The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-06 00:00:00

Acting Manager—Mr. Wm. Smith.

A STLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.-
Proprietor and Manager, Mr. WM. BATTY.
Immense Success of " Mazeppa."
A Grand MID-DAY PERFORMANCE will take place on
SATURDAY next, Aug 11, commencing at Two o'clock.
This Evening, Lord Byron's splendid Hippo-drama of
MAZEPPA AND THE WILD HORSE, with entirely new
and beautiful scenery, costly costumes, and appointments,
introducing the largest stud of highly-trained Horses, Po-
nies, Buffaloes, and Camels in the World.
To be followed by Scenes in the Arena by the Star Riders
of the day.
Doors open at half-pait 6, performance commence at 7.
Box-office open daily from 11 till 4.
Stage Manager—Mr. W. WEST.
Director of the Arena—al. Felix Revolti.

CANTERBURY HALL CONCERTS.-
THIS EVENING.
C. H. GOIJNOD'S OPERA.
FAUST.
First Time in this Country.
Faust Mr. Henry Herbert.
Mephistopheles Mr. C. Bernard.
Siobel Mrs. Anderson.
Marguerite
Conductor Mr. Jonghmans.
And selections from
Dinorah, Trovatore, Macbeth, and numerous other
Entertainments.
Balcony, ls , Hall. 6d.
Comic Vocalists —Messrs. George Hodson (the Irish Come-
dian and Mimic), and C. Marshall.
The ETHIOPIANS, consisting of 17 performers (organised
expressly for this Establishment). for the performance of
Vocal and Instrumental Music, Comic and Sentimental, with
Negro delineations, anecdotes, &c., in addition to the usual
entertainments.
The gallery is open from 5 till 11 on Sunday Evening.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, AUGUST 5, 1160.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
70—highest since noon yesterday.
51—lowest this morning and during the night.
65—this day at noon.
BAROMETER.-29.66•
WlND—Westerly; light, with fine weather.
AuG. 6.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
68—highest since noon yesterday.
59—lowest this morning and during the night.
64—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.45; a sudden fall.
WIND--W.S.W. ; fresh, with fine weather now—but
rain in the night and this morning.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 4h. 30m.—Afternoon, 4h. 45m
To-MORROW.-Morning, sh. Om.—Afternoon, sh. 15m.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1880.

To-night we are to have a battle, which we think
it every way discreditable to Ministers to have
converted into a party fight. Why cannot the
House of Commons be allowed to settle a mere item
of our tariff, like that of the Customs' duties on
paper, in accordance with the unbiassed judgment
of the majority ? What has resignation of Minis-
ters, or dissolution of Parliament, to do with the
right or the wrong of the relation of the French
Treaty to the duty in question; or, with the other
point in dispute—whether a countervailing duty
on the manufactured article from a country which
prohibits export of the raw material, is a violation
of Free-trade. Able, and intelligent, and perfectly
impartial men take opposite views on both ques-
tions. Either may be wrong ; but to impose even
the right view by open or secret threats, is, we
maintain, an unfair way of treating a subject which
is, more than most, one for discussion, not
for coercion ; and one with which, except,
perhaps, in the case of actual paper makers, no
one can have either interest or prejudice.
We so resent such a mode of treatment that, if it
be made a question of confidence in the Govern-
ment, we should vote against the Ministry, to show
that we were an English, not a Continental Repre-
sentative Assembly.

We can imagine no ground on which our con-
temporaries, who attack so vulgarly the Times, and
expose, as they think, its personal interest in re-
taining the countervailing penny duty, can charge
us with advocating its retention from interested
motives. So far as we can anticipate consequences,
we must, commercially, be gainers, if the Govern-
ment resolutions be carried to-night. It is shabby,
however, to meet arguments by personal abuse.
Put it at the worst. Suppose two or three gentle-
men connected with the -Times have large interests
in paper-mills at stake ; suppose, in consequence,
they see the whole case as the long list of gentlemen
do,whose names appear in our advertising columns to-
day, and that they, naturally, express their views in
their own organ ; is this any reason why their ar-
guments should be ridiculed as interested ? Let
them be as interested as opponents please, we
should like to know who can plead a cause, suppos-
ing him to have the faculty of speaking or writing,
like the person interested. It may lessen the value
of a judgment for a person to have an interest on
either side, but we never heard yet that it lessened
the value of an argument. It is not very well-
bred of our penny contemporaries, to assume that,
even if interested, the Times in its public capacity
will not pronounce a fair judgment; but let it re-
tire from the bench, and let it be dealt fairly with
as honourable counsel for its threatened interests—
answer it, then, we say, don't abuse it. Perhaps,
however, we must expect the latter from those
whose manners are learned in the penny school.

The paper makers, however, will not be denied
the right to speak for themselves, though the vul-
gar joke of wincing at the removal of protection
will be heard, when they ask for the retention of
the penny Customs Duty which was imposed to
meet the prohibition or taxation of the export of
raga by foreign countries. It is rather singular, as
it strikes us, that we never, till this spring, heard
this penny talked of as a protectionist penny. It
is only since the extraordinary zeal to do the com-
plaisant to France of this year, that it was repre-
sented by any party, so far as we can remember, as
otherwise than 'what it is. It has always been
rightly supped .0
I be no duty levied be-
CAUSe i English manufacturers are inferior in
any respect to those of France ; or because
they desire, in spite of
natural
hindrances, to
go on manufacturing what the Frenchcould do
better, or with greater natural facilities, than we.
It has been regarded as the amount of duty which
fairly met an artificial advantage, given to French
manufacturers, b y a partner, against whom no
private firm in t his country could compete—the

Second thoughts are not always best. There is a
case in point, illustrative of this not very generally
recognised truth, in the matter of the rival sub-
Atlantic telegraphs ! Six years ago the North
American route was suggested; and two years
afterwards the Atlantic Company was organised for
the carrying of a direct line from Ireland to New-
foundland. The northern route, therefore, had the
priority—obviously and undeniably. It was in
1856, we repeat, that the Atlantic Company was
organised for the laying down of the cable from
Ireland to Newfoundland; but it was in 1854 that
the northern route was propounded. Nay, not
only had Colonel SHAFFNER suggested this particu-
lar line of sub-Atlantic telegraph, but in that very
year, in 1854; that gallant officer had already ob-
tained the Danish concession to construct the
telegraph from Europe to America, via the Feroe
Islands. and Iceland, and Greenland. From the
European side it was to start from Scotland. From
the American side, from Labrador. " The success
of this enterprise," Colonel SHAFFN En has himself
said, "was not promotive of the interest of some
New Yorkers, who were the owners of the monopoly
of telegraphy in Newfoundland, and it was by their
efforts that the Atlantic Company was organised
(in 1856) for the line from Ireland to Newfound-
land." Whatever the reason for the proposal thus
made, as by an after thought for the laying down
of the direct line of telegraph, in reference to the
one suggested for the western route, via Ireland
and Greenland—the facts are indisputable, of course,
that fully two years after the projector of the
northern line had obtained the Danish concession
for its construction, the Atlantic Company was first
organised for the:connection (if possible) by the elec-
tric cable of Ireland and Newfoundland. Everybody
remembers how magnificently the latter enterprise
was for one brief and glorious, but most illusory,
interval realised. The incident of its realisation is
one, in fact, not very easily to be forgotten. Never,
as we remarked ourselves at the time in these
columns, never surely were the deathless words
of the Royal Psalmist more sublimely realised
—De profundis clamari ad to Domine I—than:when
first thrilled under the waters of the great Atlantic
ocean, from shore to shore, from Europe to America
the earliest electric signal between the two hemi-
spheres, Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax
hominibus ! But the golden cord of this magic it-
tercourse between the nations was no sooner woven
than it was snapped asunder. Row fatally we now
know for certain—now that the old submerged
cable has been found corroded and crumbling away
wherever it has been hauled up for exa-
mination. Recollecting the total and absolute
failure, so far, of the direct route of the
sub-Atlantic Telegraph the one propounded
two years subEequently to the more circuitous line
(not yet tried) via Iceland and Greenland, from the
Faroe Islands to Labrador, one not unnaturally
reverts with interest to a consideration of that
elder plan, as unfolded first of all six years ago

French Government. It is not the French manu- (viz., in 1854) by its ingenious projector, Colonel
facturers but the French Government whom our SHAFT NER.
manufacturers say they are unwilling to meet as It ' was only as recently as last month (July)
a rival. They say so justly. It appears to us won- that ( ;folonel SHAFFNER restated succinctly the
derful that intelligent Free-traders do not see whole, of his very remarkable scheme in a lucid
through the sophism which represents Free- and lu.minous paper laid by him, at Oxford,
trade as demanding that private manufacturers before the British Association, for the advancement
should be required to compete against Go- of scievice. Step by step, the gallant and learned
vernment bounties, as well as against project( it of this northern route of the sub-Atlantic
skill or natural advantages of their fellow- Telegraph showed how the cable might, according
traders. Were our Government to select a score to his c %lculations, be trailed securely from Scot-
of names from the list of the papermakers in our land to Quebec, via Feroe Isles, Iceland, Green-
columns to day, and declare that they would remit, land, an d Labrador. Landed at Thorshaven, the
in their favour, so much of the duty as would capital of the Faroe group, it is to be trailed
balance the difference between the price of rags in thence, Colonel SILAFFNER has explained, a short
France and their price in England—the immediate distance overland to Westerman's haven ;
effect would be that all the trade would go into the thence under the northern seas to Iceland,
hands of the favoured twenty, or that all the rest which the cable will cross from Portland to Reik-
would endeav'our to unite themselves in vast joint- varik—and so on by way of Greenland, onward
stock partnerships with them. Yet where, we still onward, until lamded in Hamilton's Inlet
confidently ask, would the position of the select (lat. N. 54 deg. 30 sec.) upon the coast of Labrador.
F
twenty differ from that of the paper manufacturers From that point it will b e run further on, either
(to which of the two destinations apparently it has
of France at this hour ? And, surely, we are not
nit -yet been decided) to the Gulf or to the River
about to allow the French Government to practise
on our papermakers, generally, with impunity, an St. Lawrence. Having once reached Quebec,
injustice which we would not hear of from our own. it will then be in instantameous communication
with the various lines of telegraph radiating thence
But we are pointed to the treaty ; and we are
told that our honour is pledged by it to the repeal to all parts of the North American continent. Now,
of the Customs' Duty. We need not repeat, now, as to the six sections of the proposed telegraphic
that that treaty is diversely interpreted. We cannot route, Colonel SHAFFNER well observed to the
doubt that paper was not thought of when it was British Association that they are, everything
scon-
made. The treaty itself does not say that all French sidered, as well known to other nautical geographers
merchandise, but certain merchandise shall be ad- as to himself, saving and excepting only, perhaps,
the places sounded by the telegraphic expedition last
mitted, either en payment of equal duties to what
is paid on the same articles here, or with an aug-
autumn between Iceland and Greenland, and, again
mentation only equalling the extra cost due to our further on between Greenland and Labrador. In
excise regulations; it then enumerates the articles, regard to which two most important sections,
what is the evidence now given upon authority by
and amongst them paper is not mentioned. This
seems to shew, if anything can do so, that paper is Col. SHAFFNER ? It is this :—" The bottoms of
not fairly included in the treaty. those seas," he writes, " were found to be deep mud,
But there is another clause—the 21st—to which and a cable once laid thereon will lie undisturbed for
we call the special attention of every member to- all time. Neither the heaving of the seas, nor the
night. It reserves to the contracting powers the spire-like iceberg will disturb the fiery cable re-
right "to introduce by common consent into this posing beneath their white-crested waves. Ice-
treaty any modification which is not opposed to its bergs float, and there will be no part of the
spirit and principles, and the utility of which shall sea in which the cable will be laid that
have been shown by experience." Now, is our Go- the bergs will reach the bottom. It is easy for
ment in a position to show that it has done its best those in rival interests, or for those unacquainted
with France on the basis of this clause. Has it, with the physics of the seas, to imagine difficulties.
first, brought all its influence to bear on the aboli- Artic navigators with whom I have had the plea-
tion of the export duty on rags. If it has, which sure of conversing since my arrival from the voy-
we much doubt, can it show that it has represented age of last autumn, agree that if the cable can be
to the French Government the necessity, in that carried into deep fiords on the respective coasts,
case, of retaining the penny countervailing Gus- there will be no danger of interruptions arising
toms' duty ? If it cannot, it hardly deserves a single . from icebergs. I have seen such fiords on the coasts
vote in its favour. We do not think so badly of Labrador and Greenland, and therefore the
of the French as to suppose them so utterly lost to problem is solved !" Than this, assuredly, nothing
all sense of decency as to ask us to abolish our min- could be more positive, more reliable, more empha-
tervailing duty, while they retain the prohibition it tice, or more conclusive.
was intended to meet. Mr. COBDEN, indeed, As to the land sections, Colonel SHAFFNER
says of them, in a communication which has been writes quite as satisfactorily. And, in thus writing,
made public today, "the French are very little in it ought to be remembered that he does so from
all their commercial notions, monstrously fond of actual and prolonged experience. The difficulties
money, but all after a penurious fashion." Yet we there (in the land seetions) are not, he observes, of
will not speak of our neighbours as so outrageously serious importance. "A telegraph line can be
selfish and " little in their notions" as the conduct constructed on land wherever thefoot of man can be
referred to would suppose. placed. I have built lines over hills and valleys
If, therefore, the retention of the extra penny is where neither waggon nor beast could go, and these
quite compatible with Free Trade principles ;ifit be regions were in the great Mississippi valley, a coun-
not a violation of the Treaty ;if we may reasonably try having great variety of soil, surface, and climate.
believe that even little-notioned, Frenchmen them- I have been in the service some sixteen years, and
selves would not object to it; then, surely Mr. have participated in the construction of several
PULLER'S resolution ought to be carried by an thousand miles of lines, and have for years served
overwhelming majority. For replies to other as President, and also in nearly every position
objections, all of which have been however already known to telegraphy." Everything in effect points
answered in The Sun, and for several important to the North American route encouragingly. Its
aspects of the subject, we must refer our readers to own feasibility both by land and by water, no less
the able advertisement of the paper makers. We than the total failure hitherto of the rival enter-
have considered the subject without reference to po- prize—trailed ineffectually by " second thoughts"
litical consequences at home; we have a very high from Ireland to Newfoundland.
regard for Mr. GLADSTONE as a man, but we cannot
sacrifice our deliberate opinion to keep him in office.
Should he be defeated, however, we cannot think he
will be so ill-advised as to go out on such a ques-
tion ; and to dissolve Parliament in favour of
French manufacturers, and of submitting to such a
trick as passing the Treaty under a promise, re-
ceived with cheers, to abolish the rag prohibition—
a promise not kept by France would ensure a
new Parliament such as neither Lord PALMERSTON
nor Mr. GLADSTONE would meet, except to resign
their offices.

When Mr. HADFIELD suggested in the House
of Commons that the letter to "My dear PERSIGNY"
naight enable Lord PALMERSTON to dispense with
fortifications, the response was a universal " laugh."
There was something very rich, certainly, in the
representative of the great hardware town being
satisfied with such very soft defences as that
"frank" and genial communication. Old COBBETT
was ready to pit " paper against gold ;" but Mr.
HADFIELD was ready to match it with rifled can-
non, and with all the " dread artillery of war."
" A magnificent and verbose letter comes," and
forthwith our Senate is to give up troubling itself
about national defences. The turf on Portsdown
Hill may lie undisturbed, and the costly stone which
should build the seaward batteries may slumber
in its cheap dormitory—the quarry. The letter
answers for all. We should not be surprised if
an address of congratulation to Her MAJESTY were
proposed—or if some " peace society" man should
suggest that the letter should be publicly read in
the Park, and honoured with a Royal salute.
However, Consols rise. So they ought. The letter
itself is one thing, and the professions it contains ano-
ther. That a letter has been sent breathing all sorts of
pacific assurances, offering the most plausible ex-
planations of ugly past deeds, and of quite as ugly
existing appearances, is a fact. The professions
will be taken to represent facts, or the contrary,
according as persons possess the faith in the
writer, which he attributes to Lord PALMERSTON or
not. We accept the fact, and we interpret it just as
the sellers and the buyers of Consols do. It looks
to us pacific that "a neighbouring potentate is
alarmed to find his huge instruments of aggression
looked upon by England's Premier, as well as by
continental Governments, as the evidence of un-
righteous intentions. Why this alarm ? Just
because that even with double his present
Army and Navy, Europe if combined would,
to use Mr. COBDEN'S phrase, " crumple up
France in six months." We have no doubt what-
ever that there is a vast deal of secret preparation,
as there always can be under the most unmitigated
despotism ; but what " crops out " has told its tale
at Toplitz, at Brussels, aril now at last in the Bri-
tish House of Commons. The game is up. No more
Savoy and Nice treacheries and lies. The next
-violent attempt to rectify a French boundary
will unite the fleets and armies of Europe to put
down for ever the imitator of his " uncle."
Unless LOUIS NAPOLEON cherish villainous pur-
poses at heart—we say it openly—he has no more
right to menace the repose of Europe with
400,000 soldiers, ready at a moment's warning,
and 200,000, and we know not how many more,
ready to follow them in a few weeks, than we
have. He has not a more extensive or more acces-
sible frontier than we have. Algeria is a trifle to
our vast colonies, including India ; and as to a navy,
he scarcely needs one, compared with us ; we have
shores that can hardly be measured, to watch ; he,
but his two sides of the square which contains not
many more inhabitants than our shapeless islands.
The right reply to this letter is to ask its
author for deeds. It is perfectly certain that
not a single neighbour has the slightest wish
to meddle with France, while she leaves
the geography of Europe as it is. While com-
paratively helpless no one moved a finger against
her. Latterly, however, not content with being at
the head of the polite civilisation of the Continent,
this fickle nation, or its ambitious ruler, have de-
sired to regain the ascendancy of brute force which
L they enjoyed for a little time under the first Em-'