The Sun.
London, England, 1848-04-12 00:00:00

iiini Pinto

LONDON. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1848.

Three important subjects just now occupy the Le-
gislature and engross the interest and attention of
the country—the Chartist Petition, the Government
m
Security Bill, and the n for the Repeal of the
which
Union. Public attention, has latterly been
almost wholly engrossedbythe marvellous events
transpiring in foreign countries,
now directed
nearer home. The interest and anxiety. elicited by
recent movements, and rumours of movements,Tthe
metropolis and the remoter parts of the Lnited in
King-
dom, are now concentrated upon the proceedings
Parliament. For it is there, according to the of
ad-
mirable organization of our Constitution, it is there,in the House which represents the people, that the
various grievances, real or supposed, which have
agitated the public mind and disturbed the general
tranquillity, are to be fully set forth in order to re-
ceive due consideration and redress. The Chartist
Petition was presented to the House on Monday
evening, and on Friday next is to be taken
into consideration. The Government Bill partially
pas?ed through Committee yesterday morning, and
the motion for the Repeal of the Union was last night
introduced by Mr. J. O'CoNNaLL. It is, perhaps,
fitting that these three subjects should simultaneously
c'ecapy public attention, for they in some respects
bear a close affinity to one another, they are in many
respects nearly identified—identified, that is to say,
nots in the objects at which they aim, but in the inter-
: 7h ict they affect. Two of these subjects, namely,
elmrt at. Petition and the Government Bill, will,
we are incur, .3 to think,
e' notwithstanding the ordi-
nary impartiality
apoir
tion more of the ouse, receive a considera-
than to theirpti individual
to the urgency of the times
ndo
extraordinary demonstrations merits. For example, the
attended the presentation which were to have
°ll or the Chartist Petition
have called forth so
occasioned such seriougsreaarntppr.ehensions of
an excitement, and
disturbances, that the general
are no longer called in questioenn-ts those ordinarily
of this petition
well disposed towards the red even
points of the
gole affair is set
Charter pass them over, and theemwinh
This is what
down as seditious and revolutione
the Chartists have brought u
monoartrhye-mselves by their
acelonmoderate among
ill-advised proceedings. The
them are loud in their lament
no s on the injury
thus inflicted on the cause.
asuraanndce
w:ver, they vosy
console themselves with the
that
right invariably prospers eventually,
AO far as their cause is right, it can only have'ence,
sus-
tained a temporary injury from the misconduct of its
advocates. But, as we have already said, the indi-
vidual merits of the Charter will not be called in
question in the present instance. The House will
listen to the motion founded on the petition with
that respect which 5,000,000 signatures must in-
evitably elicit. The country will be interested in the
matter on account of the alarm which it has
recently occasioned, but that very alarm will prevent
any stronger feeling than a vague interest being
testified, and then the motion will be listened to, and

set aside and forgotten. In like manner, the exigency
of the time=, rather than its individual merits, will
influence the fate of the Protection for the Crown
and Government Bill. The necessity of the
times renders it both legitimate and expedient,
and the necessity of the times, and that alone,
supports it with such large majorities in a House
ordinarily so jealous of conferring increased powers
on the Government, and so inimical to all coercive
and restrictive measures. The question of Repeal,
however, will have none of these advantageous or
disadvantageous adjuncts to hasten or retard its pro-
gress. It has been already canvassed and debated
on ; its merits have been duly examined, and found

wanting.
Mr. J. O'CONNELL, in bringing forward his
motion last night, expatiated upon the present
miseries of Ireland—miseries of whose existence the
staunchest anti-repealer does not affect to doubt, but
which miseries can be in no wise occasioned by the
legislative union of the two kingdoms, as Mr. J
O'CONNELL does not hesitate to assert. " Look at,
the state of the poor of Ireland since the union,"
he exclaims—" badly housed, badly clothed, and
badly fed, and reduced on all hands to absolute beg-
gary and destitution, to starvation and death ! Nearly
-1,000,000 of the population of Ireland were receiving
alms last year, 1,000,0(0 of them have been swept
away from the face of the earth, 250,000 have been
driven to emigrate, of whom 30,000 have perished."
These are most melancholy facts, we must admit, but
we should Ise curious to know in what manner they
can be attributed to the legislative union. This
very distress of Ireland is, in fact, only an
additional argument in favour of her union
with England. "It would be difficult," said
Lord AIORPETII, in his admirable discourse last
night, " it would be difficult for the Hon. Member
(Mr. J. O'CONNELL) to show how the separation of
the poorer from the richer country would he likely
to improve the condition of the former." The debate
was not concluded last night, but adjourned till
Thursday next; yet after the speeches of last night we
should imagine that little more remains to be said,
for the four gentlemen who have addressed
the House are the chief and the most able
advocates of either side—the two Mr. O.CONNELLS
and the present and a former Secretary for Ireland.
Sir W. SOMERVILLE and Lord MORPETH. The
speech of the Noble Member for the West Riding
was peculiarly eloquent and emphatic, and it came
with especial grace from him who has been for so
long a period the tried and zealous friend of the Irish
people. His earnest and unqualified denunciations of
repeal were in consequence rendered doubly influen-
tial and effective, .and their effect was considerably
increased by his frank avowal of the grievances of
which Ireland complains, and his unhesitating decla-
ration that much is necessary on the part of the
Government and the Legislature to ameliorate the
condition of that afflicted country. His observations
on this head were alike honourable to himself and
encouraging to those who sympathise in the suffer-
ings and wrongs of Ireland. The Noble Lord said—
"l am far from wishing it to be considered that I as-
sume the present state of Ireland with respect to her
laws, with respect to her social relations, to her ecnno
mical condition, is everything that I should wish to see
it.—(Hear, hear.) During the whole period I have
been allowed to pass in public life—from the very
first words I uttered in this House, when I seconded
the motion for the repeal of the Roman Catholic
Disabilities, through the whole period of my tenure
of office in Ireland—l have never shown myself
reluctant to improve what I have found in existence, or
to remodel existing institutions.—(Cheers.) I was a
party to the alteration in the law respecting the Church,
in the laws respecting municipal corporations, in the
laws respecting the poor, and in the laws respecting
grand juries—nay more, in common with my Noble
Relative, the Member for Lynn (Lord George Bentinck)
I was the originator of a proposal for putting the long
lines of railway in Ireland under Government superin-
tendence.—(Hear.) But, far from being consented with
my own handiwork—far from being satisfied with what
Government have been able to do, I believe with refer-
ence to almost every one of those subjects, I have left
express declarations upon record, that I thought the
alterations which had been made could only be looked
upon as imperfect, and incomplete.—(Hear.) Therefore
I, for one, and I speak, I know, the sense of my col-
leagues, shall always be ready t ) approach ail, or any of
them, with an earnest desire to do whatever justice,
whatever the possibilities of the case, or whatever the
—7 .„„,„, "

But perhaps the most truthful observation uttered
by Lord MORPETH, in his very animated and power-
ful speech, was one he adopted from the Journal des
Debats, to the effect that what Ireland wanted is not
repeal nor revolution, but regeneration. This brief
sentence contains a more accurate exposition of the
necessity of Ireland than all the eloquence of Con-
ciliation-hall, or the vehement rhetoric of the Irish
revolutionists. If the O'CONNELLB and Messrs.
SMITH O'BRIEN, MEAGHER, and MITCHELL, and
their associates, are such true patriots as they desire
to be considered, let them evince their since-
rity by a ready avowal of this truth, and
a zealous endeavour to obtain for Ireland,
not repeal nor revolution, but regeneration. This
is, perhaps, too much to expect from the advocates of
physical force and the aspirants for republican honour.
Therefore, abandoning to these gentlemen all the
agitation and the glory attending on repeal and revo-
lution, we would exhort all really patriotic Irishmen,
all the true friends of the sister country, zealously
and resolutely to turn their attention and their en-
deavours to the regeneration of the Irish people.
Let them reiterate the earnest assurance of Lord Mou-
lin 11, that that which all the inhabitants of the United
Kingdom most desire, is to see their Irish brethren,
one and all, partakers of the same rights, and sharers
in the same glories as themselves No inimical feeling
towards Ireland occasions the strenuous opposition of
the opponents of repeal; on the contrary, it is the
very desire of benefiting the sister country that in-
stigates and strengthens every effort made to preserve
the union. The interests of England and Ireland
are identical and indivisible, and " a thing indivisible
by nature cannot be divided, it can only be muti-
lated." The establishment of two antagonistic
powers in one united kingdom would inevitably prove
destructive to the welfare of the entire people,
and subversive of all authority. But it is
unnecessary now to recapitulate the constantly urged
and never-refuted arguments against repeal. Let
us rather reiterate Lord Monrxvn's eloquent
enumeration of some of the many causes which
would render the separation of England a sad
misfortune. " Let me ask you," said the
crediet,
Nobl
and fame, and l
Lord, "to what field of our national
y,bayar nnoldt,' Ireland. aAnsd;
1
at all times successfsualmaengdl7
seeing that those brethren
and hevaevne
more
honoured,r7hcan we look without
than proportionate contributors '? need not men-
tion the ornaments which we
uhsavienhand. even within
the memories of man
will
CANNING
Thealsn d house
u 1t names
AT TwAhNo of,
BhaveuitK
8 beenar,d furnishedsuEit i A
N.
and PLUNRET and O'CONNELL,Cureto all.—
(Hear, hear.) And we still retain what w
from thence, the laurel of 'WELLINGTON
audotduhe:ilpvyeuedy
of Mooae ?—(Cheers.) Does not every field
of rdis-
covery—does not every exploit of science and
every
achievement of art, show us the identity of
suits, and forbid the scheme of our separation ?" This
inquiry was responded to by the earnest cheers of
the whole House; and this inquiry will be responded
to by the affirmations of the whole empire.

Poland is now p aring the weapons of retribution
against a
rt
th i
co
is
pe a
tt
eh
dr ep e r
ie
ng
iu
ti
sl t ys p
oa
In i
ad t i
ou
nn
.p r i
lin c
oi p
wl
ee
vd e pr o 1 al
o' e
nr
gs
may be
whichthe
the
oe
bpresent
gloriesmoment o
f
and
the the
land dayof SOI3IESKI—
h
ever remote may be the hour
l
in
nhali be which
consummated—that the fate
hourimperial robbers
is approaching—
that
day is doomed.
theta
tera of
appearance r
regal
al of
expiation
pe
iEn and
precursors now we may recognise
of
populartha t
august e ra—
hsupremacy.
The sword of the Lithuanian NEMESIS already im.
pends over the AUTOCRAT—
avenging
the
Galicia is already rising from its grave
rave
confines of Austria-Proper—the might of Posen has
guepnoinu s
the
been already testified upon the frontiers, and not orLi).r.
upon the frontiers, but within the capital, and under
the palace walls of Prussia. At the moment
when the Berliners proved triumphant against the
lefenders of the
unpopular institutions of their
fatherland the hour struck in the municipal hall cf
Posna—the hour for the liberation of the Grand
Duchy and its capital. When again the Viennese
,übvertecl the coloss il but dilapidated power of MET-
TERNICH, the tocsin rang from the turrets of Lemberg
and Jaroslaw—that tocia which proclaimed to the
Galician: the resurrection of their nationality. 'ye

doubt not but that the recent occurrences in the
western kin gdoms of the European continent will
affect in a manner quite as extraordinary the popula-
tion of Lithuania and Bielogrod, of the Ukrain and
Smolensko--though we cannot anticipate such brit.
liant transfocrnaations as that which was conjectured
the other day by an imaginative correspondent from
Frankfort, namely, the re-establishment of Poland by
the EmperorNacnoLAs, and the girding of the brows of
Duke LEICIITURTEN with the diadem of STANISLAITS.
That Poland will ultimately, and even speedily, recover
its independcace, we are confident, but that the
Cabinet of St. Petersburgh will, in any particular,
forward that stupendous work of reanimation, is
beyond all conception. No. Polish nationality will
not be dragged into the daylight by the munificent
assistance of the CZAR, it will emerge itself from the
bondage of seventy winters, aided only by its own
indestructible vitality, and by the promptings of
OMNIPOTENCE.

As a moral victory the re-organization of the king-
dom of M Wand will be a glorious incident in the
records of humanity ; and as a political achievement

it vv ill be a memorable occurrence for the western
nations of this hemisphere. Let us re.
member for an instant the geographical
position :end dimensions of Poland previous to its
partition ; let us remember Polankas it was in 1780,
when it was bounded on the north by the Baltic and
Livonia, on the east by Russia, on the south by Mol-
davia and Tartary, and on the west by Hungary,
Moravia, Silesia, and Brandenburg. A more impass-
able barrier could not possibly be contrived between
the barbarism of the vast dominions of the AUTOCRAT
and the civilization of the rest of Christendom. By
the dastardly partition of that intervening principa-
lity, however, Russia monopolized to herself the
lion's share of the unholy spoil, while she opened a
high road to the splendid countries situated beyond
the Ocler and the Danube. A glance at the
map of Europe will confirm the accuracy of our
assertion. Austria has augmented her territories, it
is true, from the archduchy, which originally occu-
pied a space very little larger than the island of
Sardinia ar the Grand Duchy of Tuscany—until the
dominions of her Emperor have swollen into one of
the most enormous and formidable states upon the
Continent. This she has accomplished since the
thirteenth century by the successive absorption of
Bohemia—Moravia—Silesia (or at the least a consider-
able part of it) —Styria— Illyria—Tyrol—Ausch-
wurtz—Buckowina (formerly a fragment of Mol-
da via)—Hungary (including, of course, Croatia,
Solavonia, and the military frontier)—Transylvania
--Venetian Lombardy—and Galicia! By this
sy stem of wholesale and unscrupulous incorporation,
A ustria has risen, in scarcely six hundred years, from
the. ob,curity of a petty princedom to the criminal
glory of being one of the predominant Powers of
Christendom ; so that before the year 1831 had ex-
pired her territories extended over a surface of
257,36'8 square miles, containing a population of not
less th an 36,950,511 souls ! In the prosecution
of this scheme of territorial aggrandizement
it must, nevertheless, be borne in recollection that the
Governament of Vienna received merely a subordinate
portion of Poland, a portion, however, consisting of
33,506 square miles, with 4,797,243 inhabitants.
that porti• na was Galicia. It was in itself a magnificent
extension territory—being the south- western corner
of the king6lom of Poland, with its base lying along
the range of the Carpathian Mountains, and bending
upwards
in an arch from what were formerly Silesia
and I3ukovia---it was consequently only subordinate
when contrasted with the superior spoil of the
AUTOCRAT. Galicia, indeed, would be remarkable if
only for the circumstance of its soil being irrigated
with the waters cf the Pruth, the Dniester, the Bug,
and the Vistuks—those four great rivers rising
.within its circumference among the gorges of the
Karpaths.
Marvellous as the accumulation of dominions,
population, strength, wealth, and importance was
around the germinant archduchy of Austria, the ad-
vancement of the kingdom of Prussia from the
nucleus of the little duchy of Brandenburg is
scarcely less worthy of remembrance. Regarding
either the inconsiderable track of land known as the
Duchy of Brandenburg, or tams shuasea betn cell the
deltas of the Niemen and the Vistula, with honigs•
berg as its metropolis—regarding, we say, either
of these spots as the germ of Prussia,
its development to its present grandeur is
something wonderful. Conquest after conquest,

treaty after treaty, has stretched the elastic line of
its frontiers until that line has embraced, besides
Brandenburg, and the principality already mentioned
in the vicinity of Dantzig—a slice of Saxony,
the whole of Lusatia, a part of Silesia, the prolonged
coasts of Pomerania, and those portions of Poland
called the duchy of Posen, and a few contiguous
palatinates. Like its superior accomplice in spolia-
tion, Prussia has so far thriven upon the plunder of
its neighbours that in 1831 it enclosed an area of
107,84'2 square miles, with a population amounting
to upwards of 14,361,500 souls. Still, it must not be
forgotten that Prussia has a superior in infamy in the
dismemberment of Poland—its own accession of ter-
ritory in Posen consisting, upon a broad calculation,
of 11,401 square miles, and 1,190,970 inhabitants.
Russia, on the other hand, with a gross dominion
2,045,000 square miles in dimensions, and with more
than 49,000,000 as its population, has secured to her
imperial master nearly 13,000,000 additional slaves
by the annexation of Lithuania and its surrounding
provinces.

Such has been the distribution of the booty of the
crowned robbers of Europe ; such has been the ruth-
less plan in accordance with which the limbs of Poland
hare been hewn asunder by the sword of Absolutism ;
such was the most gigantic crime of the eighteenth
century, a crime which has made patriotism weep
blood in the streets of Warsaw, and upon the battle-
ments of Cracow—a crime which has evoked this
burning apostrophe from the soul of BYRON—that
BYRON who died in striving to become the Liberator
of Greece !

" Poland ! o'er which the avenging angel past,
But left thee as he found thee, still a waste,
Forgetting all thy still enduring claim,
Thy lotted people and extinguished name,
Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear,
That sound that crashes in the tyrant's ear—
Kosciusko !"
The apostrophe had allusion to NAPOLEON, but the
poet was not sufficiently inspired by the I'ythonic
spirit to recognise in NAPOLEON the Precursor of an
Age of Retribution. Already that retribution has
descended upon Prussia through Posen and Neuf-
chatel. Already it is descending upon Austria,
through Hungary, Bohemia, Venice, Lombardy, and
Gctllicia. The heterogeneous mass of Wallachians,
Jews, Magyars, Italians, Poles, and Germans, which
had been frozen into a temporary cohesion by the
despotism of Vienna, is beginning to fall asunder
now that its constituent parts are heated by the
ideas of Liberalism. In this Poland may recognise
the end of her evil doom, and the signal' for the resur-
rection of her nationality. God be with her, and the
memory of Kosctusao !

SPAIN.
Madrid journals of the sth instant have arrived.
The arrival of the Duke and Duchess of MONT..
PENSIER at St. Sebastian is officially announced,
and they were expected to arrive in Madrid on the
6th. The royal palace of Aranjuez has been prepared
for their reception.
Apprehensions were entertained of a serious out.•
break in Catalonia.
It is said that the Finance .Minister contemplates
a law for the sale of certain •" national properties"
which hitherto had not been comprised in the cate-
gory of alienable effects.

MADRID BOLSA, Aram s.—The Three per Cents,
22i ; Five per Cents., 13k. Exchange on London,
42 20.

GREECE.

The following proclamation has been issuea by the
new Cabinet :

"Hi: Ksjei,ty has honoured us with his august confi-
dence by calling on us to take the direction of the
affairs of the state. Although persuaded of the gravity
and difficulty of the tank which we have been called on
to undertake, we have, however, accepted • the royal
mission, having confidence in the patriotism and devoted-
ness to the law, which have in all times distinguished
the Hellenic people. As Constitutional Ministers we
cinsider it our duty to explain honestly the system
which we calculate on following in our governmental
e‘ireer. The lighteuus of the cor,stituLto.,
and laws in vigour ; impartial distribution of justide in
what concerns the tribunals and the administration ; the