The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-01 00:00:00

bullion stored in the vaults at Threadneedle-street
have been considerably increased, while the active
circulation has been again largely diminished.
The change, too, has been going on steadily, and
there is therefore every reason to suppose that the
tide has at length turned, and that the drain of
bullion from our shores has been arrested.
For these assertions we have indisputable
"facts and figures." Within three weeks the
notes unemployed, or, in other words, the sum
available for the private business of the banking
department, have received an addition of more
than one million and a quarter, or 43 per cent.,
on the amount in hand at the beginning of last
month. The augmentation of the reserve of notes
during the week ending the 7th ultimo was
206,0001. ; on the 14th there was a further in-
crease of 456,3801. ; while en the 21st there was
the enormous amount of 611,2401. added to the
previous increase, or nearly 1,275,000/. within
that brief period.
On the 14th ultimo the stock of bn!lion W a
154,0151. Itigl:er tLau tine preceding week, and
the improvement up to the 21st was 213,4691.,
or 367,484/. within a fortnight. Within three
weeks, also, the active circulation or notes in the
hands of the public have been reduced by nearly
one million sterling in round numbers—the de-
crease on the 7th being 297,0001., on the 14th
309,9501., and on the 21st 386,4501. There is
even reason to suppose that the account to the
28th will show decided progress in the same di-
rection, inasmuch as it was within that period
that the Bank was enabled to rescue a portion of
the gold that arrived by the Australian ships
from the grasp of the Continental cormorants.

But for all this there has been no relaxation in
the rate of interest ; 7 per cent. is still the mini-
mum rate of discount by the Leviathan—a charge
that implies from 8 to 12 per cent. to the mer-
chants and manufacturers who have not discount
a:counts with the Leviathan, and who must pro-
cure money to meet their liabilities and pay wages
at any cost, unless prepared to submit to absolute
ruin. What does such a rate of interest lead to ?
Bankers and brokers will rejoice at a state of
affairs that enhances their profits, always high, to
extravagant amounts. They will utter joyous
rceans at the plethoric appearance of their purses
The ancient cry, " Great is Diana of the Ephe-
sinus," will be re-echoed through Lombard-street
and its vicinity.
But what is fun to them is death to the indus-
trial classes, from the hint hest to the lowest. The
commercial and productive classes look to such
rates with the most serious apprehensions, as in-
volving considerable losses, if not absolute ruin.
If there were no reasonable hope of speedy im-
provement they would abandon business, which
they carry on without profit. . Their anxieties and
labours are all for the benefit of others. The
moneyocracy appropriate the legitimate fruits of
their exertions. " vos non vobis, fertis cratra
boves." They bear the yoke, but enjoy not the
returns. They are indeed worse off than the
oxen, who are lodged and fed at the expense of
their taskmasters, while they must live from their
own resources, no matter bow they can be obtained.
Under such circumstances can we feel surprised at
the commercial frauds which have recently excited
the surprise and indignation of the community ?
The victims are first plundered in due form of
law, and then they endeavour by craft and fraud
to spoil the Egyptians, and to win back by any
means the money they have lost. We do not, of
course, intend to apologise for the delinquents.
Nothing can justify or even extenuate such
conduct ; but there can be no better mode
of insuring commercial rectitude than by
allowing mercantile enterprise and activity
to reap its legitimate rewards. It would scarcely
be advisable for the moueyocracy to destroy the
goose which has been producing golden eggs on
very slender encouragement. The usurer, who
ventures little and produces nothing; should be
contented to see the creators of the national
wealth retain for their own use a portion of the
profits realised by their indefatigable exertions.

The foundation of all this enormous grievance,
the teterrima causa mali, is obvious to all who
take the trouble of looking beyond the surface. A
brief investigation into the different values of
temporary and permanent investments will satisfy
any person of ordinary comprehension that it is
not capital, but currency, that is required. On
Saturday last Consuls for the 4th December closed
with firmness at 94l to while for the New Ac-
count, on the Bth January, sales were effected at
95 to I. Deducting the dividend payable on that
day, 1/. 10s., this will leave the rate of interest
which the public are contented to receive, at
something less than 3/. 45., or 3 1-sth per cent.
At the same time, the Bank MiIbiTIVIGM, on unex-
ceptionable securities, having short periods to run
before arriving at maturity (they will touch or
even look at no others), is 7 per cent. ! The
Times, the recognised organ of the bullionists,
tells us that we are the wealthiest naticn in the
world—that there is no lack of capital for any
legitimate purpose ! It graphically depicts
the frightful inconvenience of a high
rate of interest for money, which it truly
declares to be " a great national disaster,"
and yet it advocates the law that produces that
untoward state of affairs ! There is, iu fact, a
superabundance of wealth ; all that is required is
that Chore should be an adequate measure and re-
presentative---or that a due proportion thereof
should be converted into the convenient and ne-
cessary form of a circulating medium sufficient for
the national exigences, and thus supplying the
very life-blood to industry. It is the rumours
and minecessary contraction of that circulating me-
dium that occasions all the evils which the Times
so feelingly deplores! Why then should we starve
in the midst of plenty, and endure cold and hun-
ger, because the cloth merchant cannot measure
his wares with a golden yard—or the corn-dealer
supply weights of the precious metals. Other less
costly substitutes are provided, and notes, gua-
ranteed by the nation, and receivable in payment
of taxation, would be better for all domestic pur-
poses than gold. They should, however, I,e
really national nof-,s r f auti convenient de-
la)minatiuns, issued by a department responsible
to Parliament for the discreet discharge of the
important trust confided to its hands. As our
esteemed correspondent, C. W. S. (to whose ad-
mirable letter, in this day's impression, we ear-
nestly invite attention) says, "The sooner the
Bank of
England ceases to be a Corporation, car-
ried on for the profit or loss of private persons,
and becomes a Government institution, with notes
issued on Government securities, the better !"

His convivial Majesty rKing eLQ
in his Speech from the Throne onSiactuur°d
Saturday, of—
" my Principality of talked,
Neuchatel !" His Imperial
Majesty the EMPEROR OF ALL TIIE RUSSIA S
might just precisely as well talk of—his Princi-
palities of Moldo-Wallachia ! Yet the man who
speaks thus of what is notoriously
to an the rest
of the world one of the Cantons of Switzerland
—babbles, almost in th® same breath, about his
solicitude to preserve, in unisoa with the rest of
the great powers of Europe, the maintenance of
the present zuLlier ja:;iJkA, ,I,•iiquillity ! iiis
Majesty, while thus flagrantly and insolently

arrogating to himself a " right" to an extension

of his sovereignty over Neuchatel—talking of
Neuchatel simply and definitively (as we have
seen) as his Principality, speaking of his right to
its allegiance as "incontestable," and " unques-
tionable," and so forth, and referring to his policy
hitherto, in regard to the whole question,
as having been distinguished by a " moderation"
universally recognised throughout Christendom—
pertly adds, " In any case I will not consent that
my forbearance should become an arm against my
own rights." Meaning literally, of course, that
whatever may be the view taken of this matter
by the rest of Europe, by the aggregate of
the Great Powers, by Neuchatel itself, by
the deliberative councils of the entire Swiss
Confedeiation —he (CLICQUOT) is pot-valiantly
resolved single-handed, and aided solely by the
sacred prestige of what he calls his rights, to
fling the gage of battle in the teeth of Christen-
dom.

Tiiere is a rather amusing similarity discernible,
by the way, just now, between the attitude assumed
simultaneously by King CLICQUOT of Prussia—
and King BOMBA of the Two Sicilies. The latter
defensively. The farmer aggressively. His
Majesty of NAPLES, not so very long ago—Don't
we all of us remember it vividly enough ? just,
for all the world, as we might remember by a stitch
in the side caught from laughing at either over-
much, a better joke than usual in Punch, or some
excruciating hit from the jestful pen or pencil of
the Charivari—his Majesty King Bonzes, not so
very long ago, tickled the risibility of Europe by
a precisely similar fanfaronade. Talked of calling
out his army. Spoke of drawing the sword.
Hinted at flinging away the scabbard. The dread
retaliation being held out in terrorem over France
and England, and for that matter over the whole
of the rest of the Great Powers of the European
Continent—the dread and awful retaliation of a
War declared against "a world iu arms" by that
most puissant potentate the King of the Two
SICILIES. No wonder that after that—but very
little more has been heard of an Anglo-French
interference with the conduct of the Neapolitan
Government. The consequences of such a rup-
ture as the one alluded to by King BOMBA as not
by any means improbable, being altogether too
appalling to be seriously entertained for another
five minutes. And now a congenial "Coz "
of King BOMBA—King CLICQUOT to wit—What
saith he to the affrighted ears of Europe ? Why
this—" As my people may be convinced that I
cling to the recognition of my duties, and to the
reconciliation of my relations with Europe as the
rule of my future actions, so am I perfectly con-
vinced, if circumstances exacted it—[O dire fore-
boding of disasters in posse !;—that the Prussian
people would prove their fidelity and devotedness
to the honour of my Crown with an energy that
will bravo all risks." Assuredly if King BOMBA'S
attitude bore a certain similarity, the other day, to
the little mannikin Xi; sparring, with a squeak
of defiance, at the hugeous forms of Goa and
-MAGOG—the attitude just assumed by King
CacQuor is hardly, in many respects, one jot less
ridiculous. The reality of the matter in regard
to this Swiss affair about Neuchatel being simply
this—that the band of i asurgents, now
about to be placed upon their trial for
high treason during the course of this present
month of December, will, beyond all doubt and
as a thing of course, be found guilty and formally
condemned for leze majestd against the Federal
Government ; and being so found guilty and con-
demned, will doubtless, equally as a matter of
course, be thereupon contemptuously set free--
the sentence pronounced upon them having duly
-satisfied and vindic .ted the outraged rights, the
"incontrovertible" and " unquestionable" Sove-
reign Rights of the Helvetic Confederation !
That, we take it, is pretty much about what his
MAJESTY of Prussia will get by his motion. That,
as the cant phrase runs, is pretty nearly "about
the size of it !" And much good may it do him
—this grandiose result of this portentous rhoelo-
moutade.

Talk of Prussia's Rights of Sovereignty over
Neuchatel ! Rather perilous babbling this
on the part of King FREDERICK WILLIAM
IV., suggestive as these insolent preten-
sions are of the emptiness of certain other
and rather larger territorial claims of sovereignty
on the part of the Prussian Crown ! Recalling
to mind, in fact, the unnatural relation in which
IFrance and Prussia have been standing in refer-
ence to each other ever since the bungling botch-
work made of the map of Europe in 1815—when
the Rhenish provinces, were by a monstrous act of
folly and injustice, awarded to the Royal House of
BRANDENBURGII, in defiance of that obvious geo-
graphical necessity which constitutes the Rhine in
one direction the natural boundary of France.
Let King CLICQUOT forcibly drag before the
world the great and complicated question
as to what are really and truly the ter-
ritorial rights of sovereignty belonging
to the Prussian Crown and as certainly
as a detected thief is liable when hauled into a
court of justice to have his plunder torn out of
his clutches—at one single stroke of a pen,
at one single flash of a sword those
beautiful Rhenish Provinces, from Treves
to Cleves, will be reft for ever from the grasp of
Prussian domination, and restored to France as
part and parcel of the Imperial dominions of the
third NAPOLEON. So that by reason of the fool-
hardy pretensions of King CLIcuoT, not only
will Neuchatel be retained as an integral portion
of Switzerland, but, sooner than might otherwise
have been practicable, France may be enabled to
reassert her sovereign rights over Cologne and
Aix-la- Chapelle.

We read of Austrian and Neapolitan trials by
interested judges, of convictions of innocent men,
and of barbarous sentences relentlessly carried out,
as a matter of course ; and we hold up our hands
with great self-complacency, as if England were
altogether exempt from the abominations of Naples.
If we mistake not, however, there is one section
o' enr laws, an-I ono department of their adminis-
tration, which for their iniquity and the atrocities
of their administration can hardly be surpassed in
Naples or Milan. The game is not so high, and
the punishments necessarily not so protracted, but
the animus of laws and judges in both cases is
equally vindictive and relentless ; we may add
that the results in the manufacture of criminals,
ultimately of ticket-of-leave men, and then of
victims for the gallows, can be surpassed in no
country in Europe. Our readers may have guessed
that we refer to the game laws and the country
magistrates. In no other part of our code, and
in no other class of judges is there now left the
same malignant effort to victimise an offender.
In no other department of justice are judges
tainted with suspicion tolerated ; indeed no judge
allows himself to ineur suspicion by trying a case
in which ho has a presumable and obvious bias.
To the game laws is left the infamy of being in
direct opposition to the convictions of all but
game preservers, and of the game preservers mak-
ing themselves both judge and jury, in trying,
convicting, and fixing the penalty of every
offenae
A little while back we had a case to report of a

respectable young farmer sent-to gaol for "poaching
on his father's land." That seemed bad enough ;
but on Saturday we gave a case from the Norfolk
News, with all particulars, of two labouring men,
JOHN LOADS and WILLIAM HAGON, being sen-
tenced by some Norfolk Magistrates to one
month's imprisonment "for trespassing on their
own land ! !" Let the magistrates' names be
well remembered—:one was a Lord—Lord HAST-
INGS ; one a clergyman—the Rev. J. H. SPARSE ;
the two others were Mr. PEMBERTON and Mr.
COZENS-HARDY, but the latter gentleman, much
to his credit in such company, refused to concur
in the conviction. A lord, a clergyman, and we
suppose a decent country squire, concur to send
two honest persons to prison, and it appears, by
the logic of agricultural wages, their wives to
the workhouse, for trespassing on Common
Rights undeniably belonging to the tenements in
which they dwelt. Unmoved, supposing them to
be legally right, by the obviously natural grounds
for the offence, unmoved by The poverty of their
victims, unmoved by public opinion around thcm ;
unmoved by the sufferings entailed through the
temporary widowhood and orphanhood of the
families, these English, not Neapolitan, judges
had not a drachm of asercy for the consolation of
the immediate and the indirect sufferers. The
tine and the expenses, the whole of them, or a
month's imprisonment, was the alternative ! Too
poor to pay, the victims of a lord, a parson, and
a squire, are' dragged off to a month's imprison-
ment, with hard labour ; and all for trespassing
on their own land !

Game was the inspiring spirit of this outrageous
injustice. The land, about one hundred and
twenty acres, belonged as a common right to th©
cottages and to some others of the reputed tres-
passers. They went to it to catch rabbits—not
very noble game we used to think in our sporting
experience ; but the right of shooting over the
common had been let by the trustees, with
what right does not appear, to a gentleman, we
suppose we are to call him, of the name of
BARKER. Mr. HARDY thought the trustees had
no power to let the sporting over the common ;
but even if they had, seeing that the men had
undoubted right to cut furze or turf on it, might
they not be forgiven for seeking such a poor man's
game as rabbits also, on their own territory ?
How were they to comprehend that any gentle-
man could object to their getting for once a Sun-
day meat pia off their own common ? and how
could three mortal gentlemen be found to send
four poor men to prison for such a shadow of an
offence ?

Fur ourselves we cannot deny a rather special
fondness for rural sports, but we cannot blind our-
selves to the disgrace entailed on field sports by
such barbarous austerities as these. A London
Stipendiary Magistrate, had he thought the law
against the men, would have told them so, have
warned them, and have taken any course rather
than send them to the treadmill in such fla4rant
violation of common sense and justice ; but those
country Justices of the Pekoe seem not ooly to
think they have the law in their own hands, but
to twist it to the most disgraceful cruelties wher-
ever game is concerned. It is questionable whe-
ther they would punish much more serious offences
with half the severity. We do not suppose that
these gentlemen were worse than their class, but
their whole class are utterly unfit to try game-law
cases. Their rancour against any poor fellow
who has ever touched a hare, partridg 1, pheasant,
or even a rabbit or a snipe, is so intense, that pre-
judice insures conviction, and spite a sentence
which the Central Criminal Court would blush at.

The game laws and their administration must
be altered. They are the curse of the rural dis-
tricts. They tempt to an artificial crime, for no
man thinks killing a wild animal a crime,
hosv-
ever unlucky the results may be. They then
train to crime by sending the victim to an appren-
ticeship in the gaol, or by torturing him with a flue,
which perhaps starves him into poaching again, or
at least arouses him to get vengeance in some way
for the felt injustice. The families of the men are
then demoralised by the workhouse, and even
the magistrates do not escape ; they, too, are do-
moralised by their own gross injustice on the judg-
ment seat. It is characteristic of the temper of
such judges that, according to the Norfolk News,
the "Lord" of the company has threatened the
Editor of that journal with the horsewhip if he
comments on his verdict ! A compliment which
the Editor appreciates too highly not to be in-
spired by it to a full exposure of the case.
We are happy to observe that a subscription is
on foot amongst the men, and most properly. Also
that the other cottagers refuse to give up taking
the rabbits, and dare the Honourable Bench, and
gentleman to whom the trustees have let the poor
man's property, to do their worst.

Jeer, jibe at, deprecate, or regret it who may,
the lion-hearted patriot of Scotland--" the WAL-
LACE wight"—is to have a monument. There is
no mistake about it—the meeting at Elinburgb
on Friday last settled the matter. The Abbey
Craig, Stirling, is predestined to honour. What-
ever consecration it may have received it must
now be regarded as the site of a temple, we trust
a worthy one, of national gratitude for patriotic
prowess, successful in its aim, if cut short by the
axe of the executioner. The projectors of the
testimonial have gone too far to recede with credit;
and if they could the Scottish people ought not
to let them. It is too late for that, and the me-
mory
it.
yofth e man deserves all the honour they can

It is all very well to say—Scotland itself is
WALLACE'S best monument. Doubtless it is, if
the Scottish people are grateful, for it is part and
parcel of a patriot's aims to have the liberty and
prosperity of the country he strives for illuminated
and guarded by every generous sentiment that
ennobles humanity. Scotland is now fairly chal-
lenged to show she still appreciates and is grateful
for the labour and the sufferings of the hero who
spent his life's blood to rescue her from thraldom,
and there can be but one answer. Scotland, it
is granted, is free and prosperous. Not a breeze
that stirs the lazy mist of her mountains, or
ripples the surface of her beautiful lakes, bears on
it the wail of the oppressed. Industry plies its
busy hand
in sure and certain hope of remunera-
tion, and
the voice of conscience suggests no tes-
timony to
be sealed with blood. Holyrood, it is true,
is no longer the seat of Royal authority, and a Scot-
tish Parliament is a thing of the past. But where
WALLACE fought, and Knox fulminated, is every-
where to be witnessed the guerdon which nerved
either to the struggle in which it is glorious orren
to be overcome, and fail of the great reward.
The stranger, notwithstanding. will look in vain
throughout broad Scotland for • a monument to
her great patriot deliverer, and the Roble pea-
sants, who under his leadership set an example,
which all freemen must admire, and not a few
have imitated. Are freedom and prosperity only
to be had at the cost of ingratitude ? This is a
question ho is disposed to ask, and the question
which now needs to be satisfactorily responded to.
WALLACE
may need no monnment, his name is !
Like bligntilit in Scottish
has but to be known to cause him, to be honoured I