The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-22 00:00:00

LONDON, TEIURSDX,I, JULY 22, 1358.

It is high time that the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany should stt its house in order. Tne dynasty
of " Tha Niue King.," cannot be much longer
prolonged. Like the twin despotism of Leaden-
halt:street, the existence of the Company has beet
found prejudicial to the bast interests of the
nation, and indeed of humanity and civilisation.
Tnoy prevent enormous tracts of land from being
made available for colonisation. It is for their
private advantage to keep up as a wilder •
nes, haunted by savage animals only,
lands that might be converted int ) smiling
bomesteadP, the abode of many families. It
was stated, and with every appearance of truth
and accuracy, that the comparatively small (1)
portion admitted to be suitable for &ionisation,
and -wiliCh contained 500,000 square miles, would
afford occupation and means of subsiste.nce to every
person of full age in her MAJESTY'S dominions,
both at home and in the colonies. If there he
any _ the slightest foundation for this acL
sertion, is it not monstrous that such
a territory should be hermetically sealed
agaigst the enterprise of our fellow-men ?
If we do not choose to occupy it ourselves, we
should throw it open t, all wilding to encounter
the toils and (Lingers incidental to the career of
every persna willing to en Age in the lauours and
perils incidental to the career of the pioneers of
civilisation.

The first point to be ascertained is, whether
the Company possesses any legal rights whatsc-
ever under their charter. It is quit) certain that
" Tug Merry Monarch" gave) that which he had
not in his pusseasiot., arid to which ho had no
valid title. Ile might just as well have bestoweJ
FranCe or o,rmany, and no "donees" have
asserted their claim to the Imperial purple. As
to the att?mpt t errata a perpetual monopoly of
trade, it was simply absurd, for it was entirely
opposed to public policy, and totally illegal at
the very time it was grante l ; and certainly Great
BriLtin is not prepared to enter on a retrograde
policy fur the sake of supporting such a system.
It has been asserted, on behalf of the Company,
that they preserved order in the district ! But
the real fact was, that they " made a suliutde, and
called it peace." There must be at least two
parties to a dispute. Even the most pugnacious
individual must find an opponent before he can
pick a quarrel—And the Company carefully ex-
clude all coaxer:?. N,Jt oily is " No Thoroughfare"
the rule throughout their entire dominions, but
there is "No Admiv,ion," even on busincEs of
the moat pressing and vital imp-;rtance. They
also claim credit for the exclusion of ardent spirits.
But, certainly, we are not prepared to keep a ter-
ritory, said to be as large as Europe, depopulated
in order that a "Maine Liquor Law" may be en-
forced against a few wandering tribes of Indians
It may be a very good pretext to use with rabid
teetotallers, but we scarcely tbiLli any man of
ordinary sense would think the elou%Aful benefit
worth the price it costs the natiun and more
civilised races.

We are totally opposed to any renewal of the
licence, which expires next M•ty. The late GAO-
nial Secretary had de cidce, on granting it, and it
is an additional close for rjs,icing at the accessi-m
to office of Lord DEBBY'S Government that it
has averted this danger. If anything be given
it will be of a very litnited character when com-
pared with the intended donation of Mr. LADOU-
"E". Bat we hope and trust that the C.ampany
the
will be altygether abolished, and the authority of
Crown substituted. If it remains in existence
the sturdy eraigran's will
be " cribb'd -)
and confic'd," and find additional difficulties
placed in their way.

If the Charter were really worth anything at
the time it was granted, it was virtually annulled
when they consented to accept a Parliairm nt try

title for -a limited period, which long since ex-
pired. But really it was of very little value, so
little indeed, that it was scarcely thought worth
questioning, until a Right Hon. Gentleman resus-
-1 citated its drooping existence. He discovered the
1 flaw in the title, and contrived to arbitrate be-
tween the then disputants, and, like the lawyer
in the fable, to get a fair share of the matter in
dispute. We shall say nothing as to the occasion
on which it was once stated that "he was dis-
creditably known in the City," for that related to
another question ; and it is not our intention or
desire to cast any discredit or imputation on his
character. But he unquestionably made the best
use of the existing state of affairs, and his own
interests were by no means disregarded.

It is now for the British Parliament to remove
the existing impediments. If the Company have
any rights, which we greatly doubt, let fair—aye,
liberal—remuneration be given ; but let not the
progress of civilisation ba arrested by a strict
adhesion to the terms of that stupid, impolitic,
and illegal charter.
The Times has now become the apologist of the
Company, and endeavours to show that, in realising
50,0001. per annum, it has done all that could be
desired or anticipated. The Leviathan has, how-
ever, frequently attempted to bolster up old
abuses ; and we believe that its efforts will be as
abortive in the present instance as on many pre-
vious occasions.

We are all now fearing that the third attemp
to lay the Atlantic Telegraph Cable will be a
failure. Heaven grant it may not ; but pro-
bably every one has more fear than hope. We
deeply regret to see that, at present, the Great
Eastern—we like the old name—is a failure too.
Assuming, what we sincerely hope may be false,
the two noblest mechanical enterprises of the day
have not succeeded. The noblest ship, for con-
veying men themselves, which the world ever saw,
and the noblest mechanical instrument for the
interchange of the thoughts of men, are both at a
stand still. There is the vessel which can convey
a large town at once to colonise a distant country,
or Uri thousand soldiers to defend a British
colony, lying, unfinished, on the bosom of the
Thames, and there is the wire which has trans-
mitted numberless messages through its two thou-
sand miles of length, also lying in the holds of the
vessels, with but fluctuating hope that it will
ever lie safrly along the bottom of the Atlantic.
Now, two failures do sometimes make one
success, not only in our bankruptcy court?, where
no mystery is suprising, but in the combination
of two mechanical inventions, neither of which
would succeed apart. Da not the Great E astern
and the Atlantic Cable stand very much
in this relation ? The one needs chiefly
pecuniary assistance, the other the mechanical aid
of the former. The shareholders of the Eastern
Steam Navigation Company appear unwilling to
embark more money in their speculation ; the
shareholders of the Atlantic Company would pro-
bably find it the cheapest thing they could do to
enable the Great Eastern to go to sea. If the
Agamemnon return again re infected, no one will
believe that the attempt is hopeless till the twenty
thousand ton vcs,el has been employed in the
work. Should ii be successful by her aid, she will
as certainly be required to lay many a cable of
equal length, both to enable the requisite number
of messages to pass, and to extend ocean tele-
graphs in many other directions. Nor will it be
only for such very long lines that she will be use-
ful ; her most itny)rtant peculiarity of all, rela-
tively to laying oceanic telegraphic wires, will make
her services equally desirable for a line t 3 be hid
like the Red. Sea one to India, iu lengths of a few
hundred miles each.

The Great Eastern seems to combine the two great
requisites of the present case—sufficient tonnage,
and the still more important one of a length and
size sufficient to insure an easy motion over almost
any size of Atlantic waves. Were a well con-
structed, as has been proposed for the ships now
employed, in the centre of the vessel, and the
cable passed through it into the sea, the perpen- 1
dicular motion would be almost nothing ; the
variation of strain on the cable would scarcely be
felt, and we can hardly doubt that the cable
might be deposited almost as safely as it was in
the hold of the vessel. It is for mechanics to
say whether this latter .suggestion be impractic-
able. We can hardly think so. If not, we know
of but oae objection, that it would be impossible
to buoy the cable if necessary. That necessity,
however, can arise but from two causes—the
roughness of the weather, and the cable running
short. The former would hardly affect the
monster ship ; the latter, wiaa such a burden as
she could carry, ought surely not to occur.
Is it not possible then for the two companies, or
the companies and the Government, to devise some
arrangement? It seems that 60,0001. would enable
the company to send the vessel out to sea, but that
even this sum is difficult to procure. Why, it were
worth while for some sixty of our commercial men
to arrange a conditional loan of a thousand pounds
a-piece, or double the number for five hundred
pounds each, to give the thing a trial with a vessel
which almost must succeed. It is not fa- us,
however, to suggest the means of raising the
money for this special purpose ; but, should it be
really needed,. should the Agamemnon and Niagara
again fail, and the agreement among the scientific
be pretty general that the Great Eastern would
succeed, we think the nation would not grudge
a conditional advance from the Treasury itself,
rather than witness the tot it failure of the Atlantic
Telegraph without a last effort.
The project of connecting the two worlds, the
daughter and the mother country, separate dforing
by so vast an ocean—of learning in a few minutes
what, within the memory of many of us, we must
have waited three weeks to learn—of asking a
question and obtaining an immediate answer across
2,000 miles of water—the prject is so noble in
itself that it is alnoat ignominious to renounce it,
tilt it is proved to be beyond human resources.
But the mere poetry or romance of the thing
goes, of course, for but little with our practical
people ; the commercial advantages of lend wing
prices at New Yerk, and in Liverpool and Lon-
don, at the same moment, and the political advan-
tages of immediate communication on matters
which might otherwise cast each country as much
as it would cost to lay the line, these are solid
advantages—advantages to be estimated by dollars
and sovereigns—advantages which the most un-
poetical merchant and most routine statesman can
thoroughly comprehend, and advantages which we
believe will compel the laying,, some day and by
some means, of the Transatlantic Telegraphic
Cable.

The Select Committee on the Bank Acts have
published their report, in which they decline to
recommend any modification in the provisions of
the existing monetary code. This is txactly what
might have been anticipated at the time of the
appointment of the carefully selected committee.
It was, indeed, a foregone conclusion, so much so,
that little more than half the number attended at
the time when the report was under consideration.
A clear majority was packed. The farce of in-
quiry was only gone through in order to shelve