The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-15 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIS DAT.—Morning, 7h. 47m.—Afternoon, Bh. 22m.
To-moanow.-Morning, 9h. 4m.—Afternoon, 9h. 50m.

,4
Zts
fsl" •!' r
.110/
R Ka

THE SUN.
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 15, 1860.

most part, namely, as a who,le—carefully and reso-
lutely postponed. And it is not simply that Minis-
ters have found in individual members of our own
Parliament a disposition to concede thus amiably to
their anxiety for this systematic postponement—
Imperial France has already very recently displayed
in the same manner, in two distinct and extraordi-
nary particulars, what we have already termed in
her regard an admirable reciprocity of reticense to the
British Government. The Moniteur in this way has
responded to the electric hint of the telegram—de•
laying for several days the pre-arranged publication
of the Commercial Treaty, because of the procras-
tination of the English Budget, consequent upon
the indisposition of our Chancellor of the Exche-
quer. And now, yet more recently, it would be
impossible not to recognise in the delay still further
(until the Ist of March) of the opening of the ses-
sion for 1860 of'the Senate and Legislative Body,
a generous solicitude on the part of the French
Government not to embarass the English Cabinet
by the necessity of agitating the Savoy Difficulty
at a moment when both Treaty and Budget might
perchance be thereby very seriously jeopardised.
If our Ministerial oracles maintain and obtain
silence in this manner upon other sources of very
natural public solicitude, one of them at any rate
spoke out very plainly indeed last night in the
House of Lords in reference to the actual situation
of things in Tuscany, in answer to the inquiries
yesterday put to him by a Noble Lord who was so
far privileged to speak upon the subject, seeing
that during several recent years he occupied at
Florence the responsible position of her Britannic
MAJESTY'S diplomatic representative. The discus-
sion, in truth, which took place last evening in the
House of Peers in reference to the state of affairs in
Central Italy, will be found upon examination to
be eminently worthy of perusal. The interlocutors
comprised, besides the Under-Secretary of State,
Lord WODEHOUSE, two Marquises and five Earls
the Earls, or, at least, the majority of
them, talking most to the point, and the
Marquises the most discursively. It will be seen
that Lord NORMANBY, in giving rise to this dis-
cussion, moved, as it appears rather precipitately,
that an humble address be presented to her
MAJESTY for a copy of any instructions from the
Secretary of State to her MAJESTY'S Chargé
d'Affaires at Florence, not accredited to the Pro-
visional Government there, directing him to attend
the official reception on the Ist of January of
Signor BUONCOMPAGNI, now acting as Gover-
nor- General of Tuscany, having been nomi-
nated as such by Prince CARIGNAN of Savoy
without any subsequent popular sanction on the
part of the Tuscan people ! It will be observed,
we say, that the noble marquis moved rather pre-
cipitately for a copy of those instructions—seeing
that Earl GRANVILLE was enabled at once to reply
—With regard to the despatch supposed to
' have been forwarded to her MAJESTY'S Chargé
d'Affaires at Florence, instructing him to give
an official recognition to Signor BUONCOM-
PAGNI, there was no such despatch in exis-
, tence ! The President of the Council adding
that the Charge d'Affaires had been directed to re-
' ceive Signor BUONCOMPAGNI in the same unofficial
manner as he had received his predecessor. As to
the details entered into by Lord NORMANBY, the
Earl GRANVILLE did not hesitate to declare that
they were for the most part, if not one and all, based
upon anonymous communications, several of which
having been investigated at the instance of her
MAJESTY'S Government, proved to be entirely
without foundation.

Considerable light has, moreover (altogether
apart from the discussion originated yesterday by
the Marquis of NORMANBY), been thrown upon
the state of affairs in Italy through the publication,
by command of her MAJESTY, of the diplomatic
correspondence which has taken place from the
signature of the Preliminaries of Villafranca
to the Postponement of the Congress. Further
correspondence in regard to the question of the an-
nexation of Savoy to France is announced as very
speedily forthcoming. Till the latter documents
appear we shall lack the key to the mystery
of the EMPEROR'S hitherto inscrutable policy to-
wards the Roman Peninsula. Till then Europe is
left bewildered in regard to the designs of a ruler
who simply and solely affects to be magnanimous at
the very time when he appears to be only resolutely,
inflexibly, and graspingly Machiavellian !

We all remember the upstir caused in the United
States by the publication of " Uncle Tom's Cabin"

—it seemed as if the North would die of laughter,
and the South go mad with rage. The genius of
an almost unknown authoress, a descendant, too, of
the gravest old Puritans, set all the civilised world
a laughing at the angry Southerners. Books are
great powers in these days. Even the Vatican roars
with rage at an anonymous pamphlet, and now an-
other book is enraging the unfortunate slaveholders
beyond endurance. For more than two months, on the
testimony of the President himself, the House of
Representatives has been without a Speaker, and
unable to organise itself and proceed to business,
because the Republican candidate had " endorsed
the sentiments of HELPER'S Book." One notable, of
the name of CLARK, even proposed a resolution that
no man was suitable for the Speakership who had
" endorsed HELPER'S book." And only yesterday
we learned that the Republican candidate—Mr.
SHERMAN—though he had repeatedly come within
three votes of his election, had at last withdrawn ;
and that Mr. PENNINGTON, who we may suppose
had not patronised the terrible book, had taken his
place. Even he, however, on the last trial, had
failed by one vote.
Tremendous, therefore, is the Southern wrath
with this book ; and naturally enough. The
effect it was producing in the American Con-
gress led us to procure it, and we ceased to
wonder at the slaveholders' wrath. Its language is
rough and passionate enough, often bitter. That,
however, we imagine, is but a small part of the
grievance—the Southerners are used to the dialect,
and indeed, the Northern men also have too much'of
it. Unlike Uncle Tom's Cabin there is not a trace of
genius in it—plenty of hot temper, but no flashes.
The crime of the book is that it appeals to the
point on which Americans are most susceptible. It
says little, only indeed in a passing way about
honour, morality, religion—ethers HELPER thinks
have:worked those veins sufficiently, and got all that
can be gained from them towards the abolition of
slavery. He almost limits himself to the economical
argument ; he proves that slavery has beggared
the South and Freedom enriched the North ; he
makes the Southerners feel, what JuvENAL tells us,
is the hardest thing to bear in poverty—its ridicu-
lousness. And, having done this he chows how
abolition can be effected quietly, constitutionally,
yet in the teeth of the two or three hundred thou-
sand slaveholders.

The difficulty and delicacy of the " situation" are
evidenced plainly enough by a perpetually in-
creasing series of postponements. It is inconve-
nient as yet to enter into particulars upon this
point. It is advisable to delay, a little longer, ex-
planations upon that. The interests of the Crown
and the country will be militated against if such
a motion is persevered in: Any immediate discus-
sion upon the important subject brought under
the notice of the House (Upper or Lower),
by the Honourable Gentleman or by the Noble
Lord, as the case may be, is earnestly depre-
cated upon a variety of pleas : now because
additional information is almost hourly expected to
be forthcoming; now because negotiations are still
pending ; now because, for reasons it were prema-
ture at this moment to explain, such a course would
be highly prejudicial to the national interests, and
might even go so far as to imperil the general
tranquillity of Christendom.
And so generously complacent or awed into
acquiescence by those solemn and sometimes
most mysterious assurances—noble lords and
hon. gentlemen acquiesce, they bow to the
demands made one after another upon their
patriotism by the responsible members of the
Government. And so—precisely in the same spirit
as that which induced the House of Commons to
agree to the delay of Lord JOHN RUSSELL in lay-
ing the Treaty upon the table until Mr. GLADSTONE
should have recovered his voice sufficiently to
make' his Financial Statement—Mr. KING-
LAKE yields to the entreaties of both Foreign
Secretary and First Lord of the Treasury,
that for the present he would forego the luxury of
yielxiing to the almost irresistible temptation of
asking for further particulars in rega:d to the
ru °loured annexation of Savoy to France. It must
be allowed, by Ministers themselves, that if their
poi ition is (as it undoubtedly is) surrounded by
diffi 'culties—they are aided upon all sides in the
gent!. ral attempt to stave off the evil day of public
scrut my and public discussion in regard to
each and all of these same important and
formid able difficulties. The Budget was post-
poned. The revelation of the terms of the Treaty
was pol ,tponed. The day fixed for the introduction
of the, ~geform Bill has been postponed. The exa-
minati of the policy proposed to be carried out in
China' , 'LL Ls been postponed. The scrutiny of the
measure: in regard to Savoy and Nice has been post-
poned. The exposition of the Ministerial projects
in referene, sto the solution of the complex problem
known as t be Italian Question, has been—for the

Southern slavery, he says, can be abolished at
once, abolished justly without compensation, and
abolished by those who have the unquestionable
right to abolish it, the non•slaveholding whites in
the South itself. HELPER is himself a North Ca-
rolina man, but not a slaveholder. He had land
there—an excellent farm in regard to situation and
quality of the soil. He sold it for five dollars sixty

cents. per acre ; a similar farm, not farther off than
Pennsylvania, was sold for one hundred and
I five dollars fifty cents. per acre. Such a fact would
naturally dispose him to look into the whole
subject, and he has given -es the results. He has
collected the census returns of the States—they do
not there shrink from agricultural statistics—and
they form such a collection of unanswerable facts as
must consign American slavery to the lowest hell
of economical perdition. He shows that though the
Northern States, which have since emancipated
their slaves, started on a fair level with those of the
South, and though the area of the Slave States is
very much the larger, the Northern population is
much more than thirteen millions, while that of the
South is little more than nine millions and a half,
including more than three millions of slaves. The
South boasts of its agriculture : the Free States'
produce, which is measured by the bushel, shows a
balance of 17,423,000 bushels in their favour, and a
balance of value amounting to 44,782,000 dole.

The same holds good in the very numerous re-
turns which he brings together and tabularises.
Cotton, we should have supposed, would have
brought up the wealth of the South to something
like equality with that of the North. He shows
that the " annual hay crop of the Free States is
worth more than all the COTTON, RICE, TOBACCO,
HAY, HEMP, and CANE-SUGAR produced in the fif-
teen Slave States." These products of the South
were valued at 138,605,000 dole. ; the hay crop of
the North at 142,139,000 dols.—that is at three
millions and a half dols. more. The same dispropor-
tion holds throughout—in agricultural produce,
for instance, of the kind measured by the pound
weight, such as sugar (buth maple and cane),
cotton, wool, butter, and cheese twelve
principal articles in all. The Free States
produced 28,878,064,9021bs ; the Slave States only
4,338,370,6611b5., with a difference of value in
favour of the North of fifty-nine million dollars—
nearly £12,000,000. Pretty well this for one
year's contrast between the results of freedom and
slavery in one class of produce only. Adding to
it the balance of the value of crops measured by
bushels, the agriculture of the North surpasses
that of the South by fully £20,000,000 per annum
The produce per acre of every crop is larger in the
North ; even in the tropical production of Indian
corn the produce is 31 bushels, the South only
20 bushels per acre. The difference of value of
live stock is as 286 to 253 millions of dollars, and
in the value of farms, live stock included, not less
than £200,000,000 ! Indeed, he states, that if
eight entire Slave States—Arkansas, Delaware,
Florida,Maryland, Missouri,!Mississippi, Tennessee,
and Texas, and the district of Columbia—were put
up to auction, New York—that is, the personal and
real property of New York—could buy them all,
and then have 123 million dollars left in her
pockets.

We might, however, quote facts and figures
without end. They are, as we have said, the great
offence of the book. HELPER has mirrored the
contemptible poverty of the slaveholding South so
clearly in the immense comparative wealth of the
free North, and has so strongly conneeted all with
slafery that 'he has sealed its doom. The
dollars are shown to be as overpoweringly against
slavery as the Bible, morality, civilisation, and the
founders of the American Republic. He proves that
emancipation will increase by more than twenty
fold the value of southern estates, and he convicts
the 250,000 slaveholders of being fools to their
own interests, as well as traitors to their country's
welfare, if they persist in maintaining slavery for
the pure pleasure of being able to flog niggers.

But if his facts make them ashamed, his pro-
posed policy enrages them. There are six millions
of whites in the slave states, and but two or three
hundred thousand slaveholders. The non-slave-
holding community are comparatively ruined for
the fancied benefit of the few slaveholders. The
larger proportion of them are the " miserable
whites," of whom we have all heard. Nothing is
wanted to raise these degraded whites but the abo-
lition of slavery, and thus rendering labour honour-
able. The non-slaveholders have each a vote as
well as the few slaveholders. They could outvote
them at once, and fill the State Legislatures with
men who would take immediate measures to repress
slavery. He advises them, amongst other things,
to organise thoroughly—never to vote for a traf-
ficker in human flesh—not to co-operate with
slaveholders in politics—in religion—in society ;
to lay a tax of 60 dollars on every slaveholder for
each negro from the present time to July 1863—an
additional tax of 40 dollars for every negro found
in his possession after that time, with other pretty
stringent suggestions.
Such is a slight sketch of the book which pits the
Dollar itself against Slavery, and shows who can
abolish it, how they can do it, and what a gain it
will be to all. We need not wonder that the
offence was inexuiable of having "endorsed HEL-
PER'S Book."

LATEST NEWS.

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

VIENNA,
WEDNESDAY.

The Wiener Zeitung says :—The analysis pub-
lished in some foreign journals of an alleged
answer of Austria to M. Thouvenel's despatch is
not founded:on any Austrian document.

COPENHAGEN, FEB. 14.

Bishop Monrad has undertaken the formation of
a new Ministry. He left Paris yesterday evening
and will arrive here at the end of this week:

It is expected that M. Hall, his former colleague,
will be entrusted with the portfolio for foreign
affairs.

TURIN, FEB. 14.

It is stated that the Sardinian Government has
received no confirmation of the report of a Con-
ference of the four great Powers.
The Opinione says,—Such a Conference is less
likely than the Congress.

PARIS, FEE. 14.

It is not true that the Count de Cavour has ad-
dressed a second circular to the diplomatic agents
of Sardinia.
At this moment the Sardinian Government
evinces great moderation.

BERLIN, FEB. 14.

The reports circulating in Paris concerning an
approaching Conference of the four great Powers
(without Austria) on the English proposals are here
stated to be false. Prussia has not given in her
adhesion to the English proposals, and probably
she will refuse to do so.

VIENNA, FEB. 14.

To-day the French Ambassador, the Marquis de
Moustier, ;commenced his official reception of the
diplomatic body, the Austrian ministers and high
functionaries.

The attaches of the embassy were present in gala
costume.

The Journal de St: Petersbourg of to-day pub•
lishes news from Pekin to the 4th December.

The Russian mission was going on well.
The health of the Emperor of China had im-
proved, and his Majesty had left his palace in the
country to return to the metropolis.

The rebels were not agreed among themselves,
and the imperial troops had been victorious over
them.

European men-of-war were off the mouth of the
Peiho.

FRANCE.

Marshal Niel has been called up from Toulouse
to Paris by telegraph.
Admiral Romain-Desfosses lately reviewed at
Toulon several companies of Marines to be em-
ployed in landing on an enemy's coast. Each man
is provided with a six-barrelled revolver, a bag of
grenades, and a hatchet. He carries as a crossbelt
a rope ladder six feet long, and round his waist a
cord, having at its extremity a grappling iron with
four prongs. This grappling-iron will attach itself
to the least projecting object of a rampart, and will
enable a trained man to scale the highest wall
without difficulty.
" Formal instructions," says the Constitutionnel,
"have been sent by the Minister of Foreign Affairs
to the oonsuls, vice-consuls, and consular agents of
France in the States of the Church, not to allow
any demonstrations to be made in their honour or
in that of France ; and to avoid being mixed up
directly or indirectly in sueh scenes."

THE BOURSE, Feb. 14.--The market has been
rather more buoyant, and prices have generally
improved. The following are the last quotations :-
4f per Cents. .... 97 50Criklit Foncier 740
I Do. end month .. 97 50 Belgian 41 97 60
3 per Cents 67 75 I Piedmontese (5) .. 81
Do. end month 67 65 Roman 79 50
Bank Shares 2BlO Austrian
Cr4dit Mobilier .. 740 Spanish Threes
Do. Account ..... 738 Home Debt 42 75

RAILWAYS.
Cash.

Orleans
Northern ... — 1355
.. 905
New ditto — .. 825
Lyons and Mediterranean
Genova — 877 60
.. 490 --
Southern
Western
Eastern

Sardinian
Austrian

632 50

Lombard ....

- - .. 395 ----
- - .. 497 50
- - .. 642 60

SARDINIA.

Count Cavour has addressed the following letter
to Commander Buoncompagni, president of the
Liberal Union, in reply to an address from that
body on the subject of the annexation of Central
Italy to the subalpine kingdom :
"I am most grateful to you for the expressions
of sympathy and esteem which you address to
me in the name of the Liberal Union. The King's
Government has imposed on itself the noble and
difficult task of giving to the provinces of Italy,
freed from all foreign influence, those liberal insti-
tutions which have given so much moral strength
to Piedmont. And since, for our happiness, the
national idea cannot be any longer separated from
that of liberty, no administration can direct pub-
lic affairs with advantage and efficacy if it has
not the confidence of the King and of the Parlia-
ment. Actuated by this principle, my colleagues
and myself will hasten the convocation of the
Chambers as much as circumstances will allow, and
labour without ceasing to remove all the difficulties
which still oppose the annexation so ardently de-
sired by every true Italian. lam happy to assure
you that Europe, more and more convinced by the
fresh proofs of concord and constancy which we
have given, will no longer hesitate to accede to
our ardent wishes. It is no longer a secret that
diplomacy demands, as a condition of its consent,
a new manifestation of the wishes of the people of
Central Italy. This final demonstration of firmness
and unanimity might appear superfluous to us,
who have witnessed the noble fervour and sponta-
neousness of the wishes already expressed by the
popuiations, but it is desirable to obviate every
pretext on the part of those who would represent
these manifestations of the popular will as having
been dictated solely by the imminent danger of
an armed restoration. New the principle of
non-intervention is about to receive public and
more explicit confirmation, the sublime significa-
tion of this great act of the national will will not
be lessened in the eyes of Europe and of pos-
terity. I therefore hope that the new assembly
will be able to give its legal sanction to
this fact, which will immediately open a new
era in the history of Italy. It is of the utmost
importance that the electors shduld send to Par-
liament representatives worthy of Italy's past,
worthy of the splendid future which opens before
her. Such is precisely the object of the association
over which you preside, and I feel confident that,
thanks to its co-operation, the new members will
be, by their wisdom and unanimity, worthy mem-
bers of the new Italian Parliament. Will you
express, Sir, my gratitude to the association, and
receive, &c., " C. CAVOUR."

The following is the text of an address which the
citizens of Geneva have decided on sending to the
Federal Council :

" Faithful and dear co-Federates—ln presence
of the grave events which are rising up near our
frontiers, and which menace the neutrality of our
country, and perhaps the integrity of its terri-
tory, the people of Geneva, who are particularly
threatened,, have at an imposing meeting, where
all opinions were represented, decided on ad-
dressing themselves to the Executive Power of the
Confederation to communicate to it their apprehen-
sions and their wishes, The union of Savoy to

THE SUN,7LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 15, 1860.

I France has just been decided on ; tho neutralised
ground is about to form part of the French terri-
tory, and Geneva will be hemmed in by that vast
empire. As the key of the road of the Simplon,
and forming part of the line of defence which ex-
tends from the Maritime Alps to the Tyrol, may-
not the canton of Geneva, as well as that of the
Valais, have to fear from one moment to another
an occupation for which political necessities
would serve as the pretext ? These fears are not
exaggerated, for history is a proof of them. Faith-
ful and dear co-Federates—The Powers around us
are in arms ; our frontiers, open on every side have
not a single soldier. Switzerland alono appears
tranquil and without mistrust, and only deriving
her strength from her good faith and the goodness
of her right. Nevertheless, the annexation of
Savoy to Franco is a dismemberment of the Swiss
territory, inasmuch as it comprises the neutral part
of the Sardinian States. Faithful and dear co-
Federates—Let the old motto ' One for all, and all
for one' be a truth for the powers which direct the
nation. The Genevese people will shed their blood
for the country and for the integrity of the Swiss
territory. Patriotic salutation."