The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-08 00:00:00

gold now circulating from hand to hand, and dis-
charging functions which would be far better per-
formed by small notes. This would be just as
advantageous as if a gold mine were discovered
in the centre of England, and three hundred tons
of pure and unalloyed gold extracted without ex-
pense or delay. The wear and tear would be
saved, and the interest would go to the benefit of,
and realise a handsome profit for, the Exchequer
—a profit which would authorise either the abo-
lition or reduction of some of our most vexatious

and onerous imposts.
We are by no means advocates for paying off
old debts at a time when the taxpayers are ex-
hausted by the enormous burdens they have had
to sustain. In any other cause, we should offer
an earnest protest against a course which would
re-open the painful feelings occasioned by the
GLADSTONE abortion. It would unquestionably be
far better to create a new 3 per Cent. Stock for
the amount due to the Bank. This could not be
called an additional debt. It would be merely a
transfer from one party to many others, and
would be beneficial, as creating a greater diffusion
of wealth, and leaving to the Bank a much larger
amount available for its legitimate operations.
It would also be equivalent to the creation of
so much new banking capital for the use of
the industrious population of the country,
and of the mercantile and manufacturing in-
terests. The Bank would, however, most
probably invest a considerable portion of what it
was to receive, in the new loan on the same terms
as the rest of the community.
We have, therefore, alluded to the fourteen
and a quarter millions saved on the army esti-
mates to prevent the Chancellor of the Exchequer
from resorting to an excuse of which he might
otherwise avail himself. If he shrinks from a loan
to pay off the Bank, there is the money ready to
his hand, and to what better use can it be applied
than that above indicated ? which would liberate
the Bank and the Exchequer from bonds mutually
in j urious.

To one sentence in Mr. M. GIBSON'S Peace
Society Speech on Tuesday night we can heartily
subseribe. The hon. member observed, that
" the whole debate appeared to him to be of no
practical utility, because the treaty had been rati-
fied and could not be altered ;—and it appeared
to him that it would be sufficient to thank her
Majesty for having ordered it to be presented to
Parliament, and for having allowed it to appear
in the Gazette." The Three Nights' Debates of
the two Houses of Parliament unquestionably
resolved themselves into little more than an
orderly chat of a considerable number of educated
gentlemen over a document of which they could
not modify a syllable. More or less interesting
it might be to hear what some score of sensible
persons would say on the subject, but it had
been the subject of discussion with all sens-
ible persons all the kingdom over, perhaps
of many debating clubs also, and all these
persons had as much power in the business
as her MAJESTY'S faithful Lords and Commons.
All subjects of the Crown etood on a perfect level
with regard to the Treaty concluded for them by
the Crown ; for each and all, Lords and Commons
included, were alike powerless. The real favour
on the part of the Crown, therefore, was its con-
descending to tell us what we have no practical
business with whatever. The Treaty was the
work of the Crown, so far as England was con-
cerned, a work which it carried on in concert with
other Crowns, and in which the grand object ap-
peared to be to save all Crowns, even th© guilty
one, from humiliation, whether nations were
humiliated or not. There seemed, indeed, a show
of concern about Italian peoples ; but the das-
tardly innovation of a crusade against the Belgian
Press showed that all French Liberalism was di-
rected to conservation of Crowns. Yet what a
humiliation that the EMPEROR of the French
should tremble for himself and his infant before
the pen of a poor Belgian journalist.
It is interesting to think what would have been
the result had the Press and Parliament of Eng •
land been called on to shara in the ratifi-
catioh, of the Treaty. If we admit that the pro-
gress of negotiations in the great cause of Crowns
and peoples should be bidden from the latter, yet
by what anomaly in a constitutional country is no
power over the ratifications reserved to its Houses
of Legislature. In America all treaties must be
ratified by the Senate ; why not in England ?
Why should not Lord CLARENDON have carried on
his part, knowing that, if he trimmed or erred in
any portion of it, it would be certain of rectifica-
tion before it could pass. It cannot be alleged
that none of the Daspots would treat with us on
such a condition ; each one of them has treated
with the United States, who insist on it, and fniticl
no difficulty in doing Fo. I,: would probably e
prevented the greater part of the mischievous
omissions and concessions of the Treaty, and of
the Protocols. There are few things complained
of in either House of Parliament which C mut
ORLOFF himself would not rather have yielded
than hazarded their becoming occasions of earnest

battle in the British Parliament, Hal the final

• terms of the Treaty depended upon its sanction
s how totally different would have been the character
of the late debates. They have been actually
little better than mere comments—in the sup-
posed case they would have had what Mr.
GIBSON properly terms " practical utility ;" every
speaker would have had an object before hire ;
and the despots of Europe would have also had
some chance of knowing the mettle of Englishmen.
It cannot be doubted that if the Treaty could
be supposed to have left Paris in its present form
for the sanction of our Parliament, the whole
Press of England and the whole House of
Commons would have demanded the separation
of the English nation from the list of the insolent
threateners of the Belgian Press. It would have
left Austria, Prussia, and France alone in that
species of glory, and probably hare required the
insertion of a clause asserting England's deterini-
nation to vindicate for Belgium what she claims
for herself. But more especially, in matters
concerning Russia, she would have required that
the influence of the gun-boat flotilla and Crimean
army should have been greater than the starva-
tion of the garrison of Kars. Even assuming
the " Five Points" for the basis of treaty, Nico-
laieff, Bessarabia, and Circassia would have been
themanaged
every differently. The neutralisation of
SealosEwould not have been described by
Mr. Gtans
as a "series of pit-falls," and a
little more effort would have been used to brine.
Russia in the South
of Europe nearer to what
she was in the time of. PETER the Great. How
perfectly easy, for instance, to have said to
Russia, "If you do not renounce the right to
maintain an arsenal at I\Ticolaieff, or anywhere
on any river ;owing into the Black Sea, and do
not admit Co] mils to every town—why, there we
are at Kinbo urn and at Kertch, and there we .

shall remain ; wo shall hold the keys of your river

arsenals till the locks rust in your possession."

,
In Bessarabia, again, with the fear not only of
he Crown,
at of the people before his eyes,

Count ORLoi
7 would have included the cession of

Chotym rat} Ler than hazarded the demand that
the Dniestq r should be the boundary of Turkey,