by the
Swiss Diet, which was held at Zurich on the 25th of
August. On the question being put to the vote, the
following were the results :—For the abandonment of
the question, 81 states ; to declare the question a
federal affair, 101 states ; to summon all the states to
repel the Jesuits, 94 states ; to invite only Lucerne
to expel them, 81 states ; to invite the three other
states to adopt that measure, 71 states ; to prohibit
any further reception of the Jesuits, 101 states.

We learn from a letter, published in the German
Gazette of Frankfort, that the Austrian Government
had consented to take off the sequestration placed on
the property of the Princess CZARTORYSKI in Galicia,
on the Prince signing a written engagement not to
interfere in the affairs of Poland. The latest intelli-
gence from Galicia is to the 18th ult., and is pub-
lished in the Cologne Gazctte. It is as follows :

" We learn from Tarnew,of the 16th, that the peasants
of Wolga, near Dembetza, to the number of 200, excite d
by a Jewish emissary, assailed the Chateau of Wolga,
and pillaggd it. The owner of the chateau escaped with
great difficulty. On the receipt of this news a detach-
ment of cavalry left Dembetza for Wolga, and dispersed
the band, taking 26 prisoners. The principal leader,
however, escaped. This event has caused so much alarm
among the gentry, that they all lett their country houses
and sought refuge in the towns. Tarnow is full of re-
fugees. The reports in circulation, that disturbances
had taken place in the circles of Lt.mberg, is without
foundation—everything remains tranquiL"

The King of DENMARK has accepted the resigna-
tion of the Prince of AUGUSTENBURG as Commander-
in-Chief of Schleswig-Holstein, and discharged him
from the office of President of the Regency of the
the Duchy. Major-General Ltizow is appointed
Comm.ander-in-Chief. His MAJESTY has, however,
continued to the Prince of AUGESTENEURG the emo-
luments of the offices held by him as a pension.
A letter from Ystad, in Scania (Sweden) of the
24th, says :
" The King and Queen of Sweden have been attacked
with the measles, while on a visit at the Chateau of the
Count de Piper, at Krageholm, but are now in a state of
convalescence. The disorder has been very prevalent in
this province during the summer. The Prince Royal
and Prince Augustus have also suffered from it, but
slightly. The squadron of evolution has brought back
Prince Oscar from St. Petersburgh to Calscrona. His
reception by the Emperor of Russia was most gracious.
The Prince Royal and Prince Gustavus are to be present
at the manoeuvres of the camp in Silesia, and will after-
wards visit the Courts of Dresden and Munich. The
Queen-Mother Rill not return to Stockholm until their
Majesties are perfectly recovered."

The Augsburgh Gazette publishes a letter, dated
Athens, August 13, which states that the Govern-
ment had submitted to the Chamber a Bill, declaring
that two-thirds of the surplus of the receipts over the
expenditure of :the year 1845.6, should be employed
in payment of the interest and sinking fund of the
debt due by Greece to England and Russia.
Madrid papers to the 26th have arrived.

On the evening of the 25th there had been a grand
reception at the Palace in honour of the file day of
the Infanta LUISA FERNANDA. The question of the
QUEEN'S marriage still occupied the public atten-
tion. The Members of the Cabinet, it is
said, are divided ; some being in favour of Don
FRANCISCO D'Assls, others of a Prince of Coburg.
The majority, however, are in favour of Don
FRANCISCO.

MADRID BOLSA, .AUG. 26.—The Three per Cents.
w ere done at 34 for cash ; the Four per Cents., at
214 ; the Five per Cents., at 22 ; the Debt without
Interest, at 64 ; and the Coupons, at 204.

We have received the Paris papers of Monday.
The following article on the policy of the new
POPE is from the Journal des Debeits. It is important
as showing that the French Government will support
the Sovereign Pontiff in the career of liberality which
he has adopted, provided he continues to maintain
legality and order, the best guarantees for the main-
tenance of which are to be found in the timely con-
cession of necessary reforms. After praising the
appointment of Cardinal Gizzi and the measures
hitherto adopted by that Minister, the Journal des
Debcits thus proceeds :
"It may be affirmed that the moderate party hae never