The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-01 00:00:00

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and independent Liberals within the walls of the
Legislature, to wit the hon. member for Finsbury,
should rise last evening in the House of Commons
and put one or two pointed questions (in regard to
this signed but still invisible Treaty) to the occu-
pants of the Treasury Bench. The reply given
\
thereupon by Mr. MILNEX GIBSON—as evasive a
reply as ever fell from the lips of a Cabinet Minis-
ter—revealed the wily project we have alluded to
as the core of the policy at the present
moment of the Coalition Government: The Presi-
dent of the Board of Trade, in replying to Mr.
' D

'UNCOMBE'S perfectly legitimate and very reason.
able inquiries, said, in the first place, what we
knew quite well enough already, namely, that the
treaty would, of course, be subject to the approval
of Parliament—adding, however, secondly, " but,
as regarded its details, he must beg the hon. gen-
tleman to wait till Monday, when his right hon.
friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lay
the whole of his financial measures before the
house." It need hardly be said that the simpler and
more honest and straightforward course would have
been to have had the Treaty itself, without one word
of comment in the way of deprecation or extenua-
tion, of excuse or explanation, frankly printed
off and plaeed in the hands of the popular
representatives. This might have been done several
days back. It might still have been done before
the close of the present week, so that hon. members
might have gone down to the house on Monday to
listen to Mr. GLADSTONE'S Financial Statement,
prepared to view the plan of the forthcoming
Budget by the light afforded by the terms of the
recent Treaty. Such a simple and manly
and honourable arrangement as this, however,
would not answer the purpose of the
dodging Coalition. And so they hit upon the
exceedingly ingenious, but certainly not very in-
genuous, plan of taking the House at an obvious
disadvantage—by bringing the Budget and the
Treaty before the consideration of Parliament
simultaneously—bent, as we have said, upon com-
mitting the Commons (if possible) precipitately to
both the Commercial Treaty and the Financial
Statement. Otherwise—Why not, in the natural
and rational course, have placed the treaty upon
the table of the House long before, at any rate in
ample time before Mr. GLADSTONE would have
the opportunity of indulging the Commons with
his Financial Statement ?

Under these very peeulisr circumstances we can•
not but consider Mr. LINDSAY'S motion of yester-

day as most timely for the public interest—though
untimely enough (if only as a reminder) in regard
to the especial interests of the Administration. For
to what really and truly does that motion point as
with a rigid dexter-finger ? To what but the
already recognized damning blot of the Commercial
Treaty—damning at least, if not entirely and com-
pletely obliterated. Mr. LINDSAY'S motion itself,
of course, was " for a select committee to inquire
into the operation of the burdens and restrictions
especially affecting merchant shipping, and of the
following statutes :-9th and 10th Vic., c. 93, an
act for compensating the families of persons killed
by accidents ; the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854 ;
the Merchant Shipping Amendment Act, 1855;
the Passenger Act, 1855; and the Chinese Passen-
ger Act, 1855." A committee of inquiry was ap-
pointed to this end last March, but its labours were
summarily closed by the dissolution of Parliament.

The hon. member only asked therefore for the recom-
mencement of an interrupted enterprise. But that
enterprise ! What it was and is avowedly designed
to show Mr. LINDSAY thus defines, " that one of
the great causes of the present depressed condition
of the British merchant shipping interest was,
that other nations did not reciprocate the advan-
tages which this country conferred upon them, when,
ten years ago, the British Legslature, by an
alteration in the Navigation Laws, remoTed
all restrictive duties upon articles brought into
English ports in foreign ships." Mr. LINDSAY ar-
gues that "he might mention the ease of France, for
instance, as showing that while the shipping of that
empire was admitted into English ports in the same
free manner as English ships were, the shipping of
England was not only not met by France in the
same spirit of reciprocity, but was subjected to
heavy duties by that nation." Without entering
here more into detail in regard to this argument,
as it affects the interests of British shipping--a
proceeding, by the way, somewhat superfluous at
the present moment, seeing that the motion was
agreed to, and that consequently the select com-
mittee will forthwith be duly appointed—we may,
at any rate, "point the moral and adorn the tale"
of Mr.LINDSAY'S statement in respect to the wrongs
and sufferings of the British mercantile marine,
by pronouncing the whole gist and the whole gra-
vamen of that argument to constitute a timely
warning to the House of Commons, now upon the
eve of taking into account simultaneously the Com-
mercial Treaty with France and Mr. GLADSTONE'S
Financial Statement. Let the holders of the na-
tional purse-strings and the guardians of the
national honour Beware, not of the Ides of March,
I but of the sixth of February !

Surely the end of the world, and of Dr. CITIZEN,
is at hand. The Univers is gone at least. What
can survive it ? Anyhow the temporal Papacy,
and, according to Irish Catholics, the eternals of
the Papacy, too, must go with it ! We almost begin
to believe in another Doctor of Divinity, near us
here in London—the FRANCIS MooRE of prophecy
—even the Rev. Dr. CUMMING—who prophecies,
we know not what woes to Rome, and to Turkey,
too, in 1867, we think it is ; but dates are hard to
remember ; above all, the dates of things yet to
come. Be this as it may, this year of grace 1860
has already so overshot the Irish Doctor, and mad.
such a start in the line of the London Scotch Doc-
tor's predictions, that we almost begin to look at
the latter as we do when " rain" is set down in the
weather almanacks, and we see the cloudsbeginning
to gather. We believe what we see, if we do not
quite believe it was foreseen. We laugh at the
guess, and look at the barometer and for our
umbrellas.

And in this attitude we now are all gazing at
the Franco-Italian sky. It has been long filled
with heavily-charged electric clouds. Every now
and then a flash and a rumble—now the forked
lightning of Rome, now the negative flash of
France, something must crash or blaze soon—and
at last the crash comes. The New Year's Day of
1860 was the beginning of the end. The wrath of
Rome at the anonymous Imperial pamphlet, the
cool letter of his MAJESTY, were the first striking
manifestations of what must result from the con-
flict of angry impotence with calm self-possessed
power. Then followed the subordinate episcopal
displays in France itself, but the bishops found
themselves in the grasp of a strong hand. This
resort failing, the encyclical letter of His Holiness
appears, and all is up ! Europe at large is told
by the POPE that the Emperor of the FRENCH
stands condemned before the Judgment seat of
CHRIST, and that the Holy Father has, for his soul's
health, warned his wicked son that he is in dan-
ger of eternal perdition ! Not very polite this
to publish the Father Confessor's warnings to the
world. If he does tell us we deserve damnation, it