The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-05 00:00:00

long engaged the attention of the public. He
moved for a select committee to consider the best
means of providing for the increasing traffic of the
metropolis by the embankment of the Thames. And
he enforced his motion by arguments at once for-
cible and conclusive. He said that the influx of
visitors to London was daily on the increase, while
the population moving to and fro by the various
lines of railway amounted at the termini to up-
wards of 30 millions ! The enormous concourse of
people seems to exceed belief—and the wonder was
how they could pass along the thoroughfares.
Wonder, indeed !—that was as nothing to the dif-
ficulty ! for they reversed the idiom of " it's a long
lane that has no turning," for here it was turn and
turn and never get on. Our London streets were
made for a population of a hundred thousand at
most, and now we have upwards of thirty times
that number, so that our enterprise and suc-
cess in trade have blocked up our locomotion.
The embankment of the Thames presented the most
ready way for facilitating the public convenience,
while it would be both ornamental and beneficial.
At low water the extent of mud on its banks was
injurious to health and offensive to the senses.
Then there was another point of the greatest con-
cern—the purity of the river, which was becoming
daily more contaminated. The Metropolitan
Board of Works were on the point of making a
tunnel along the Strand to intercept the sewage,
and this work would take about two years—so that
London might as well go out of town during its
performance, for no one could get along. The
nuisance would thus be preposterously magnified.
While, by mbanking the river, sufficient space
might be obtained to make the tunnel under the
new roadway reclaimed from the mud, and con-
vert what at present is an eyesore and an abomi-
nation into a source of perennial beauty, profit,
and usefulness. The motion was responded to by
the Government with a readiness which does them
honour. Indeed the Chief Commissioner of
Works, Mr. CowPER, was hearty in his
wishes for the success of a plan which
promised so much benefit. lie said—that
it required no argument to show the necessity of
free communication between Charing-cross and
London-bridge, but that no money would be spent
by Government. The committee might find out
ways and means to carry out the scheme ! Why
the value of the land reclaimed from the river would
in time repay all the expense. The property all
along would be not only improved but enhanced
considerably in value. There might be a railway,
a carriage road, and a promenade all combined.
Lord JOHN MANNERS thought a Royal Commission
would be more effective than a Committee, but
Lord PALMERSTON was of a different opinion.
Still he thought that time was precious, and that
the inquiry should be prompt. Other members
cordially joined in the object, but some wished
to engraft views of their own on the motion.
Sir S. M. PETO eulogised the master - mind
that now superintended the improvement going on
in Paris, and wished that our Government would
deal with the question before the House in a spirit
worthy of itself. We hope they may. It would
redound more to their honour than all their party
schemes, and be a lasting memorial of their
patriotism for all time to come—
" While muddy Thames reclaims his silver tide."

The new Austrian regime in Hungary, from
which we have been willing to hope the best, and
some of our contemporaries to hope even against
hope, will turn out, we fear, to be a much "poorer
little bill" in the way of liberal reform than our
own. The best symptom is that in the list of names
for the new Legislative Council appears that of
Baron VAT, who was the conspicuous lay repre-
sentative in the deputation of the Hungarian Pro-
testants to Vienna. He hoped when he returned
from Vienna that he had secured terms which
would be satisfactory to his fellow Protestants, but
found that the Government, with its usual mixture
of fraud and obstinacy, had so overreached him
that he could not recommend the Protestants to
yield. It will be remembered that the " Imperial
Patent" was an attack on the old Hungarian civil
arrangements and liberties through their religion
—are we then to hope that this mode of attack,
at least, will be renounced ? Is it really in further-
ance of Hungarian religious liberties when we read
that the branch of the Ministry of Public Worship
which is to consist of Evangelical co-religionists is
to be immediately established, and that all questions
relating to Protestant religious and scholastic
matters are to be referred to it. We notice that
no hint of concession on the vital point of retaining
or abrogating the old synodal divisions has yet
appeared.

Much was made at Vienna, and it was accepted
too easily here, of General BENEDEK, the new pro-
visional governor, being a Hungarian. He is, it is
true, a Hungarian by birth, but by birth only. M.
SZEMERE, formerly minister in Hungary, tells us,
that " he is not so either by mind, by heart, or by
his antecedents." P,orn in 1804, since fourteen
years of age he has been an Austrian collier ; that
his life has been spent in fighting against national
liberties in Italy and Gallicia ; that, in the latter
country he was the foremost man in that bloody
perfidy, in which the Hapsburgs paid the peasants
a sovereign per head for the murder of their land-
lords ; and, that in 1848, he was the only officer of
Hungarian origin who served the Hapsburgs by
fighting against his native country, and by shed-
ding the blood of his relations, his brothers and his
countrymen !" What can be said of the appoint-
ment of such a man as a pledge of conciliatory
intentions ?

He has now arrived on the scene of his labours,
and the course he has taken is very much what
might have been expected. Ostensibly he is sent
to conciliate, in reality, we fear to subjugate. He is
reputed to have an iron will ; and the story is, that
he " threatens to break the neck of any of his sub-
ordinates who neglect their duties." At the same
time the subordinates, it is said, are doing all in
their power to widen the breach between the people
and the Sovereign. Why does not BENEDEK put
at once a stop to this ? Why is M. ZSEDENYI, the
unjustly convicted patriot of the Kaesmark meeting,
treated like a common malefactor, denied sufficieat
food, and almost starved to death ? Why was even
the Roman Catholic bishop forbidden to see him,
and why are the patriot clergymen still punished
with fines and imprisonments ? On the one hand,
BENEDEK is, by his visits and invitations, apparently
wishing to conciliate the Liberals; on the other, he
very strongly asserts his determination to bend all
to the sceptre of the Hapsburgs. lie told them that
he loved his native country and its inhabitants with
all his heart ; but that, in his capacity of Com-
manding-General, he should recognise but two
classes of men—" the class that was loyal and
obedient to the EMPEROR, and the class that was
not."

It may be that, after all their sufferings, the
Magyars are not disaffected to the sovereignty of
a Hapsburg—that all they wish is to find an honest
and loyal King of Hungary—and that, could a
Hapsburg but enter on a course of loyalty to Hur-
gary, Hungary would be loyal to him. The
notorious fact is, that all disloyalty has begun
with this insanely, despotic, brutal, and perfidious