The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-29 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIOAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1856.

Last night the Hon. Gentleman the Member
for Birmingham brought on his promised motion
for the appointment of a select committee " to
inquire into how far the present monetary sys-
tem was in accordance with the requirements of
the country, and to consider if it could not be
imProva and amended." This was negatived by
a majority of 47 in a house of 183 members.
It thus appears that on such a question, the most
important that could possibly be brought under
legislative consideration, not one-fourth of the
chosen representatives of the people thought pro-
per to attend in their places, and that a large
majority of those who put in an appearance
thought no inquiry was wanting on the interest-
ing and important topic. Ministers carefully ab-
stained from taking any part in the discussion
until they had, in the first instance, ascertained
the feeling of the house. The general apathy,
however, encouraged them to adjourn the subject
sine die. Their weight thrown into the scale
turned the balance, and they were thus enabled
to shelve it for an indefinite period. Nor will
this be the only result. For Sir G. CORNEWALL
LEWIS, who confessed that there were parts of the
Bank Charter Act of 1844, which required inves-
tigation when ct proper time arrived, will be encou-
raged to throw himself into the
.arms of the Cur-
rency Quacks, and to take to himself counsellors
of the Mercator or JONES LOYD School.
It will be seen that the motion of Mr. Murcrz
was merely for inquiry. It committed the House
in no possible manner. It might have been an
investigation into the operation of the Act, as sug-
gested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. All
that was required was that the subject should be
properly ventilated, and receive all the light of
which it was susceptible, so that parties might
have full information before the matter
shall be finally disposed of. Notwith-
standing, however, thg, ' 'ca,ridid admission
of the Times in lasi October, that " a


.rediscaision of the whole question in Parliament
cannot be arranged too soon, it was deliberately
shelved, and the Tinics has hurled its ponderous
jokes at the head of the independent member who
ventured to act on its own suggestion.

It is impossible to deny that the subject was
nof introduced under favourable auspices. Mr.
IVituNtz does not belong to any of the great
pa rties into which the House is divided. Many
wl to might approve of the inquiry would not give
a t riumph to one with whom they were not in
an:, degree connected in political affairs. Besides,
he -took particular pains to repudiate the notion
th:tt he was " the advocate of an inconvertible
pa.l?.er circulation." He did not come forward as
th(t advocate of the anti-bullionist party, which,
altihough not fairly represented in the House of
Co:mmons, has still considerable weight with the
co camunity. He had no plan to suggest, no ame-
lioration to offer for consideration. His object
wrus merely to inquire—nothing more. We can-
' not, therefore, feel greatly surprised at the apathy
respecting a matter that ought to have been intro-
duced by Mr. bisnanu or Mr. JAMES WILSON.
The division cannot, therefore, be taken as a
dedeat. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has
reoorded an admission that will impose a heavy
responsibility on Government, if they main-
tain an unbroken silence on the point. As
we have repeatedly pointed out, the Act
has virtually expired. It only requires the
stipulated notice, and the repayment of the
Bank loan to introduce a system more bone-
fiuial to the nation, and more especially to the
commercial classes, who have suffered so severely
from the fluctuations in the value of money, that
have been the inevitable results of the present
most injudicious enactments. An impartial in-
quiry is all that is required, and if the voice of
public opinion is heard in its favour, that inquiry
cannot be withheld, or even long postponed.

So the nation is to be favoured with another
Royal viiit. It is announced that his Majesty the
King of the BELGIANS intends to leave Brussels
the week after next, in order to spend a few days,
not exceeding six, with her MAJESTY and Prince
ALBERT. Much mischief, however, may be
effected within that time, under existing circum-
stances. The complimentary visitations of the
Ulysses of the House of COBURG have been
always so timed as to turn the scale in favour of
" Germanism." They are, and have been full of
ominous import to England and the English.
However great the debt of gratitude which King ,
LEOPOLD owes to France and England, it is cer-
tain that he has unreservedly cast his lot with
Austria, more especially since the matrimonial
alliance between his son and one of the Imperial
family. To his sinister influence may in no
ordinary degree be attributed many of the
evils that have been so deeply deplored
by the British people, and which most probably
occasioned and protracted the War. It is not
necessary to inquire into the objects which he
desires to promote. They can scarcely be ac-
ceptable to those of whom he has been the pen-
sioner of forty years' standing, and to whom ho
is indebted for his position as a parvenu monarch.
We need not yet ask as to the probability of a
kingdom of Thuringia being created out of the
materials existing at the present crisis, nor the
possibility of such a reward being considered rea-
sonable for those who materially advance the
Austrian policy, and turn the scale in favour of
the neutral game. It is sufficient to know that the
Conferences at Basis are now going on—that the most
important questions will be under discussion at
the time selected for the threatened visit, and
that the instructions forwarded to the British.
Plenipotentiaries may prove of vital importance to
the welfare and prosperity of the nation. In
any case we have everything to fear, and nothing
Ito hope from the untoward event. We can only
call on the Parliament and People of the country
to Ise doubly vigilant, and by their vigorous and
energetic demonstrations to neutralise, so far as
practicable, the threatened danger—to take care
that the evils of the Austro-Coburg Alliance be
reduced to the minimum amount. We must be
prepared for insidious suggestions—be it the duty
of the popular representatives to provide an ade-
quate antidote that may avert the most serious
part of the threatened mischief.

The protectionists in the great Sabbath ques-
tion are composed of several curiously inconsistent
classes, but no class amongst them is so singularly
and suicidally inconsistent Rs the PROTESTANT
DISSENTERS ; a few victories like that of this day
last week must annihilate all their power as the
supporters of an unquestionably noble principle—
that of no State protection for religion. A prin-
ciple to which even those who oppose*it cannot
deny the merit of simplicity, and of unfaltering
reliance on the Divine power of religion. All our
respect for Dissenters, as a great public party,
rests upon their adherence to the fundamental
principle of their nonconformity. If the Leaguers
bad asked for protection to the hundredth part of
a farthing for E►rglish trade, or for any govern-
mental legislation on behalf of the branch of
commerce to which the majority of them were
attached, we should have exposed them unmer-
cifully, and we must think our Dissenting friends
cut but a sorry figure ou the evening alluded to,
as the coadjutors of the religious protectionists.
The vast majority of that evening was com-
posed, first, of the practically inconsistent ;—the
members who voted to retain to the full the pre-
sent Government protection for the Sabbath, but
who do in every conceivable form the very things
they vote against. Forbidding men either to
work or play on the first day of the week, they
do one or both, perhaps, themselves. Morning
duty having been done, or done, it may be, like
that of Sir BALA.AM, by proxy, through the
" family and wife," what festivity or entertain-
ment afforded by their country seats, their grounds
or mansions, do these gentlemen deny themselves? '
The poor man can have his diversion of the
same kind only through public institutions. lie
needs recreation and change as much as Sir
ROBERT and Sir JOEL; but because he has no
means of obtaining it individually, those who
have the latter forbid him to provide it on tho
joint-stock system. The men of the town man-
sion and the villa legislate for the men of the
garret and the cellar, and legislate in forgetful.
ness of their own Sunday dinners, parties, and
entertainments.
Then there were the theologically inconsistent
—the men who abhor Jews, and would think
their introduction to Parliament the ruin of
Christianity. Yet these gentlemen argue as glibly
from Jewish observances as if it were universally
acknowledged that the law of Mesas was the law
of Christianity. Without the vestige of au argu-
ment from New Testament authority they appeal
to the Old as if the New had never come. It
were as easy to prove the obligation of circum-
cision as of Sabbatism from the Old Testament ;
and the New Testament as explicitly denounces
Sabbaths as alien to Christianity as it does the
circumcision of the Gentiles. The only oon•
sistent theologians on this subject are a sect,
we believe, extinct in. England, but still
I existing in the United States allied Seventh•

day litptiss, who, with the Jewish notions
of abstinence from labour on the Sabbath, observe
also the same day of the .week with the Jews.
Whatever we may think of their opinions we can-
not withhold from them the praise of that excel-
lence which Englishmen especially prize—consis-
tency. The politically inconsistent vote, of
course, with their theological brethren, and enact
by penalties that we shall borrow a Sabbath from
the Jew, but refuse him the palfry recempence of
a seat or two in the House of Commons.

One party was quite consistent in its votes--
the High-Church party. Believing in the power
of the Church to create festival and fast days, to
ordain rites and ceremonies, and to seek the co-
operation of the State iu obtaining compliance
with Church institutions, this considerable party
may so far be regarded as consistent enough. In
their view the "secular arm" is but the secretary
to register and enforce their decrees. The Dis-
senters, on the other hand, repudiate all resort to
State support ; they assert the self-sufficiency of
Religion, and its perfect independence of Senates
and Rulers. They maintain, like the Free-traders,
that protection but enfeebles the protected. Not
only do they with all public speakers denounce
persecution, but they represent protection of a
sect or doctrine as a persecution to all of dif-
ferent views, and really injurious to the favoared
party.

How is it, then, that petitions from Dissenters
deluged the house this day week ? Did they re-
flect on the only principle which could justify
them ?—justify, we mean invoking, as most of
them did, the protection of the State for the re-
ligious rest of the Sunday. Had the petitions
only prayed that a day, which had been preserved
hitherto as a holiday to our over-worked popu-
lace, might be preserved so still, we could have
understood it. It would have been consistent to
allege that for generations it had been a day of
all practicable cessation from labour, and that
this was not a privilege to be lightly tampered
with. This, however, was not the ground taken
by the vast majority of petitioners and Honour-
able Members. The Sunday they said was
sacred to GOD and religion—the Bible forbade
men to work on the Seventh day of the week—
therefore they demanded that the State should
compel men to obey the Bible, and to abstain
from labour on religious, not on secular grounds.
This concedes the whole question of a State
Church. Dissenters will henceforth, by their
own act, be out of court on that question. Lord
STANLEY understood the Voluntary principle far
better than they did, and his defence of it,
though not in so many words, was a masterpiece
of independent and honest reasoning. If religion
can be upheld only by our compelling others to
act on the views which we think right, let it fall.
Christianity knows nothing of compulsion, either
to do, or to abstain from doing. A compulsory
Church rate is as defensible in principle as a
compulsory abstinence from work or amusement,
on religions grOnnds. It is the latter amusement
which entrap Dissenting Sabbatarians. The ab-
stinence from work can be defended on secular
grounds—abstinence from amusements cannot.
Hence in their zeal to carry out the Puritan
view on the latter point they surrender the pecu-
liar characteristic of modern dissent, and fall back
on the State Church views of their Puritan
ancestors.

Whatever may be the duty of a free and I
powerful nation with regard to nationalities,
races, classes, or individuals labouring under the
brutal oppression and savagery of foreign despots
—whether it should interfere on their behalf at
all (and on this head there can be little question),
or should confine that interference to diplomatic
appeal, one thing will not admit of a doubt, viz.,
that it is under the most imperative obligation in
treating for peace to provide not only for the
safety of its Allies, but also of the inhabitants of
the districts it has invaded and means to evacuate,
who, weary of the tyranny of their taskmasters,
and confiding in its power, have voluntarily come
in and lent their beSt aid to the maintenance
and progress of its Armies.
This obligation, probably, never pressed more
urgently on an Eaglish Government than it
does on that of Lard PAMERSTON at the
present time in relation/ to the inhabi-
tants of the Tauric Chersonese, for never
were claienst to protection of such a nature
more valid or less susceptible of depreciation. The
case of the poor Tartars is not that of Russian
übjects who have incurred the charge of treason
to their legitimate ruler, by rendering assistance
to his foes, though hopeless oppression destroys all
bonds of allegiance, bat of the inhabitants, the
industrious inhabitants, of a recently-con-
quered district, who have lent such assistance,
and that at the cost of one-half of their numbers,
because they were wearied of the tyranny of a
ruler to whom they never rendered other than a
reluctant allegiance, and from whose all-compre-
hensive revenge, bounded neither by honour nor
pity, they can only anticipate the severest punish-
ment if again brought under his dominion. To re-
sign these poor creatures to the tender mercies of
Russia, of that villanous power whose atrocities in
Poland have been signalised by more than the
brutality, and none of the magnanimity of the
savage, would be to stereotype us for infamy to all
posterity, and would expose the Ministry to uni-
versal execration. We rely, therefore, on whatever
steps necessary for the safety and well-being of
these poor Tartars, under present circumstances,
being taken by Government, even should these
involve their transportation to Anatolia, to which
we should fancy they would have no objection ;
and where, under the sway of the SULTAN, they
may yet further develope that activity, industry,
and intelligence, before which the Russ has been
put to shame, and by
,which the resources of
Asiatic Turkey may le m tile to contribute to the
stability of the Turkisn empire. Such a step
would insure their safety, respecting which they
are now in great dread, and read their oppressor
a lesson he might be disposed to profit by to the
advantage of ether of his victims.

MR. ROEBUCK'S MOTION.—No can state, in positive
terns, that Government has done everything in its
power, through the medium of its most devoted friends
to prevail on Mr. Roebuck to withdraw his motion,
which stands for this evening. We can further state
that Ministers are in great alarm as to the result—being
fuliy aware that, even should they have an ample nu•
aterical majority, the debate will be eminently damaging
to them.—/If orninv Advertiser.

The Right Hon. B. Disraeli and Mrs. Disraeli enter-
tained at dinner yesterday, at, their residence, Grosvenor
gate, his Excelieney Count Colloredo, the Marquis of
Breadaibane, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bland-
ford, Lord and Lady Harry Vane, Mr. Thomas Baring,
the Countess of Glengall and Lady Mary Butler, the
Right Hon. Cecil Fsrester, the Dowager Lady Cowley,
Lard Chelsea, Count Vitztlium, Lord and Lady William
Powlett, and the Marquis of Bath.
We are happy, sayc the Brighton Gazette, to announce
the arrival of Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence at the Bed-
ford Hotel ; and we trust that the Brighton air amy
have the effect of completely reestablishing his lord-
ship's health.
ST. PHILIP'S CHAPEL, REGENT-STREET.—A testimo-
nial of esteem and respect, amounting to 4801. 18s., ha.,
we are requested to state, been presented to the Rev.
G. D. Hill, late assistant minister at this chapel, and
received by him with expressions of heartfelt gratitude
for the generous token of regard.
GREECE.—Spiro Mylios, who was one of the ministers
of King Otho during the breach of neutrality by Greece,
and who was placed on-his trial for aiding the insurrec-
tion in Turkey with the money of the- state, has been
acquitted, to the great joy of the court of Athens.