The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-09 00:00:00

FOREIGN LOANS.

We are a funny people. English investors have
ceased to have any confidence in their fellow-
countrymen—a circumstance perhaps not surprising
after recent disclosures. But our simple faith,
checked and dammed in one direction, is flowing
with double force in another. We will not look at
English railway debentures, but we scramble for
foreign railway scrip. Everybody linows that
Russia is carrying out an enormous scheme of
railroads, in order that she may be able
to transport her troops from point to
point of her immense empire and so overcome the
obstacle which, far in ore than French or British arms,
prevented the Russian flag from floating over the
towers and minarets of Constantinople fifteen years
ago. Everyone knows that as soon as these com •
munications are complete Russia -win test her strength
again, and that unless England is prepared to
assent to a conquest which she has from time
immemorial resisted, she will have to try
conclusions once more with the Giant of the North.
Nevertheless, we go on pouring our money into the
Russian exchequer. The Czar has only to ask and
he has. One loan after another is floated success-
fully, and English gold is enabling Russia to prepare
for a defiance of English steel. Egypt shares with
Russia the popular favour on the English Stock
Exchange, for within the past fortnight £400,000 of
Egyptian bonds have been sold from Paris on the
London market. Those persons who are acquainted
with Eastern politics are very well aware that a
perfect understanding exists between Russia and
Egypt, and that in helping the second we help the
t. ,

THE BRIGHTON RAILWAY.
The new Brighton Railway with which we were
threatened was the subject of very strong invective
by the shareholders of the old line. Mr. Laing,
M.P., at the half-yearly meeting of the company,
was reported to have said that it was " got up" by
speculators who wanted to get some 1;300,000 for
their work ; they did not do it for the public benefit.
For this statement Mr. Laing has been called to
account, and he withdraws his aspersions—or, at
least, says he never used the words attributed to
him.

THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
~ . . The agricultural labourer is getting a great deal of
attention just now, and the most
sit
are given respecting him. Thosenlpvphooeopinions
believe
rural felicity, &c., put down Hge
od in
very happy, contented, well-fed kind of as
einga
fond of his cottage, and living in happy '
inno-
cence and piety, bringing up his children in the way
they should go. Others remember him as heavy, igno-
rant, and stupid ; badly paid and fed, housed (if the
expression may be used) in a hovel, and gradually
sinking into pauperism. Sir George Grey, the late
Governor of New Zealand, supports the latter view.
A paragraph in the medical officer's report to the
Privy Council seems to have made a great impression
upon him :—" Unhappily, agricultural labour, instead
of implying a safe and permanent independence for
the hard-working labourer and his family, implies for
the most part only a longer or shorter &rcuit to eventual
pauperism—a pauperism which is during the whole
circuit so near that any illness or temporary failure of
occupation necessitates immediate recourse to parochial
relief." Sir George writes a long letter to the Daily
sews upon the subject. His picture is perhaps a
little too dark, abounding in such expressions as
" unhappy beings," " doomed beings," &c. ; but there
can be no doubt that in some parts of the
country the position of him who tills the ground
is most deplorable. There is a great difference
between districts. The report on the employment
of women and children sheaved that in some districts
home was presided over by the mother, and the
children received a certain amount of education; but
In others, home and school were mere comparative
terms, referring to the sleeping place and the room
iii- which - those tea Young ..to_work were_.harded