The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 7, 1860.

sirous of taking the earliest opportunity, if I may
do so with the indulgence of the House, of stating
the course of business with regard to the Financial
Statement. The House is probably aware that,
owing to the unfortunate indisposition of my right
hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he
is unable to bring forward to-night the Finan-
cial Statement, as he had intended to do. I have
good reason for hoping and believing that on
Friday next he will be in sufficient health to make
the statement. The statement is one which must of
course involve a considerable length of speech, and it.
is desirable that he should have the interval from
this day to that in order to regain his power of
going through the task. I shall not therefore, sir
have occasion to ask the house to depart from the
usual couse of business on Thursday. But on Fri-
day, which is our own natural day, my right hon
friend, I trust, will be able to make the statement ;
and I now beg to give notice on his behalf
for that day." All this sounds, and is, of
course, quite natural and reasonable. And
it is with no surprise that the public
finds the right honourable gentleman the leader
of the Opposition, contenting himself with saying
in regard to the new arrangment consequent upon
Mr. GLADSTONE'S indisposition—" Sir, I am sure
we must all hear with universal regret the cause
of the delay." Mr. DISRAELI adds, how-
ever, immediately afterwards, " But will the
noble lord allow me to inquire whether the
commercial treaty with France, if ratified, will be
laid on the table of the house before the state-
ment of Friday next ? Mr. DISRAELI might
have asked with perfect reasonableness whether
the Treaty would be laid upon the table
then and there, namely, yesterday (Monday) even-
ing, without any further delay whatsoever. He
gives the Minister, however, a wider margin—he
puts the query to him generally—he asks simply
whether before Friday, it will be laid on the table
of the House "if ratified ?" No wonder the
house, hitherto complaisant in its applause, rings
with derisive cries of " Oh ! oh !" when
Lord PAL MERSTON, in reply to the leader of the
Opposition, observes,—" Sir, I believe my noble
friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
intends to lay it on the table on Friday !" The
whole transaction is disingenuous.
It is inevitably provocative of suspicion. It is
painfully suggestive that this Treaty affects
in a very serious manner the whole scheme and
substance of the forthcoming Budget. It gives proof
positive to the notion already prevalent that
Ministers deem this vaunted Treaty with France
to require very careful and delicate handling when
laid before the House of Commons—to require, in
fact, a great deal to be said in the way of explana-
tion and extenuation The truth of this is now
plainly enough put beyond the reach of one mo-
ment's further misapprehension. Unless what we
have now said be the case, why delay the publication
of the terms of the Treaty, why smuggle up those
terms still to the last so very mysteriously ? The
whole of these arrangements, in effect, have been
demonstrated by the merest accident (the accident
of Mr. GLADSTONE having a sore throat) to be just
exactly too clever by half. Everything is elabo-
rately concocted between the high contracting
parties. The Treaty is signed the day before Par-
liament assembles —just in the very nick of time
to be announced in the Speech from the Throne! It
is ratified on Saturday the 4th of February—also
just in the nick of time to make its appearance
upon the Monday following (that is, yesterday)
upon the table of the House of Commons and in
the columns of the Montteur ! Itut -unhappily the
skilled rhetorician who has been selected
by reason of his witching eloquence to
talk the House of Commons iato a gra-
cious acceptance of the whole double project
unhappily by the most maladroit casualty loses his
voice. Everything is jeopardised. The electric
telegraph is immediately put into requisition, to
flash under the waters of the Channel to Paris a
warning hint that the official organ there had
better perhaps remain mute in regard" to the Treaty
until Friday, until the English Chancellor of the
Exchequer can make his Financial statement.
If there is to be reciprocity in nothing else on the
part of Imperial France—there is to be reciprocity
of reticense ! And so the Moniteur comes forth
without the promised revelation. " The oracles
are dumb" elsewhere than at old classic Delphos.
But, ah !—there is that intolerable Free Press at
Brussels ! There are those detestably active print-
ing presses at the Belgian capital, ever watch-
ful, ever on the alert, insatiably voracious
—prepared to issue at an instant's notice every-
thing that may chance to be tabooed or interdicted,
now "La Question Romaine," by M. EDMOND
ABOUT, now M. VEUILLOT'S L' Univers, suppressed
though it is by mandate of the EMPEROR And
so it is not at all surprising to find that
matters have been managed so very cleverly
in regard to this Treaty of Commerce be-
tween France and England, that—although the
terms of the Treaty are carefully withheld from
the House of Commons and withdrawn from the
columns of the Moniteur—it all oozes out in the
most provoking manner in the world through that
abominable blab at Brussels, the Independance
Beige ! Through it we recognise only too
plainly how our worst fears are realised. It
no longer remains either matter of conjec-
tare or matter of surprise why the Treaty and
the Budget must be brought forward simultane-
ously, or why the Budget, being postponed till Fri-
day, the Treaty is at once postponed till Friday
likewise. The truth of thq, matter is now only too
plain. It is only too manifest by this time that if
Mr. GLADSTONE, on Fri day evening, will have
" naught to set down in malice," he will have very
much, indeed,
?—How is it h
P— to extenuate
Query
Times knows all about
the Ninepenny Income Tax, and argues the un-
palatable theme in a manner so significantly pre-
paratory ? We give this as a nut to crack for the
especial delectation of the opponents of the tax
and the true Friends of Economy.

To-morrow is a day ou which every LIBE-
RAL MEMBER 'who desires to do his duty, and
to retain the respect of his constituents, ought to
be "in his place." It will not be a day for
" pairing." One division almost certainly—two
quite probably—will take place on that day. Sir
lons TRELAWNY'S Church Bate Abolition Bill
stands for its second reading on that day; and
Mr. DUNCOMBE also is to ask for leave to bring in
his bill for conferring the ballot on Gloucester and
Wakefield. These are both testing motions. We
have indeed a faint hope that, for very shame's
sake the Government will not refuse Mr. DUN-
COMBE a first reading; but their treatment of him
will very much depend on the number of the
sound-hearted representatives whom they see
then present. To Sir JOHN TRELAWNT'S bill,
also, the actual presence of our representatives
is of the highest importance. We hardly need ap-
prise honourable members that both the Cabinet
and the country judge
the trouble theoyf
cause, by
wmilelmtbakeres'fozreailt,. inlfatnhye
electors have any object much at heart, they feel a
little uncomfortable, a little doubtful, when they
see their member's name in the list of pairs only.

" Voting," "pairing," "doing neither," and "voting
against," are the marks at which the public look
when they consult that political barometer, the
division list. And the public is right. Speaking
in the house may depend on speaking power, or
on the circumstances of the debate, even on the
Speaker's eye sometimes ; but every member hearty
in a cause can be present to vote ; and in the im-
portant divisions nothing but the utmost necessity
is a valid excuse.

Sir JOHN TRELAWNY'S Bill stands first. There
will be a thorough muster against it of all the High
Churchmen and all the stiff Churchmen, all the
landlordism, and all the Toryism ; all the " vested
wrongs" men, and all the "rights of their church"
men ;—of all the followers of Messrs. PACICE,
SPOONER, and MONTAGU, and of the " Church-in-
danger" men ;—and, of course, a goodly band of
opposers of anything and everything the name of
liberal. There has been, of late, a regular whip-up
amongst the High Church clergy and church-
wardens ; archdeacons, too, have been specially
prominent. Even a retired judge has been called
forth from his retirement ; a worthy banker, and a

" committee of laymen" have done what they could
there has been, indeed, quite a nervous fever 'amongs'
a select circle of ecclesiastical and semi-ecclesi
astical personages, and the symptoms, we are
told, will be apparent soon, in a number of
small genteel petitions to Parliament ; at least to
that nobler house which is all untainted with the
curse of democratic influence. To-morrow will,
doubtless, therefore, display on the Speaker's left
hand such a gathering as is not seen everyday,
much less on Wednesdays. It will be the grand
field-day of bigotry in its last great effort to rescue
something from the onslaught of Sir JOHN TRE-
LAWNY'S Zouaves. The great struggle will be for
a diminished majority against the bill ; the argu-
ment will then be, that the country's love for
Church-rates is re-awakened by their obvious dan-
ger, and that the sacred thing, must yet be saved.
Sir JOHN TRELAWNY'S supporters have before
them the greatest hostile effort yet made, to en-
counter ; and the presence of every man is now
therefore especially needed. The division of to-
morrow will be probably the decisive one.
As to the general question, no one who lives out
of a parsonage or an episcopal palace can doubt
that Church-rates are doomed. The very fact o
the vast progress made by their defenders shows
this. Mr. HUBBARD'S bill, for instance, which is
to be the pro-rate rival of Sir JOHN TRELAWNT'S,
no longer proposes to tax Dissenters, nor indeed, if
we understand him rightly, any one who signs a
written notice left at his house that he objects to pay.
1 Dissenters are no longer to be ticketed as such ; ob-
jection to pay is, by Mr. SOTHERON ESTCOURT and
his party, held to bo sufficient ! Had this been pro-
posed years ago it would have been carried in
triumph ; now it is disliked by very many good
Churchmen. There are two grand objections felt by
plain lay common sense. It, after all, is creating a
separation between Englishmen, and in the dis-
tricts where parson and squire reign supreme
it perpetuates an unfair compulsion. There are
also minor objections to its working. It will re-
vive cempulsOry rating of Churchmen in towns
where rates have been long abolished. It will
leave any person compellable to pay who by acci-
dent may have neglected to sign and send the
notice. And the Voluntaries must, for consistency's
sake, oppose it, since they object to coercing their
Church neighbours, as well as to being coerced
hemselves.

No, there is now no satisfactory bill but one for
abolition. Mr. HUBBARD'S bill ha►s on the face of
besldea not being adapted to the day, the tkh-
surdity of providing that those who are willing to
pay shall be made to pay ! Bishops, archdeacons,
rural deans, clergymen, and churchwardens, not-
withstanding, we must get clean rid of the nuisance
of Church-rates once and for all. If the House
does its duty to-morrow, it will give Sir JOHN
TRELAWNY a far larger majority than ever.

LATEST NEWS.

The following telegrams have been received at
Mr. Reuter's office :

PARIS, TUESDAY.

The Moniteur announces that the King of Sar-
dinia, wishing to acknowledge the services of the
French army in the cause of Italian independence,
has placed at the disposal of the French Govern-
ment 780 crosses of the order of Santa Maurizio
Lazzaro (the military order of Savoy), and 8,000
medals, for military valour.

BERLIN, MONDAY.

The English Government, in making to Austria,
with the consent of France, the proposal for the
settlement of the Italian question, announced in
stated that in exchange for
ytheestperodinayts'smessage,
tobeagreed to by Austria it would be
understood that Sardinia will respect the Austrian
dominion of Venetia.
Austria, in her reply already mentioned, said
that she herself will know how to protect Venetia.

Arvation so long as Europe shall remain undis-
turbed by grave events."

The King of Sardinia has issued a decree placing
his army on a peace-footing in so far as promotion
and the administration of military justice are con-
cerned. In another decree the mayors are directed
to take the preliminary steps for the political elec-
tions.

General Garibaldi, in coming from Milan with
his young bride, stopped one day at Turin. Ho has
since left for Genoa, where he was to meet M.
Alexandre Dumas.