The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-18 00:00:00

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scruples about his coronation oath, which made him
oppose the admission of Roman Catholics to
civil rights ; and it was only when the Duke of
WELLINGTON declared that the sole alternative was
between concession and civil warthat those rights were
granted. But with O'CoNNELL this was merely the
beginning of the campaign. Having won the
engagement, he spent the rest of his life in endea-
vouring to win another—the establishment of a
native Parliament, the gift of autonomy to Ireland.
Not only did he not live to win that position, but it
seems as far from being won now, a quarter of a
century after his death, as it was then. True, angry
Protestants talk about cutting off their heads to spite
their noses ; talk of punishing Mr. GLADSTONE by
raising the cry o! the green flag ; talk of revenging
themselves upon the Parliament of the United
Kingdom, in which the Protestants form over 90 per
cent. of the assembly, by establishing an Irish Par-
liament in which they would not form 40 per cent.
But it is all mere talk. None of them expects to see
the change which they prate about so glibly.
Repeal—O'CoNNELL's dream—is still only a dream.
Nevertheless, his was not a fruitless career.
The full results of it have not yet been seen,
though they are beginning to be. The abolition
of Protestant ascendancy, of the few over the
many, which is now being achieved, is due indirectly
to his efforts. The settlement of the land question,
which we are bidden to look -for next year, will be
another result. Before the new monument over the
remains of the " Liberator " is completed, a great
portion of his work will have been accomplished.
RICHARD OASTLER'S career teaches the important
lesson that no class can be trusted when the public
good is supposed to militate against class interests.
Naturally the manufacturers were ready to promote
education and sanitary, reform, and all legislation
tending to the promotion of mental and bodily
vigour. But they opposed the Ten Hours' Factory
Bill with a vehemence and obstinacy that was
comparable only to that with which the landlords
opposed Free Trade. Both professed to be guided
by public interests. The landlords summoned the
political economists to their aid, and argued that if
England were made dependent upon other countries for
her supply of food that dependence would prove fatal
to her in the event of war. The manufacturers
contended that it was against all sound political
economy for Government to interpose between the
employer and the employed. There was something
to be said for both arguments, but the nation was
too wise to be seduced by them, and so the Corn
Laws were abolished—the Ten Hours Bill was passed.
The part which Mr. OASTLER took in this latter
achievement is known best to Yorkshiremen and to
Lord SHAFTESBURY. Between the Commoner and
the Peer there was very little in common, except
their object. OASTLER, it must be confessed,
was somewhat of a -firebrand, did occasionally say
indiscreet things, and was fond of setting class
against class. Lord SHAFTEsBURY_the Lord
AsuLrx of that time—was more prudent, and had,
therefore, more weight. The turbulent oratory of
RICHARD OASTLER would scarcely have carried the
factory child's magna charia. Nevertheless OASTLER
was an efficient coadjutor, and it is well to see the
survivor of the two doing honours, as Lord
SHAFTESBURY did on Saturday, to the memory
of his old comrade. There was enough result
of their labours for them to divide the honours and
yet for each to come off well crowned. An artist in
search of a subject could scarcely find a more taking
one, or one that would attract a larger crowd around
it in the Royal Academy, than a two-panelled picture
of the factory child of to-day and the factory child
I of the time when Mrs. BARRETT BROWNING wrote
her pitiful " Cry of the Children."

LONDON, TUESDAY; MAY 18, 1869.

~---

The trail of a six-pounder over the pavement of
our streets was once upon a time—not in a mythical
epoch, but only a very few years ago—seriously re-
commended to the authorities by an insensate mem-
ber of Parliament, speaking from his place in the
Rouse of Commons, as about the most effectual
means that could well be hit upon for the restoration
of order in the case of any popular disturbance within
the precincts of London and Westminster. The re-

medy has proi'ed in its time, upon extreme emergen-
cies, not quite so uesuitable in France, perhaps, as it
would most certainly prove among ourselves. - Thrice

at least in her later history, the roar of cannon in the
densely-peopled streets of her metropolis has an.
nounced the restoration of order in that capital, the
enforcement of obedience to her laws, and the
gathering up of the reins of dictatorial power
within the grasp of her Government. Upon the
first of these occasions—it was on the sth of

October, 1795, young General NAPOLEON BONA-
PARTE suppressed a rebellion of 30,000 Royalists
against the authority of the Convention. And in
that way the Directory may be said to have been
established and proclaimed at the cannon's mouth.
Upon the second occasion, during those terrible
days of slaughter, as one might say, by wholesale,
namely, on the 24th, the 25th, and the 26th of June,
1848, Red Republicanism was scattered and shat-
tered by discharges of artillery and by the deadliest
fusillades, under the direction of the Democratic
Dictator of the hour, General LOUIS EUGENE CA-
VAIGNAC, then for a brief interval President of the
Republic. The third and last occasion upon which order
was re-established, as one may say, by the trail of
cannon over the streets of Paris, and power confirmed
in the hands of the ruler of France, in answer as it
were to resolute discharges of musketry, was at the
time of the memorable coup de'tat at the very begin-
n'ng of the December of 1851—when CHANGARNIER
LAMORICIERE, CAVAIGNAC, THIERS, and very nearly
two hundred members of the National Assembly were
all of them simultaneously arrested in the dead
..)f the night. Extreme occasions these wae, un-
doutteclty. " Few and far between"—not like
" angels visits," bat visits of a very opposite character
—they have left so vi, id a remembrance behind
them that it need hardly be much matter for wonder
that outbreaks like those of Friday last in the streets of
Paris should have appeared to some as nothing less
Uhan the significant prelude to another very similar
occurrence. Happily, while history does undoubtedly
repeat itself, it very rar€ly indeed repeats itself in
regard to these kind of supreme and certainly most
lamentable necessities. NAPOLEON the GREAT, With
all his indifference to bloodshed, whenever it appeared
to him in any way inevitable, never repeated his
achievement of the 13th Vandemiuire. CAVAIGNAC,
we may rest assured, would never—had his authority
been confined to him instead of being transferred to
his formidable rival, the Prince LOUIS NAPO-
LEON BONAPARTE—wouId never, we may be quite
certain, have found occasion for repeating his
aucompromis'ng deed of June, when through the
lestruction of 8,000 lives he crushed out the Ultra-
Democratic Insurrection. Not lightly again, we may
be very sure, would the present Ruler of France, whose
possession of power for four years as President, and
between sixteen and seventeen as EMPEROR, has now
lasted for more than a good score of years altogether
—not lightly we may be very certain would NAPO-
LEON 111. ever dream of resorting to the ex-
treme measures which ire conceived to be forot,(l
'Ton him at the period of the coup cl etat.
Ile earlier accounts conveyed to us from Paris,
in regard t.) the disturbances of I.IA week,

LATEST INTELL MEN CB

(REU'"ER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AMERICA.
I•Trw Ynnr, tiny 17.
The Allan steamship Moravian arrived at Quebec
to-day.

CONIMEIZCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
CLOSING PRICES.
Gold closed at 1121 ; the highest quotation dur-
ing the day was 1421 ; the lowest, 141 i.
Sterling Exchange on London lO9l.
5- 20 U. S. Ponds, 1839
,c 1885 ll7i.
cc " 1807 llBB.
10-40
Illinois l46k.
Erie 994.
Cotton —Mid. upland 2B:lc.
Petroleum—Standard White 32-ke.
Flour, extra state, $6.20e. to $6.80c. Corn, old
"mixed, $920.
The rise of gold is owing to the bears buying
largely to cover short contracts. The violent fluc-
tuations in gold have unsettled values,- and caused
a partial suspension of business generally.
QUEENSTOWN, May 18.
The Cunard royal mail steamer Palmyra, from
New York, arrived here at 1 a.m. She brings 147
passengers, 21 of whom she landel with her de-
spatches, and proceeded at 1.15 for Liverpool. All
well.

prove fortunately to have been monstrously exagge-
rated. Instead of the armed and mounted function-
tries who were then, as the enforcers of the law,
ring the wanton assail Ants of the populace, the for-
cer were, in the first instance, the assailed—assaile 1
lot simply by hust.ing an I so forth, but by blows
nflicted by missiles and cudgels. The ugliest wounds
;•ecaived were those r,ceived by the emissaries of
he PIETIST, " Remove the corpse," the police were
iaid to have been heard to mutter from behind a door-
yap : but the " corpse" so called was, in point of
tact, the insensible, happily not the inanimate, body
of one of their own principal officers: Imme-
diately tidings of the people and of the
municipal officers having come into collision,
were reported to the Tuileries, an imperial mandate
is said to have been immediately despatched thence
to the Minister responsible in this matter to the So-
VEREIGN, the Minister of Police, M. PIETRI, a message
running laconically to the effect, " Respect Liberty,
hut also respect Order I" It is absurd to imagine for
a moment that there was iu any way peril just
now in Paris of another revolutionary movement.
So long as the present EMPEROR lives, a movement of
that character is simply out of the question. The
position occupied by him as the holder of power is
strategically, in one word, impregnable. The
three days of July, the three days of Feb-
ruary, the three days of June cannot be re-
peated. Barricades are incapable of being any longer
constructed. Artillery could sweep the main streets
of the capital from end to end, were the deadly need
of it required—from central points—as from the radi-
ating spokes of an enormous wheel. The possessor of
power has the ball at his foot so long as he
retains, as N APOLEON M. undoubtedly does, unmarred
to this moment, the loyal adhesion of the army and
the loyal enthusiasm of the peasantry, constituting,
the last mentioned, the vast majority of the possessors
of the franchise under the system of Universal Suf-

rage.

IRELAND has just been doing honour to one hero,
England to another., Dublin has been removing the
dead body of DANIEL O'CONNELL from its old rest-
ing place to a new one deemed more suitable ; Brad-
ford has been uncovering the statue of RICHARD
OASTLER. The difference between the two men
marks the difference between the two countries.
The first was a political agitator, the second
was a social agitator. The first is still called
by his fellow-countrymen the. Liberator, because
he opened to them the doors of the Legislature :
the second deserves that title almost equally well,
for he redeemed the children of our factory towns
from the tyranny of ignorance and overwork. Yet,
for one man that knows who RICHARD OASTLER
was there are a hundred who have heard the name
of DANIEL O'CONNELL. Probably this is inevitable.
The man who makes war upon a nation must almost
of necessity be more prominent than the man who
makes war upon a class. We are all of us interested
when a question affecting the political unity of
the kingdom is raised. Wo care very little
when a question affecting the social condition of a
class is raised. We are all of us born politicians;
only a few of us are born philanthropists. Far be
it from us to magnify the second at the expense of
the first; there is a time and a place for both.
Neither career was smooth or peaceable. I3oth
lived militant lives. O'CONNELL had to fight against
the English aristocracy and the Protestant Esta-
blished Church; OASTLER had to fight against the
manufacturers. In both instances the battle was one
of justice on the one side, selfishness on the other.
That most religious sovereign GEORGE IV., after
consorting with the emancipators during his father's
) lifetime, affected towards the close of his pious life

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MAY_IB, 1869.