The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-02 00:00:00

to 35,000 at most ; though there is at

the present moment a tendency to increase rather

than otherwise.
Under these circumstances, our Foreign Secre-
tary has addressed a long communication to Lord
COWLEY ; virtually, of course, to the Emperor of
the FRENCH ; and, as the EMPEROR is so very
friendly just now, and has especially told us all of

his love of honesty, and his hatred of thieving, we

may hope he will cordially co-operate with us in

endeavouring to put down the most infernal dis-
honesty and robbery—that of robbing men of their
liberty, robbing them indeed of themselves, and

making them the property of kidnappers and re-
ceivers of stolen goods. His lordship reviews the
whole state of the case, and shows not only what
has been done and might yet be done to destroy
this accursed traffic, but the great commercial ad-

vantages which have resulted from the destruction

of the trade where it has been stopped, so that
there is not even the poor excuse of advantage to

commerce generally, to plead on behalf of this

accursed traffic. The commerce with Vile West
Coast of Africa, from the ports where the

trade has been suppressed, aetuallAy amounts to
£3,000,000 sterling per annum! From the Bight

of Benin, from which, twenty years ago, there
were no exports but kidnapped negroes, the expor-
tation of palm oil last year was estimated at nearly
17,000 tons of the value of between £700,000 and
£BOO,OOO ! Lagos was, till our operations destroyed
the slave trade there, one of the worst of the slave
marts—last year its exports in palm oil, ebony,
and cotton, amounted to £220,000 ! Such reassur-
ing facts as these convict the slave trade, if it were
possible of being worse than any epithets yet ap-
plied to it can describe. It is not only an infernal
villany in itself, but it cheats the world of a really
valuable and honourable commerce, and deprives
the poor natives of the civilising blessings of honest
industry and trade. Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S views
of the effects of suppressing the slave trade on the
coast of Africa, and of the unspeakable blessing of
commerce as a civiliser of the heathen and barbarous
tribes have been fully borne out, it may be remem-
bered, by the observations and experience of Dr.
LIVINGSTONE himself, both on the east and west
coasts of that continent.
Lord JOHN proposes to the French Government
three measures as essential to the success of our
policy. The first is a systematic plan of cruising
on the coasts of Cuba by the vessels of Great
Britain, Spain, and the United States ; the second
is the introduction of a law of registration in Cuba,
by means of which the employment of slaves im-
ported contrary to law might be detected by the
Spanish authorities ; and the third and last is a plan
of emigration from China, regulated by the agents
of European nations in conjunction with the
Chinese Government.
For the first of these it is desirable to obtain
the co-operation of the United States ; this
this ought not now to be so very difficult. The
PRESIDENT, if he be at all a man of honour, must
be ready to join with England and France in
giving effect to the language of his own message,
to which Lord JOHN RUSSELL calls the attention
of the French EMPEROR :—" It is truly lament-
able that Great Britain and the United States
should be obliged to expend such a vast amount of
blood and treasure for the suppression of the
African slave trade, and this when the only portions
of the civilised world where it is tolerated and en-
couraged are the Spanish Islands of Cuba and
Porto Rico." If this indicates, as we may hope it
does, that America is beginning to get weary of
the expenditure into which she has been forced
in the way of cruisers, and of maintaining the cap-
tured negroes in Liberia, some relaxation of her
very silly jealousy may be looked for.
The second proposal is, we fear, of doubtful hope.
An efficient system of Registration was long ago
arranged by Spain, and she professed, of course,
her intention to carry it out. Congratulations
even, we believe, passed on the subject; but it has
remained a dead letter ever since. It was doubt-
less so intended. Cuba still continues to be the
grand mart and centre of the slave trade, and the
natural and horrible result is, that the planters
have not even the inducement of self-interest to
take reasonable care of their slaves. They use
them up, and replace them by the aid of the

slaver.
The last proposal is one which requires two con
ditions for its fulfilment ; the first that the slave
trade be suppressed, and the planter compelled, if
he want more labour, to look to free immigration.
The next, that adequate securities be provided for
the fair treatment of the coolies, not only in Cuba,
but in obtaining them from China. The despatch
we are referring to is the last paper of a series
just laid before Parliament, which tells us
officially what we had all heard before,
that the crimping of coolies in China, by the
natives themselves, set on by foreign traders, has
been of a kind which almost beggars description.
Steps have, however, been already taken to place
things on a better footing; and it appears that
the Chinese women even are overcoming their
I aversion to emigration. The Chinese are naturally
not only industrious, but ever ready to carry their
industry wherever they can ; California and
Australia are evidence enough of that ; and it needs
but that they should have confidence in receiving
fair treatment and pay, and they would probably
be ready to solve all the difficulties of the labour
question, in any of the countries between or near
the tropics.

A Palace of Justice—as we intimated yesterday
—is now formally commended as at once feasible
and desirable by the carefully prepared report of
the Royal Commissioners. The Commission in
question was appointed, it may be remembered, to
select that particular site which might upon due
consideration appear to them the best among all the
various localities proposed for the New Courts of
Law when eventually concentrated. And, as might
have been safely predicted, the site chosen unani-
mously by the Royal Commissioners is the one
suggested by the Attorney-General, Sir RICHARD
BETIIELL, namely, the space—hitherto little better
than a squalid rookery—lying betwixt 'Carey-
street and the Strand, exactly midway between the
Temple and Lincoln's Inn, in the very heart's core
of the purely legal district of the metropolis. The
selection of this site in particular is commendable,
especially as a choice involving in it a variety of very
remarkable advantages. Firstly; the spot fixed upon
at the Attorney-General's suggestion by the lloyal
Commissioners is one of the very spots in all this
vast capital most demanding improvement. It is,
if the bull be allowable, a waste plot of ground,
densely and villainously populated. It is all this,
and a great deal more that is abominable and insa-
lubrious, while it is at the same time one of the
most central parts of all London ! It is, in point of
fact, about TILL " central part" of London !
Situated at an equal distance from the mercantile
and maritime East and the fashionable and legisla-
tive West—the knot of union between the twin
metropolitan cities of London and Westminster.
Let this site be really swept clean of all its present
encumbrances, and let there be a fitting Palace of
Justice then erected—and how many interests will
there not have been together carefully consulted. The