The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-17 00:00:00

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blenind

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 17, 185

On the CHAIRMAN putting the question that the pre
amble be postponed,

The Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill has at
ength got into Committee. The devotion, we may
almost term it the self-immolation of the Brigade,
retarded but could not prevent that consummation
—a consummation which, it was manifest to every
disinterested person at all acquainted with the state
of public feeling in Parliament and in the country,
could not possibly be averted. If any doubt could
have previously existed as to the motives of
those who, by an abuse of the forms of
the House, compelled the large and overwhelm-
ing majority to succumb to less than one-seventh
of their number, it would be completely set at rest
by the proceedings last night. Where were the nu-
merous" brigaders," brimful of eloquence and anxious
to pour forth the enlightening torrent on the be-
nighted nation? They were all determined to be
heard. The refusal of an audience would be but
adding bitter insult to deep injury. Where was the
Honourable Gentleman the Member for Clonmel, who
moved the adjournment of the debate, and thus ob-
tained a prescriptive title to resume the proceedings ?
Where were those whose claims were so feel-
ingly expatiated on by the lion. Gentleman the Member
For Mayo ? None were forthcoming. Human
patience bad been exhausted, and none could be
found with sufficient temerity to brave the national
indignation that would be excited by the sacrifice of
another evening, and the expressions of impatience
with which the orator would be greeted during the
progress of his harangue. We have heard of a
barrister speaking against time, in order to delay
matters until a necessary witness could be procured
from a considerable distance. We have been pre-
sent at the cross-examination of a witness to cha-
racter for more than three hours, in order that a
special messenger might be dispatched for a
learned Queen's Counsel to take advantage of the op-
portunity for reply afforded by the indiscretion of the
adversaries ; and we were not astonished, for in each
case something was to be gained by procrastination.
In the one a nonsnit was avoided, in the other an elo-
quent and feeling address was delivered to the jury
that must have materially influenced their verdict.
An advocate might submit to the censure of th•
Court for such purposes. On the Bill now
under notice the procrastination has been just as
palpable as in the cases above alluded to. But
nothing was to be gained by the success of th•
manoeuvre. They could not throw out the Bill by a
temp)rary success, or bestow upon a foreign po-
tentate the privilege of invading the prerogatives of
the British Crown and the independence of the
British empire. Ireland, their native country, will
be the chief sufferer in consequence of the precious
time thus recklessly wasted, a considerable portion
whereof might have been devoted to subjects intimately
connected with her welfare and prosperity. But
it can never be reclaimed, and doubtless we shall
hear some of the chief obstructives complaining, at
the end of the session, of the neglect of Irish interests,
and demanding justice for Ireland with voices of
thunder. They will not then receive their own fac-
tious proceedings as an adequate excuse for Ministerial
backslidings ; but they must be contented, for the
good sense of the country will discern that they are
the parties responsible for the evils that may arise.
The debate has been again adjourned to Monday
evening, but on this occasion there has been a suffi-
cient reason for the delay, viz., that the Bill should
be reprinted in the form in which the Government
intended to proceed with it, so that Honourable Gen-
tlemen might understand exactly that on which they
are voting. We can now only express our hope
that no further time may be misapplied, but that at
length, in the fourth month of the session, the House
may really enter upon the important duty of legisla-
tion, and avoid all future escapades unbecoming the
dignity and character of the " first body of gentlemen
in the world."

A noble example of independence was yesterday
afforded by the Honourable Gentleman the represen-
tative of Nottingham. It will have been observed
that within the last few days two gentlemen, one of
them distinguished by his forensic reputation, were
summarily requested by an arrogant and bigoted
majority to retire from the Conservative Club, having,
it was intimated, ceased for some time past to enter-
tain sentiments consistent with the principles of
Conservatism. The individuals thus virtually ex-
pelled were, it is by this time well known, no other
than Mr. BETRELL and Mr. TINDAL. Without
having in any manner provoked the insult
gratuitously directed against them with so
much impertinent ostentation, these quondam members
of the club suddenly found themselves called upon to
withdraw from the midst of their former associates.
Anything more indecorous in tone than the requisition
addressed to them can scarcely be imagined. Regarding
the occurrence, moreover, as a precedent, it must be
looked upon as the inauguration of a system by which
the opinions of every member of society similarly
situated will be subjected to the scrutiny of a body
of inquisitors. Hence, therefore, it cannot but be
reprobated as a circumstance calculated to prove sin-
gularly detrimental to the liberal and enlightened
spirit of the age, reducing each person, as it does, to
the possible supervision of a faction arrogating to
itself the secret authority of the Carbonari or the
irresponsible despotism of the Vehmgericht. Feeling
this, we remarked with the utmost gratification the
course taken by Mr. WALTER—a course as brilliant in
i_ts decisiveness as it was chivalric in its promptitude.
Indignant at the disgraceful manner in which his
flung do_
still remainingas
numbered amongst the ranks
rejection of
members
wght Bo
cious maj
tationhich mi
of inso any
lence. preferring this haughty
onfur,ther continuance in a position
ority,
roodeer orrhl.ater, at the whim of a capri-
nourable to the Member
Eavam liable to a similar manifes-
cide with ourselves in
Every
2:riong a proceeding so ho-
ne will assuredly coin-
admiring
affordt n
toneut-
most -
for
which must, we feel satisfied, inNevoi
most gratification to his numerous snPPorters ' th
constituency. His conduct in the matter basln ev
spirit of independence
masculine ande
dently been inspired by that generous
Peculiarly
befitting the English gentleman under all
circumstances, but mere especially when to his own
personal dignity has been
joined that of one of the

popular representatives.
It will probably be as well for those who may be at
all solicitous to maintain the Conservative Club in its

state of prosperity to bear in remembrance the jeo-
pardy incurred by pursuing the path just adventured
uixtql by the late virtual and ill-advised expulsion.
,
tiPP"ini; the precedent be adopted as ineuguretive,

The House of Lords sat last evening fora short time,
but transacted no business of importance.
In the Commons,
On the order of the day for the resumption of the
debate on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill being read, a di-
vision took place (after an abortive attempt, on the part
of Mr. REYNOLDS, to occasion further delay) on the
question that the SPEAKER leave the chair, and the
motion was carried by 116 to 35. The House then
went into Committee on the Bill.

Mr. KEOGH moved that it be taken first. This led
to conversation, in the course of which,
Mr. DISRAELI declared that he would support no le-
gislation on this subject that did not apply to Ireland as
well as to England. and that he would support any pro-
position whith should make the Bill a retaliatory act to
vindicate the national honour.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL expressed his willingness to
adopt certain of the amendments of Mr. WALPOLE, and '
to reject others.
Mr. WALPOLE explained his intentions in proposing
certain of these amendments, and it was ultimately ar-
ranged that the Bill should be committed pro forma, to
be re-committed on Monday, and that in the meantime it
should be reprinted in the form in which the Government
intended it should stand.
The House having resumed,
The Coalwhippers (Port of London) Bill was read a
second time, and after a desultory conversation on the
manner in which the accounts of the Court of Sewers
are kept, and which led to no result, the House adjourned.

The strengthening tendenciei of the convictions of
he thinking portion of the public towards the prin-
ciple of direct taxation, receive a fresh impetus from
the rapid development of commerce which every
monthly return of the imports and exports of our
trade and navigation confirms. As the effects of our
free-trade policy gradually unfold themselves, and it
is seen that while we produce at home more food than
ever, we import four times as much as we did under
the system of protection, we consume all we produce
and import, and it is eaten by those who could not
afford to purchase it under the higher prices of mono-
poly, the conclusion becomes inevitable, that the
economy of unrestricted commerce improves the con-
dition, not only of those who are dependent upon
manufactures and foreign trade, but of the great
masses of our rural population. Increased imports
infallibly indicate enlarged powers of domestic con-
sumption and means of internal purchase. Equivalent
exports equally prove that trade is strictly reciprocal,
and that with every importation a new and growing
demand arises for the labour of our producers. Not
all the statistics of CHOWLER, and all the "ex-
ceptional cases" of GEORGE FREDERICK YOUNG,
can
rail this free-trade seal from off the bond of nations.
As the significancy of these facts becomes better
understood, a growing conviction arises that it is
essential to the full development of our powers of
barter, under the new dispensation of commercial
intercourse, that all unnecessary restrictions upon the
merchant should be removed, and every practicable
facility afforded for the full development of our
trading capabilities. It is now understood that tariffs,
import duties, taxes upon the exchange of commodi-
ties, are not only pernicious to the consumer, who has
ultimately to pay them, but obstructive to an in-
calculable extent of the enterprise and energy of the
distributor; and that indirect taxes are not only the
least economical in collection, and the most burden-
some to every class of buyers and sellers, but inci-
dentally deprive us, by the irksome restrictions with
which they encompass business, of a vast amount of
profitable trade, which might afford large profits to
the capitalists, and inexhaustible employment to the
labouring classes.
It was from this conviction that Sir ROBERT PEEL,
n what may be called his regenerate political state
aimed, in the reduction of taxation, to repeal rather
than to reduce duties—to take off entirely the im-
posts from those commodities whose produce the re-
venue could spare, rather than merely to diminish a
little of the duties of everything, leaving still a *le
for every article of import to pay.
One difficulty he failed to anticipate, which has
effectually frustrated all his expectations. He re-
membered indeed that we had taxes, but he forgot
that we had a Custom-house: He relieved trade
from the fetters in which duties had bound it, but he
left it the slave and captive of the iron chains of Red
Tapery, and the farcical technicalities of a Thames-
street board. " Her MAJESTY'S Commissioners for
Foreign Revenue" have been the PENELOPES who have
industriously unwound in the board-room the web
which the Minister had warped and woofed in his
Cabinet. They have accumulated their forms, rules,
regulations and orders, just in the proportion in
which his policy dispensed with the need of them;
and the product of his total repeal of duties on twelve
hundred articles of revenue has been an increase of
600,0001. per annum in the cost of collecting the
duties that remain.
Here we might atop. Q. E. D. There is noforty•
sophist power which can explain away this simple
fact. The less the Board of Customs have to do, the
more they charge for it. The fewer the duties to be
collected, the greater the labour of collection. As
goods cease to be the subject of revenue, they become
daily more liable to the supervision and inspection Of
the fiscal officers. The fewer the objects of taxation,
the more numerous are the ceremonials of entry, j
clearance, examination, pricking notes, cockets,
seizures, stoppages, and confiscations. Upwards of
half a million added to the expenses of the service
15,000 petitions per annum to the Board ; rules and
orders so voluminous that the additions reach an
average of 460 printed pages annually, and embrace
in all upwards of 4,000 different regulations; forms so
intricate that the clearance of goods wholly free of duty
requires, outwards thirteen different official solemni-
ties, and inwards nine, while dutiable commodi-
ties are favoured with nineteen inwards and twenty-
three outwards ; and an ignorance so omni-nescient
that the chairman denied that these were the forms,
while his deputy admitted it, and the presiding genius
of the whole gravely informed a committee of Lon-
don merchants that no cotton was imported into
London ;—these are a few of the indications of the
spirit in which the Board of Customs carries out the
policy of free trade. Not one of the Commissioners
had any connexion with the service till he took his
seat at the board ; each of them takes fifteen weeks'
holiday in the year, besides dedicating the chief part
of Monday to its patron saint, and futile visits to the
outports

Accustomed as most Englishmen are, by costly ex-
perience, to the voracity of the judicial mind, our
readers must forgive the weakness of the confession,
that even we were somewhat startled by that mani-
festation of official vigour, and almost super-solicitor
energy, which has recently taken the tone of raising
one hundred and twenty informations, all at the same
time, at the instance of the Crown, against the Lon-
don and St. Katherine Dock Companies. We
had imbibed an almost mythological reverence for
these vast developments of the large ideas and gigantic
designs of British commerce. We had been, as it
were, born and bred up to regard these leviathan esta-
blishments as the pride and glory of the enterprise and
contriving intellect of the metropolis of the commerce
of the world. We bad heard at least that they were
the chief collectors of the revenue, the authors of a
Vrn ate which had diminished smuggling to its prac-
ticable
minimum—the right hand of the CHANCELLOR
of the E,caEquEß—tbe energetic voluntary substi-
tutes for official
imbecility—doing gratuitously the
fiscal business of
the country, while the servants of
the public received the
thing, oftener forpay! sometimes for doing no-
d •
°InR mischief. But new brooms,

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
The Constitutionnel publishes another long article
advocating the repeal of the Electoral Law of the 31st
May, 1850, and a contequent return to the regime
of universal suffrage. It is rumoured that serious
differences exist between the PRESIDENT of the Re-
public and M. LEON FAUCHER on this subject, in
consequence of which it is considered probable that
the latter will resign the Ministry of the Interior, to
which M. DE LAMARTINE will be appointed, who
will in that case at ozqe propose the repeal of the
Electoral Law.
General DURRIEU has been returned for the
Landes. ;
The Assembly was occupied on Thursday in dis-
cussing the Sugar Bill.
The nineteenth Committee of Parliamentary Initia-
tive has decided on recommending the rejection of
the proposition of M. HUGUENIN, for taking the fire
insurance offices into the hands of the State.
The Committee, to which was referred the propo-
sition of M. DESMAUSSEAUI;DE GIVOY for regulating
the presentation of petitionsounanimously adopted the
following resolution :
" No petition brought or transmitted by an assemblage
of persons can be received by the president or laid on
the bureau. Any representative who shall make him-
self the intermediate agent between such assemblage and
the Assembly shall be subjected, according to the gra-
vity of the case, to the penalties provided for in Art.
113 of the regulations."
At the last monthly dinner of the Republicans of
the Vielle they invited M. DUPONT (de l'Eure) as
their guest. Although the party had not been in the
habit of giving toasts on these occas,ions, the rule was
in this case departed from, and M. ARMAND MAR-
EAST proposed the following one :—" To the health
of DUPONT (de l'Eure), to the venerable and vene-
rated DUPONT (de l'Eure), to the model of French
citizens." M. DUPONT (de l'Eure), who notwith-
stand his great age (eighty-four) still enjoys vigorous
health, rose and replied :—" I cannot express to you,
gentlemen, how much I am moved, and deeply
affected by the fresh proofs of sympathy and of at-
tachment which you have just given me. I cannot
better express to you my sincere gratitude than by
saying that my last sigh shall be for the Republic."
The agents of Russia are busily intriguing in
Paris to promote the fusion and restoration of the
Comte DE CHAMBORD. On this subject we read the
following in the Patrie :
"We think we are well-informed in announcing that
General Changarnier will be present to-day at a fusionist
dinner given by Mine. Pozzo di Borgo, and not, as
has been stated, by M. Pozzo di Borgo, who, as is known,
is kept from the political world by the state of his mind.
MM. Guizot, Duchl el, Vitet, Damon, de Noailles, de
Valmy, and de Pastoret will be among the guests."
Socialist intriguers are at once deported from the
territory of the French Republic, why does the Ex-
ecutive hesitate to treat Absolutist intriguers in the
same manner ? Is the Executive timid, or is it act-
ing in complicity with the friends of the Cossacks ?
The Moniteur Algerien of the 10th has the follow-
ing from the province of Constantine :
" All the Kabyle country through which the division
under the command of General de St. Arnaud is to pass
is in a state of great agitation. Conferences had taken
place between the chiefs of the principal unsubmitted
tribes, and an oath had been taken by them to dispute
the passage of the Christians. The little town of Cello
has been induced, from an unforeseen circumstance, to
join in these manifestations. On the 25th of April the
uperior Commandant of Philippeville came with an
escort of Arab horsemen to inspect the works of the
mule road which was being executed by the Kabyles
themselves, and thought he might go on as far as Cello.
While he was in conference with the Caid, an as-
semblage composed of men of the Beni Isack,
some ill diqkosed inhabit mts of the town and
strangers belonging to the neighbouring tribes,
formed on the road, separated the Commandant
from the main body of his escort which he had left at
the entrance of a defile. After endeavouring in vain to
force a passage through the crowd, he was at length
compelled to get on board a boat with four officers of
Spahis who were with him. After again landing at
some distance and again rejoining his escort, he re-
gained Philippeville with no other loss than that of five
horses, which had been abandoned on embarking.
After this first outbreak, the Caid found himself unable to
keep under the hostile portions of the inhabitants. The
partizans of the French were compelled to bide them-
selves. Several vessels which were at anchor in the bay
were obliged to remove under a heavy fire of musketry,
by which, however, no one was injured. An outbreak
twit place at the same time, near Djidjelli, and the ad-