The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-04 00:00:00

EAST INDIA IRRIGATION.

The half-yearly meeting of this company was
held on Thurslay, at the ollice3, near Soutl►wark-

bridge ; Mr. J. Thomson in the chair.
The report, an abstract of which has apparel in
The Sun, was taken ai read.

The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, said that during the past six mouths there
had been a vast improvement in the prospects of
the company. At the date of their last advices
from India they had a sufficient supply of water at
their disposal to irrigate 140,000 acres of land, and
the capacity of the works admitted of a revenue
being earned equal to £30,000 a year, provided
the irrigation was fully taken up. And he saw
nn reason why it should not be taken up as
promptly as circumstances would permit. Al-
ready
o f
t nativeseworkswere boefgitnhe
beginning to show their ap-
preciation
company by taking
a larger quantity of water than they had originally
agreed for. He had no doubt that when they hal'
more experience of its benefits they would avail
themselves more extensively of the means of irriga-
tion afforded them, and the shareholders might then
look forward to a satisfactory return on their invest-
ment. (Bear.) The Government had advanced
them mdney on liberal terms to complete the works,
and for which the shareholders had every reason to
feel grateful to the Government for their assistance.
Since the money was received the works had been
pushed forward with as much vigour as possible,
and the progress made had been highly satisfactory.
The great difficulty they had to contend with was
the scarcity of labour, owing to the destructive
effects of the famine. He hoped, however, this
difficulty would be surmounted.

The M.P., seconded the
motion
'e
report, and after a
the
tn
few observations it was unanimously adopted.
The directors were authorised to borrow money
for e nMr.
adoption K A o
f iR
the
from the Secretary of State for India upon the terms
agreed upon, and the proceedings concluded with a
vote of thanks to the chairman.

CAPTAIN BLAKELY.

It is not surprising that Captain BLAKELY should
'eel aggrieved by our article of the 18th May. We

willingly pub-ish his letter, together with one in
answer to Mr. CHAMLEY. Judging by the docu-

ments forwarded with these we have little doubt
that Mr. DM\TT realised and carried to China a large

sum, obtained on bills, bonds, and shares of the
company. Our remarks were based on Captain

BLAKELY'S letter to the gimes.

Had any one

else written it, we would have passed the assertions
unnoticed. But we were struck with the example
thus given, and by the singular tale so naively told.
We have no doubt that Captain BLAKELY was the
great sufferer ; and it is clear that in involving

others in the misfortune he acted in good faith
and unconscious of evil. From his boyish
days, when he, entered the academy of Wool-
wich to the period when he had worked
out the patent for the gun that has made him
celebrated, he had mixed among men to whom
trade was unknown with all its demoralising
influences. Probably absorbed in the scientific and
mechanical details of his manufactory he had given
little heed to the rest, and was perhaps unqualified
to bring out a company on a solid and sure basis.
At any rate, from the moment that he sanctioned
the design which turned the firm into a limited
liability company, the proceedings form a chapter
of errors. Ile asks if we or any of our readers
could seriously entertain the notion that he could
have consented to do a very foolish thing. We do
not presume to answer for our readers, but for our-
selves we reply—certainly. For Captain BLAKELY
must be a singular exception to a very general rule
if he is incapable of acting against reason and
common sense. The working of the law of
limited liability has dissipated some delusions on

this subject. Men are not now so much surprised
at each other's, as at their o-wn folly. Let Captain
BLAKELY trace back in his mind the successive
acts by which he turned a most profitable
business into a most ruinous loss, and say if he can
detect no insane doings. He always terms this
failure a misfortune—and so it was ; but that style
of misfortune by which a man breaks his neck, who
precipitates himself from a height. Is it conceiv-
able, he further asks, that Mr. JOHN DENT would
have left such a weight on him if he had known
the hollowness of the company before he left
England ? We again answer—certainly ; he would
have left twice the weight if he could have got the
money to save his house,for in doing that, he would
have thought, he was saving all. Such a manu-
factory as the BLAKELY ordnance ought to have
commanded a ready sale for the shares. When
the applications are numerous, the directors find no
difficulty in allotting them so as to place them in
the hands of bona
.fide holders. If not numerous,
the company ought not to be formed. The
proprietor must have neglected to exercise the autho-
rity unquestionably his, if he had not an all-potent
voice in this matter. The greatest surprise to us is
that so profitable a manufacture, should be suffered
to sink into this hopeless ruin. Money is cheap and
plentiful ; the shareholders who will not pay calls
may forfeit their shares and others be substituted ;
or the manufactory might, one would think, return
to the hands of the patentee. Defence committees
are generally the last device for extracting the last
crumbs for the harpies generated under this fatal
Act. Captain BLAKELY interprets what we said, as
selecting his company, as one of the worst formed
under the new statute. This was not our intention ;
we repeat we knew nothing of his company except
from the facts published by himself. There are
companies whose histories we do know, and which
some day we may tell, and our remark was in
allusion to them. But in this instance we took
his own letter as our text, and told the simple
story, which, though painful to a gallant offi-
cer, is truthful, we believe, in the main. It
appears that the credit of joint-stock companies
had fallen to so low an ebb, that the advances on
orders for the expensive castings were denied to the
limited company which had been freely made to the
private firm ; and to this cause, and not to the
failure of DENT'S house, the bankruptcy of the joint
stock undertaking is attributed. But here the ques-
tion arises, Whence came the liabilities? Simply,
we believe, from the large advances obtained by Mr.
DENT from the sale of his share of the property.
Had Mr. DENT been able to take up the disho-
noured paper of the limited concern, the foundery
would have reverted to its original proprietors.
Captain BLAKELY naturally shrinks from having
his name associated with so disastrous a failure, more
especially in America, where he has many friends.
We are aware that he bas been by far the greatest
sufferer, and that he occupies a very different posi-
tion to those who have profited by the ruin of others
who reposed trust in them. If we have done him
any injustice, our columns will be freely opened for
an explanation, and we trust we will ever be anxious
to acknowledge frankly where we have been led into
error, actuated, as we are, by the wish to divulge
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
ruth.—Anglo-American Times.

netted with the security of Governments that this
word should signify, as it is intended, the perpetra-
tion of a great crime.
Although under certain circumstances it may be
the bounden duty of men to revolt, those circum-
stances are rare in the highest degree, and where
they are not all combined to justify the movement,
it becomes a wicked and insane act of folly, drenching
the land with wasted blood, giving the reins to the
vilest passions of the most wicked natures, and in-
volving ruin, suffering, and death to the innocent.
The interests of the North in reconstruction are
second only to those of the South. Americans want
a strong and united America. Why, then, continue
to bicker and snarl at each other, keeping up dis-
union by words, more even than by acts. Let the
North in silence enjoy her triumph, and if such an
ebullition of temper is necessary before the hot
blood of their gallant opponents can be suffi-
ciently cooled without further words to accept their
crushing defeat, lvt the South rave. They are too
manly long to indulge in such childish play, and it
is but a poor privilege that the North would con-
cede to so much suffering, in granting to the South,
a right to growl.—Anglo-American Times.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—There is a salutary pause in the Reform
labours of the House of Commons. Last night the
business of the committee was resumed, but nothing
was done beyond the rejection of two proposals.
The amendment of Mr. Sergeant Gaselee, for dis-
franchising absolutely all boroughs having a popu-
lation under 5,000, was defeated by a decisive ma-
jority, and Captain Hayter's suggestion that all
boroughs now having less than 10,000 inhabitants
should be enlarged so as to contain at least so many
persons was rejected without a division. When so
much had been done, the committee reported pro-
gress, with the understanding that nothing further
should be attempted until after Whitsuntide. There
were several reasons for this course. The amend-
ment which Mr. Laing carried last week has placed
many more seats at the disposal of the Government
than they ventured to ask for, and it is, no doubt,
desirable that the Ministry should have time to de-
termine how those seats shall be allotted. A better
and a more genuine reason for postponement is,
however, to be found in the fact that the House of
Commons is conscious that it is as yet too little in-
formed upon the principles which should direct it
in the future redistribution of seats. The great
lights usually regarded yield little help; the trumpets
commonly blown so lustily give an uncertain sound.
As Mr. Smollett truly said last night, the remodel-
ling of the House is by far the most important part
of Reform, and it has never been discussed from the
beginning of the Session up to the present hour.
The work of the committee last night was one
of negation ; but few. will regret the decisions
upon either of the amendments. The fate of
Mr. Sergeant Gaselee's scheme will certainly meet
with little commiseration. It was proper to allow
him to exhibit his powers as an advocate, es-
pecially after the loud complaints he made on
Friday night that Mr. Laing had appropriated
a part of his plan of redistribution. The exhibition
must, however, have convinced every one that, in
the interests of reform, Mr. Laing's offence, even if
it had been committed, deserved instant absolution.
If Mr. Sergeant Gaselee alone had advocated the
proposal he claimed as his own no one can tell what
would have happened. When Mr. Laing proposed
that the process of depriving boroughs now return-
ing two members of one of their representatives
should be applied to all boroughs of less than 10,000
inhabitants he submitted a clear and definite scheme
of redistributing the seats thus obtained, and his
success must be partially attributed to the evident
superiority of his plan over that of the Government.
Mr. Sergeant Gaselee simply desired to place a few
more seats at the disposal of the Government,
broaching no plan of his own, and suggesting no
goal towards which the committee should shape
its efforts. The committee exercised a wise discre-
tion in refusing to entertain such a crude sugges-
tion. It is true that his amendment received the
support of Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Gladstone, but the
speeches of these leaders of the Opposition were
scarcely equal to their reputation. They showed
a feeble and uncertain grasp of the principles of
redistribution which will, we hope, he strengthwied
before the house reassembles after Whitsuntide.
The rejection of Captain Ilayter's suggestion for
the extension of small boroughs by enlarging
their boundaries or by grouping them with neigh-
bouring unrepresented towns was almost inevi-
table from the very form in which it was ex-
pressed. Independently, however, of the form of
the amendment, the force of argument was against
its principle. Its effect would have been simply
to disguise the meagre amount of town life
really contained in rural constituencies bearing the
inappropriate name of boroughs. Colonel Dyott
complained yesterday that in consequence of the
enlargement of Tainworth in 1832 Taniworth re-
tained its two members now, while Lichfield, which
he himself represented, lost one, although the city
of Lichfield is as important and prosperous as the
Tamworth. There is no reason why an
boroughunrea of
unreal importance and a different character should
be given to the small boroughs retained in our Par-
liamentary system. Their existence must be de-
fended on the ground of their uses, and it is certain
that they should not preserve their privileges any
longer because of the partial enlargement recom-
mended. Least of all is it possible to discover how
the complaint expressed by Captain Hayter, and
not unfamiliar to those who have attended to the
subject, that the South of England is over repre-
sented, would be met by enlarging the boundaries
of boroughs while retaining their present amount of
representation. The House of Commons has de-
ferred the further consideration of the Redistribu-
tion Clauses until Monday week, and fortunately
the progress made in the past ten days has been
sufficiently rapid to allow the delay to take place
without imperilling the fate of the bill. The Go-
vernment want time to reconstruct their scheme, so
as to distribute the 45 seats they have acquired by
the grace of Mr. Laing, instead of the 30 they
modestly sought. But more than a mere formal re-
construction is necessary. The subject of redistribu-
tion, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last
night, is one of vast importance,:and requiring grave
consideration. The House of Commons wants en-
lightenment upon it, and is conscious of its want.
The question of redistribution, however, is not
new to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The
elaborate speech he delivered on the Redistri-
bution bill of last year showed how deeply
he had studied it, but his speech in explain-
ing the Ministerial scheme of 1859 proved that
he was then master of the question. Challeng-
ing the notion that with our present system of
voting a representative assembly could be obtained
by distributing members in proportion to population,
Mr. Disraeli pointed out that if such a rule were
followed the metropolis must receive 60 members,
and the statesman whose too early death we com
memorated on Saturday told a Wiltshire audience
soon afterwards that a " sympathetic shudder"
ran through the House of Commons at the sugges-
tion. The metropolitan mernbers are of a different
composition now from what they were in 1859, but
it is still manifest that an accession of metropolitan
members in proportion to the population of the
metropolis would seriously damage the representa-
tive character of the House of Commons. The in-
stance is, in fact, a crucial test of the theory that a
representative body can be obtained by cutting up
an area into electoral districts, and allowing the
absolute majority in each district to elect a certain
number of delegates. It would be impossible to
construct a House of Commons in such a manner,
and the inevitable inference is that such a method
of election is radically erroneous. All the condi-
tions of the problem would, however, be changed if
the electors within metropolitan constituencies were
free to accumulate their votes upon the candidates
they favoured, and the constituencies were so ar-
ranged that a sufficient number of candidates
should be elected in each to allow of the represen-
tation of all the electors by free combinations among
themselves. In such a case we should see great
statesmen and great lawyerssitting for metropolitan
constituencies instead of seeking a refuge in such
pocket boroughs as Tiverton or Richmond. It rests
with the House of Commonii to decide by investi-
gation and deliberation during the ensuing week
whether it will seize the present opportunity of in-
troducing a better system of election into our repre-
sentative machinery, and thus preserve the good
results of our present distribution of electoral
power, while relinquishing its indefensible form.
Small boroughs are already condemned to be shorn
of some of their privileges, and their future destiny
is uncertain. Will the House of Commons preserve
or even improve the uses they have served, or will
it blindly adhere to an established order simply be-
cause it is established, and so put the rept esentative
character of the Housesof Commons itself in jeopardy?
We believe the courage it has manifested in dealing
with the enfranchising clauses of the Reform Bill
will not desert it when the redistribution part of the
scheme is under consideration ; and the Ministry,
which has been consistently supported in its boll
resolution to place the franchise on a broad and per-
manent basis, will be similarly supported if it mani-
fest a similar courage and a similar respect to per-
manent and conservative legislation in reconstruct-
ing the clauses affecting re-distribution.
THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" ON ENGLISH AND
CONTINENTAL MANNERS.—The Pall Mall Gazette
recently reproduced a part of- Ur, Ituskia'a cor-

1.. .....`"

respondence with an artizan of the north of Eng-
land, in which Mr. Carlyle was made to complain
of the insults to which he was subjected by the
common people of his neighbourhood, whose con-
duct he compared with the invariable civility and,
respect he experienced from even the peasants of
Italy and France. That Mr. Carlyle's complaints
are well founded no inhabitant of London can
doubt. The Pall Mall Gazette itself, in a subse-
quent article, acknowledges that the want of good
breeding among the body of the English people
is an irritating and humiliating. fact, and pays, at
the same time, a handsome compliment to the
courtesies and civilities which a moderately
w ell-
behaved English traveller never fails to meet with
amongst all classes wherever he journeys in France
or Italy. A Protestant Englishman, however, with
his freezing exclusivism and his contemptuous pity
for the benighted Romanists amongst whom he 15
travelling, is hardly likely to bring out all the sym-
pathies and good qualities of his hosts abroad.
Even though he could, as the Pall Mall Gazette
presupposes, divest himself of his John Bullism,.he
allows his other prejudices as to religion and like
matters to appear so conspicuously that little good
feeling is likely to manifest itself between them,
and the natural kindliness of the continental charac-
teris apt to be nipped in the bud. But the Pro-
testant abroad cannot divest himself of those odi-
ous characteristics which have rendered the name
of an Englishman hateful to all continental people
with whom he has ever come in contact. Indeed
no English Catholic can ever have encountered his
countrymen upon a continental tour without having
had cause to blush for his nationality. In fact the
same hauteur and selfish exclusivism are as plainly
marked, though, perhaps, not quite so offensively
displayed, at home as abroad. Any one in the
habit of travelling much by our own railways must
have noticed with what defiance the average Briton
entrenches himself behind his Times, or novel, at
the greatest distance from his fellow passenger,
and generally stiffly resents as undue familiarity
any approach towards conversation. Compare this
with the affability and universal good nature Of
foreigners to each other, and even to people of a
different nation when thrown together under these
or any other circumstances, and our national peen:
liarity requires no further demonstration. But
while this characteristic of Englishmen has been
widely acknowledged by the country at large, its
cause never seems to have been recognized. IR°
is it that the English alone of civilized people
should manifest so great a distrust—for it is n°
less—of their neighbours ? Much has been both
said and written in solution of the problem, and
the general conclusion is that it is due to our
in-
sular seclusion from contact and intercourse with
other other nations, which has almost brought us to thint
that we are the only people on the earth—or
av
least the only people for whose benefit the earth
exists. Something, no doubt, is due to this caul.
-with regard to our treatment of foreigners, though
it can hardly account for our conduct to each other
—for that want of charity and consideration 0r
the feelings of others which is so painfully mani-
fest in the dealings of Englishmen. This, tl
is the more remarkable, as no people are more
ready to put their hands in their pockets for. the,
alleviation of distress, particularly of a national.
character, than the inhabitants of these islank:
and their benevolence is by no means restricted tut
home calamities, but has found its way in the nose
generous manner to every part of the globe wher_
misfortune has been sudden and appalling. Ne.ves
theless, in spite of this most excellent nation. 4
characteristic there is certainly a marked want,
the intercourse of Englishmen in general, of tliT,
spirit of charity divinely recommended to all. I'l,
their dealings with each other. It is from the exist
ence of this great virtue, so powerfully inculcated
abroad by the doctrines and example of the Catholif
Church, that springs the remarkable difference °0
manners and good breeding which is everylvberh
to be found in Catholic countries. The Chnrca
teaches and requires that the highest in the lania
shall respect, as well as help, the very lowest, 11
11
le
treat them all as the members of one flock—
whom are equal in her sight. This is the ,
cause which, abroad, banishes the superciliousne;
and contempt of one class for the other sop reil_7°_
nent in this country, and induces even the istou,.th
men of the land to treat the very tradesmen. 3‘!,0
the same courtesy as they would men of their °,,‘`it
social position. This explanation is simple, bnat'os
is true. It maybe, as asserted, that there are stsiit
of a better feeling springing up around 115 ;
if so, it can only advance parallel with the is
fiuence of the Catholic Church, which alone
capable of breaking down the barriers that ,0
effectully separate all classes in England.