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

THE STATE OF NA PL ES.

A letter from Naples, January 28, says :—I had I
scarcely time to translate and send off by my last
letter the circular of the Director of Police, Signor
Commendatore Ajossi. Of course, it was impos-
sible to make any observations on this extraor-
dinary document, nor do I know that it was neces-
sary ; still I may recur to two points in it, which
establish simple suspicion of political feeling as
ground sufficient for arrest, and the number of
arrests made as a necessary proof of the zeal and
fidelity of the Inteudenti of provinces. This cir•
cular, I may observe, only gives in a written form
what has long been the practice of the Govern-
ment of the Two Sicilies, and itself justifies the re-
presentations, called by ignorance or interest
"exaggerations," which I •have sent you from time
to time. It proves several points worth noting at
the present moment, as, that the Government has
no doubt of the excellence of its system ; that it is
entirely opposed to all expression of opinion through
the press or otherwise; and that, most important
of all, there are no guarantees for security in the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. By virtue of those
words, "semplici sospeti," a man may be stopped
in his morning's walk, as happens continually, and
hurried off to the Prefecture. He may be
wakened out of his slumbers at midnight, as hap -
pens continually, and be compelled to finish his
night as best he can in a dingy prison. He may be
stopped at any time or anywhere, as happens con-
tinually, and have his pockets or any part of his per-
son searched, and his letters and papers taken to the
first lamp and examined by one of the worthless
scoundrels who consent for a wretched stipend to
do the dirty work of their masters. There are
' numberless facts daily occurring which bear me
out in my assertions, and some ridiculous enough;
take the following as an instance. A man named
Michele Puente is walking up the Toledo at night ;
he has a sore throat, and is softening it by eating
away lie
an orange, the peel of which he throws
finds himself arrested all at once, and to say why he
their hands,
darmes with a load of orange peel in
is puzzled. In the meantime up come some gen
and give orders that the man shall be released, as
days,
oaccordingr a
they were not tricoloured objects which had been
thrown about. This fact occurred the other even-
ing.edadetermined
few s t
many
law; they may
With regard to
e t not
ai n
to those who are taken off to
prison, their case
be l
d
years; they may see a judge or not, according to
caprice: Pandola was arrested now nearly two
months since. The law requires that the Commis-

" "`".77` =
ears of Pollee should send in a refsoKitf'thte.'-!')
tornes-General within 24 Itc.rt, biit44rep.;;et?-"
Sent in till nearly a month aftera,.,iti
been done at last may be attributeclinna'
sure to the publicity which has been ii.
en.
Commissary Mobillo would giVe-thenppeir-
ance of legality to his conduct. At the same times,
there are those who have been in detention for_
years who have never seen a judge, nor been asked.
a question, and yet have been manacled like felons.
As to any progressive measures, I see not the
slightest twilight indicative of any. An extract
from a letter from Messina, on the decree of thii
19th, sr- "-s of alterations in the law of the press,
in that ,-4ing municipal institutions, and coma.
merc'-‘,l regard to the first, it has
ne-, he wildest thoughts of Francis
11., and as to the two latter I believe that they have
been used as decoy ducks, to deceive and pacify.
At the same time that they were spoken of, a large
amnesty was semi-officially promised, =krilll
progress largely talked of, and the concession for
completing the Taranto line of railway, that im-
practicable line (speaking of it as a speculation),
was granted. Who ever hears of them now ?
They were delusions, and intended to be so; the
prisoners remain in confinement or exile, and re-
ceive additions to their numbers. Does the "Cir-
cular" I sent you harmonise with an amnesty? As
for the municipalities, they remain as they were,
and the commercial tariff is no longer spoken of. I
can imagine the Government of the Two Sicilies
saying, "Let us show at least the appearance of
doing something, and let us attempt to conciliate
John Bull. It is easily done if we talk about mate-
rial progress and a commercial tariff. After all, a
little talk is all that is required, and if at the last
moment it is necessary to do something, we can
pars those measures and preserve our principles of
'government."
I cannot even now explain the real causes of the
panic which led to guards being placed in all the
streets and in the roads outside the city a few days
since. Some say that a report had been received _
that 12,000 muskets were to be introduced into the
city and now Illear that the remains of the SWiss
contingent in Avellino have shown symptoms of
mutiny. It is excessively difficult to arrive at the
real truth, but I believe it is the case that the Go-
vernment has violated its conditions with them—in
one instance, I am told, by making them contribute
a portion of their pay to the purchase of their uni-
f4rm ; and hence the reported discontent and, as
somo say, dispersion of the Swiss. This seems to
be the most probable way of accounting for the
great apprehension which marked the arrange-
ments of the Government at the beginning of the
week. Several regiments of cavalry in Caserta
and elsewhere have been reviewed lately, and re-
ceived orders to be in readiness to march, while
two regiments of infantry and a battalion stationed
in Maddaloni and Caserta were actually on their
route to the frontier when counter orders reached
them at Santa Maria (Capua Althea). One regi-
ment, the 14th, remained there, and the others re-
turned with their baggage to their old quarters. It
is impossible to explain these changes, except by sup-
posing that things are conducted here by a puerile
caprice. lam told, indeed, on high authority, that
the Government is fully sensible of the danger of
interfering in favour of the Pope, but one other
folly in addition to so many others would not be
surprising.

Not only apprehension, but divided counsels,
exist in the Royal family, and tkeie is talk of some
one retiring to Gaeta—at all events, servants are
said to have left to polish the floors of the Palace,
as if some one were expected.

THE LIEUTENANCY OF THE CITY OF
LONDON.

Few public bodies, especially among those pos-
sessing taxing powers, are so little known to the
public as the Court, or rather Commission of Lieu-
tenancy of the City of London, a body which trans-
acts its business with closed doors, and endea-
vours to veil its proceedings from general ob-
servation. Despite this strong disposition to
privacy, we have, however, been able from time
to time to report their proceedings ; and although
a formal motion which was submitted to the court
on Friday for opening their doors was negatived,
we shall, no doubt, still be able to communicate to
the public any business transacted which, either
from its own nature, or the position of the parties
most active in the transaction, may render it worthy
of being noted as an item of general information.
On Friday we were able to announce that the court
resolved to recommend his Royal Highness the
Duke of Cambridge to her Majesty as Colonel of
the London Rifle Brigade, and we could, if inclined,
have extended our report considerably. Thus we
could have stated that the motion of Mr. Deputy
Lloyd for throwing open the doors was lost by a
majority of 17 to 8; that Lieut.-Col. Hicks applied
for permission to form the London Rifle Brigade
into two battalions of 800 men each, which ._ap-
plication was referred to a committee; that Mr.
Spottiswoode applied for permission to embody a
troop of 80 of his own men, the consideration of
which application was postponed ; and that Mr.
Ambrose Mo. re. expressed himself indignantly to-
wards those individuals—members of the court or
otherwise—through whose instrumentality the pro-
ceedings of the court were communicated to the
reporters, and so made known to the public. As
the commission has now formally refused to recog-
nise the right of publicity, and asserted its own
right to be regarded as an irresponsible body—(al-
though there are people in the City of London who
say that being taxed by the commission they have
a right to a little talk, if they get nothing else for
their money)—a glance at its constitution may not
be without its interest. In fact, the Commission
of Lieutenancy is a substitute for the Lord Lieute-
nancy of a county; in constitution it is beyond
question the most respectable public body in the
metropolis. How it assumed its present numerical
importance is not exactly apparent ; but it was
originally constituted under the 13 and 14 Chu.
c. 3, s. 27, and was again the subject of Parlia-
ment enactment in the 1 Geo. IV., C. 100, s. 35 ; the
general power given by these acts being identical
with those conferred on lords-lieutenant of counties
in connection with the militia or other such armed
bodies as may be raised locally (apart from the regu-
lar army) in times of invasion, insurrection, or rebel-
lion, or other emergency. By the Act of Charles
the Second the lieutenancy were required to raise
yearly a one " month's share of i 70,000;" but by the
Act of George the Fourth this power of taxation
was limited to £4,666 per annum, to be levied equi-
tably upon the respective wards of the City. This
power has not, however, been lately exercised to its
full extent. The last tax levied by the commission
—the tax itself being known as the "Trophy Tax,"
and intended to be appropriated to the militia,
having been called fur in 1857 ; but the power is
about to be again exercised, and a fresh trophy tax
will be levied during the present year, after a state-
ment as to the expenditure of the last raised tax
shall have been submitted to and examined by jibe.
tices of the City in quarter sessions. In addition to
this power of taxation, the power of appointing
officers to the militia and volunteer forces virtually
rests with the commission, but of course subject to
the approval of the Sovereign. So far the powers of
the commission. With regard to its constitution, it
may be said to consist of about 250 members, each
of whom, therefore, is the 0,250 th part of a lord-
lieutenant. The lord mayor, aldermen, recorder,
fort
town-clerk, common sergeant, and deputies _
thehe
ir
offices, being are commissioners by virtue of
.
s-
iffio !lc ee rst time the
guished position. Thus at the
nmda there
nyo of
rlie,
hom besides
are u pw
gentlemena ds
soef2ooof c odmi
smt
commission includes,
ou others,
Nprerre Thos.
e,
..
l v Baring,
m
Esq., M.P., the Hon. H
S. . Ensq., A11y.,3'111 P.
D. M.
3sfaoYn'tefiore,Bart.,Sir Henry
gCloetst,oEn,sEq.s,qii.pW.: Sir 111.
among
, Col. Sykes, Ni.. 13•„
IL J. H. Vivian, with most of the
Major General
1 Sir
Barn N.
Rothschild, Baron Lionel
dm d.l e, Rothschild, •
City bankers and many eminent merchants. It must
be mil(
• that the majority of these gentlemen do not
act, nor, as nine commissioners form a quorum, is
it necessary for the transaction of business that
they
tntoehye time,isord regulatedbmuta ytoh
re,
o
privilege
seyhgaoel u
olcdfo andi nn siieesoi ioaon
trtniTii infl e
cel
ro
eLnstitestu
with
d
procedureommibs
ois n
en:81 efrrsotmooddetaotbhea
andais thei acto
or other causes, fall below a certain number, the
fact is intimated to the Home Secretary, upon
which au order comes down for the Lord Mayor to
nominate persons to fill the vacancies which is
done forthwith, and then there issues a royal com-
mission, reciting the names of the commissioners
in full, and so the court is constituted. The last
commission issued in 1857, and it is expected that
another will be issued during the present mayor-
alty. It is said to be an object of great ambition
with many to be made the 250th part of a lord-
lieutenant, not for the emoluments, but for the
" position" of the office, and that when a new com-
mission is issued the Lord Mayor is overwhelmed
with applications from gentlemen desirous of being
placed upon it.

Another day's reprieve has been gained by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the evening,
not of Thursday, but of Friday the assembled Com-
mons are to listen to this new and particularly
mysterious Financial Statement. Upon the same
evening—and not on any account sooner—the new
and also particularly mysterious Commercial Treaty
with France is to be laid upon the table of the
House by the Noble Lord the Foreign Secretary.
The two things are, of course, obviously perfectly
distinct. They are so entirely distinct, the one
from the other, that they are laid before Parlia-
ment by the respective chiefs of two entirely dis-
tinct departments of the Administration. As in
duty bound our Minister of Finance takes in hand
the Financial Statement. Equally in obedience to
ministerial etiquette our diplomatic administrator
takes charge of the new Anglo-French
Treaty of Commerce. It is from his
hands, and not from those of Mr. GLADSTONE,
that the Treaty is to pass on Friday evening
on to the table of the House of Commons. Mani-
festly, then, as we have said, the Treaty and the
Budget are separate things, are things having
entirely independent existences. Yet these en-
tirely independent existences do appear, never-
theless, to be somehow linked together in a very
wonderful and most enigmatical manner, in a
manner quite as wonderful and enigmatical as the
luaus nature of that horrid fleshy bond linking
together the famous Siamese Twins. It remains
to be seen as soon after Friday next as may be in
any way convenient, whether that mystical bond
may not be cunningly severed upon the ope-
rating table of the House of Commons
by the keen and trenchant stroke of a
bold and resolute division. However this may be—
there at any rate is the vital bond of union connect-
ing together in this astounding manner the Treaty
and the Budget. Uniting them so intimately in
fact, that it is out of the question to have the
Treaty laid before the House and the country a
minute before the Financial Statement can fall
from the lips
of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. The blend'
of the two is indissolu
ble. Insomuch are they
zgiatpproaching to a sem-
blance of actual identity
a u
degree of
sympathetic action is, through tsli erir ,„:igenne y , at once
awakened between the two Ministers of the Crown
to whose care they are respectively entrusted. Mr.
GLADsTONE'S throat is so very hoarse that, as re-
gards the Commercial Treaty, Lord JOHN'S hand is,
in a manner, very nearly paralysed. The Chan-
cellor df the Exchequer will be able by Friday
evening to make his financial statement, and there-
fore, on Friday evening, but not sooner, the Foreign
Secretary will be able to lay the treaty upon the
table of the Lower House of Parliament. " Sir,*
said Lord PALMERSTON I,vt evening, "I am de-

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 awaro 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
wo 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 PALMERSTON, 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 Moniteur ! But unhappily the
skilled rhetorician who has been selected
by reason of his witching eloquence to
talk the House of Commons into a gra-
cious acceptance of the whole double project
unhappily by the most maladroit casualty loses his
voice. Everything is jeopardised. The electric
tdlegraph 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 llioniteur comes forth
without the promised revelation. " The oracles
are dumb " elsewhere than at old classic Delphos.
But, ab !—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 31. 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 Indepsndancc
Beige ! Through it we recognise only too
plainly how our worst fears are realised. It
no longer remains either matter of conjec-
ture 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 the matter is now anly too
plain. It is only too manifest by this time that if
Mr. GLADSTONE, on Friday evening, will have
" naught to set down in malice," he will have very
much, indeed, to extenuate !

Query ?—how is it the 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
JOHN TRELAWNY'S Church Rate 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 aro 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 TRELAWNY'S bill,
a.lso, the actual presence of our representatives
of the highest importance. We hardly need ai -
prise honourable members that both the Cabinet
and the country judge of members' zeal, in any
l cause,eeto rbsyhathvee
anyobjetroublect run ec much
nant
bht efua rl ,
,stvhheeyn f
te
he le y
see
ia
little uncomfortable,
their member's name n
the list of pairs only.

g • •
"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. PACER,
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 amongst
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. Tc-snorrow 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 of
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 JouN TRELAWNY'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 ray.
Dissenters are no longer to be ticketed as such ; ob-
jection to pay is, by Mr. SOTHERON ESTCOURT and
his party, held to be 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 compulsory 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
themselves.

No, there is now no satisfactory bill but on• for
abolition. Mr. HUBBARD'B bill has on the face of
it, besides not being adapted to the day, the ab-
surdity of providing that those who are willing to
pay- shall be made to pay ! Bishops, archdeacons,
inral 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
TRELIWNY a far larger majority than ever.

• ,
s-411* • 6 t;2 \
.41/r,
• s, . 247; kitlftlt"
• .f f & •
'4l. • •
ip i

THE SUN.
..ONDON, TUESDAY, FEB. 7, 1860.