The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-20 00:00:00

, SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 20, 1867

steel lining adapted to the lubrication of the moulds,
and to undergo some other repairs. The manufac-
ture, as before, is expected to recommence on the
opening of the establishment after Easter. A large
number are required for early despatch to serve
the heavy guns sent out last year for the defence of
Canada.

A notification was yesterday received at Chatham,
from the Horse Guards, that the 70th Regiment
will proceed from Dover to Aldershott, on Thurs-
day next, the 25th inst.
Major Wirzman is to be transferred from the 6th
Inniskilling Dragoons to the 4th Hussars, on their
going to India iu September.

GLORGE FRANCIS 7RAIN IN THE GOLD
ROOM, NEW YORK.

The Gold Room, with its active five hundred
members, is still the feature of New York monied
men. Sales amounting from twenty-five millions to
a hundred and twenty-five millions every day show
the magnitude of the operations there. A stranger
in the city may well look on and wonder to see all
nations represented around that railing. Horace
White's description in the Chicago Tribune was racy
in the extreme, but the Gold Room has seldom had
more of a sensation among its members than Wed-
nesday afternoon.
It seems that Mr. Train went into the new Board
Room with Mr. Mellis of the World, to see the
Room and ascertain if his old membership of two
years ago held good. Mr. Train, who seems to be
always
ular with the brokers,
found
hemmed in by a crowd, while
himself
the whole room joined in the cry of speech—speech
ah a i f e
suddenlyllo w and T erYI3(3P
—Train--Train. He tried to get out in vain. There
was no retreat. He pushed for the door, when some
dozen of the brokers, now thoroughly demoralised,
lifted him up bodily to the President's platform,
while the board, packed fuller than usual, demanded
a speech.
The President hammered away with his gavel, but
could not restore order. " Decorum, gentlemen, we
must have decorum; surely you have no right to force
Mr. Train tospeak against his wishes." "I will protect
you," said the President to Mr. Train. But it was of
no use. It was beyond his power. The gold brokers
-had got Mr. Train fast, and suspended all opera-
tions, and insisted upon a speech. Mr. Train, seeing
that he was in for it, arose, when the cries of " Hats
off" were renewed and silence was restored. We can
only give a sketch of Mr. Train's remarks bearing
on the financial question.

The above extract from the Evening Express is
followed by Mr. Train's speech, which is rightly
described as an odd speech in an odd place by an
odd fellow. Mr. Train hit right and left, but
although his hearers must have felt the full force of
many of his blows, they were taken with the utmost
good humour.

When the old Banking Companies of England,
organised under the Limited Liability Act, they
were all or most of them insolvent—as instanced by
Overend,. Gurney, and Co. Our old banks were in
the same position when Mr. Chase, the largest head,
the longest head, of his
banking system, to makeparty created the national
himself President. (Ap-
plause.) You remember he put his handsome photo-
graph on the $1 notes to circulate among the people.
(Laughter.) Our National Banks, like the English
Limited Liability Act, were the salvation of most of
the rotten banks of the country. (Sensation.) Take
their loans this time last year, 1866—Five Hundred
Millions. Take them now, 1867—Six Hundred and
Twenty Millions. Of course I said as they have in-
creased their loans they have added to their capital,
only Twenty-Five Millions I found, leaving One
Hundred Millions more now than when expanded
last year. What is this loaned on ? On Erie at 90,
North-Western at 80, Cumberland Canal at 70,
Pacific Mail at 180 —J.nd 'Pork at 36. (Laughter.)
The last panic was peculiar—usually we outsiders
caught it. This time you insiders got cleaned out.
(Applause and "That's so.") Men who had accumu-
lated their $200,000 to $500,000 in small sums these
last few years, buried it all ia the Greenwood
Cemetery of the Stock Exchange. (Mr. O'Brien—
or in E Pluribus Unum.) Mr. Train—Yes, you are
one of the many whose epitaph is among the tomb-
stones. (Loud laughter and applause, continuing for
several minutes at the repartee.)

Tree street
The Comptroller is abroad—he is after the cldin.
quents-1,700 of these institutions are in a flurry—
awl
irlel afdeyel the
sbhi go
elko awn
ist
hi area ac awl leeedk in,
andhe the
recent
Na-
tional Bank failures in Washington, Baltimore, Oil
pimples,the experienced eye the painful disease
the slight eruption on the skin,
Wells, Newton, Hudson, Boston, and Nashville are
that
ytt
it s t
thee tells sruggling within. (Applause.) These banks
were established on a 10 per cent. margin, $lOO,OOO
bonds gave $90,000 notes. This margin is lost, and
23 per cent. more, as shown by the loan account Ono
Hundred Million more than last year. (Sensation.)
When the country understands this, they will sell
Governments. Then look abroad. Five hundred
millions of our securities in Europeeo:icecanltl.—Bnroitmisih-
nally held at 74—or 9 per cent. in gold, while the rot.
tenest security in the old world, 3 p
Consols, are selling at 91. That shows how little
they think of our Bonds. They are simply deposited
there and drawn against--a simple kytering opera-
tion, which you understand. (Laughter.) When
you want to sec what is going to happen abroad
look at the never-failing barometer down there iu
When
or n war breaks
the south-eastern part of Europe, the Eastern ques-
tion. Allsay peace, yet five millions of breech-loaders
ou, a
—of
tde likely
Tur-
key, back come the bonds. Send home not
$500;000,000, but $20,000,000, and the dozen inter-
national bankers will rush to the Government
slaughter-house to sell, and the amount will soon be
exaggerated to $200,000,000. Suppose they meet
there some of the liquidating National Bank Bonds,
and other frightened holders of the Bonds, all rush-
ing to sell, who is going to buy ? Shall Igoon ?"
(Cries of " Yes.") Remember that the loan was
taken up on margins. We subscribed $lO,OOO and
borrowed $9,500, and kept the mill going all day,
making the man with $lO,OOO capital talk and act
like the millionaire. The public is a bull on govern-
ments only when above par—when below par they are
bears. Let governments drop to par, and down they
go to 89. Then national bank notes are 1 per cent.
dis. Then comes the rush on national banks for
greenbacks, and the greenbacks are not there. (Sen-
sation.) What is the result? Does Congress help us?
No, the lawyers are in power; what do they care ?
They add $400,000,000 bounty to the debt, and ad-
vance their own salaries to $5,000. Is the South to
be admitted under the Military Bill ? No ; Stevens
holds the reins; confiscation is the order. The estates
are to be cut up among
the Germans, and the
negroes wiped out. Where, then, are we floating?
Congress sees M'Culloch has made a mistake ;
and as it is an Administration blunder, the
Radicals intend to pass no bill of relief.
They will pinch the country this year—
and bring on a financial crash in the fall—(remem-
ber this is the panic year of the never-failing screws)
—lay it on the Administration policy, and when
everybody is broken, Congress will meet in the
winter and pass Randall's bill, putting greenbacks
in the place of the $340,000,000 National Bank
Bonds. Pass another bill paying duties on imports
in greenbacks—and then another bill paying inte-
rest on the $1,400,000,000 5-20's in legal tenders.
In other words, give the country one currency. That
is twenty-five hundred millions of legal tenders, in-
stead of 16 currencies as at present. This makes all
happy for the Presidential election of 1868. Delirium
tremens requires national whisky to recuperate the
system. The whisky will make all vote for Radicalism.
They elect the President, and after that the deluge.
(Laughter.) Johnson in his talk with Halpine—the
Democratic party and the South thinks that a crash
will burst the Radicals. By no means. They will
turn it to their advantage. The next war is to be
financial—land and labour against banks and bond-
holders—and the former own the notes. The South
had no debt. The West little. The greenback age
wiped off their mortgages, and placed the lead on
the back of the bondholders. The debt rests uneasily
on the seashore and in Europe, and the shadow is
on the wall.

Paying gold interest in greenbacks is repudiation,
you say—why
so ? Nearly all the States have done

it, New York taking the lead. The finality of all
the recent Congressional legislation may be stated in
two words, confiscation in the South and repudia-
tion in the North. (Sensation.) The Chicago papers
have already sounded the tocsin ; we are growing
poorer every day. The $2,500,000,000 debt only
cost $1,250,000,000. Hence bondholders ask specie
payments. The people who did the fighting hold
no bonds, and ask for legal tenders. The rich ar-
ranged to have their bonds free from taxation.
Hence the rich man, with his millions of untaxed
governments, sends his children to the same school
where the poor man, with no bonds, sends his.
Hence the poor man is obliged to pay for the edu-
cation of the rich man's children as well as for his
own. (Sensation.) But enough of this. You asked
me for a speech, and you have got it. You ask
the remedy. Retrench. You have been dancing
five years and the fiddler demands his pay. (Laugh-
ter.) When the candle is lighted at both ends you
had better sell it short. (Laughter.) You must
stop your imports—develope your mineral resources
—finish the Pacific Railroad—cut down your ex-
penses—smoke one cigar less—drink one glass of
whisky less every hour in the day, and keep all
your pockets as full as you can of legal tenders, as
they will be the handiest thing you can have about
the house. (Loud applause and great congratula-
tions from the brokers.)

SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN PRESS.

TIIE POLITICAL FUTITRE.

The nature of the arrangement which Congress
has made as to its adjournment renders it certain
that; barring some gross act of folly on the part of
Mr. Johnson or of the Southern leaders, there will
be no session until December. As well as anybody
can judge from his present attitude and language
he is not likely to do anything to impede the free
working of the Reconstruction Bill. The Generals
in command ,of the military districts are men in
whom the country has every confidence, and what
they have done so far, warrants the conclusion that
they will do hereafter all that the occasion calls for
or the people expect, without either let or hindrance
from the White House. There could, in fact, hardly
be a better augury as to the future, than the steps
General Sheridan has just taken at New Orleans.
We may therefore fairly anticipate that the con-
stitutional conventions in the various States will
be duly held, and that not only the Unionists, pro-
perly so called, but everybody not formally disfran-
chised by the act, will take part in the election of
the delegates. It is impossible to read the speeches
of the leading Southern men and the articles in the
recent Southern papers without feeling satisfied
that active submission has at last been determined
on, that the South is going to reorganise under the
act, and that the plan of flattering and managing
the negroes has been fixed on as the best and only
mode of taking out of the new law whatever sting or
danger there may be in it. We shall probably see
during the coming summer most of the leading
Southern politicians, and a large number also of in-
fluential men who have never taken much part iu
politics, carrying on a brisk canvass amongst the
freedmen, and competing, and we believe not unsuc-
cessfully, with the Southern Radicals, properly so
called, for the negro vote. *That the conventions will
comply with the requisitions of Congress wa have
no sort of doubt. It would, of course, be a great
mockery, as everybody at the South now knows, to
hold them for any other purpose than compliance.
That the eAtablishment of free schools is not amongst
those requisitions, as proposed the other day by Mr.
Sumner, we consider a great misfortune; and wa
cannot help thinking that the whole North will see
it in the same light before many years. Of what
the Southern planters can do in the political ma-
nagement of ignorant voters we know something
already, but we greatly fear we have something still
to learn. If, therefore, Mr. Johnson confines himself
during the summer.to the routine duties of his office,
and indulges in no worse outbursts of feeling than
" conversations," there will be nothing for Con•
gress to do until the regular time of meet-
ing. The game of removals from office which
the President played last summer, is, of course,
barred by the Tenure of Office Bill, and our
Foreign Ministers may hereafter meet the gaze
of the MeCrackens without wincing. Thus Mr.
Johnson is really exposed to hardly any temp-
tation. What, under these circumstances, is
likely to become of the impeachment? In the
first place, it is quite evident that its great
advocates have now very little influence in the
House. General Butler went to Congress charged
with the special duty of carrying it through, and
may be said to have mad.: absolutely no impression
on anybody, and has been condemned to the some-
what inglorious role of sticking pins into his
personal enemies for the amusement of his fellow-
members. Mr. Stevens, too, has evidently lost his
power, or else the House has grown thieked skinned
for his lash, though ever so mercilessly applied, does
not produce the slightest movement. What is more '
significant than all, is, that the Judiciary Committee
make no secret of the fact that it is proceeding in
strict accordance with legal forms, taking evidence
only under legal rules, and is admitting rebutting
testimony at every step. We have all along main-
tained that if this were done the impeachment had
little chance. The only mode of impeachment which
promised success was something in the nature of a
bill of pains and penalties, or what might be called
,‘ impeachment by acclamation." We are still of
opinion that no evidence has been brought before
the committee which would bear examination in a'
court of law, because it could only reach the com-
mittee through the promoters of the movement,
and thus far these gentlemen have not tantalized
the public by their secrecy. They have been, of
course, very anxious to secure support from the
people, and consequently are not likely to have kept
back anything of importance which came to their
knowledge, and yet they have told us absolutely
nothing that we have not all known for the last
year, unless it be Mr. *Boutwell's charge about the
ptkrdon of the West Virginia deserters. We have
at the same time the assurance of the committee
that they will prosecute their inquiry diligently
during the summer, and if they find any high
crime or misdemeanour will do their duty about it
fearlessly. In any case, however, the probability
is that we shall not get their report till December.
In calculating the effect of it, even if unfavourable
to the President, it is desirable to remember that
the convention for the nomination of the next
President will be held in the summer of 1868, and
that during the previous half-year the attention of
the political world will.be entirely absorbed in the
manufacture of candidates, possible and impossible,
likely and unlikely, and will continue to be so till
the nomination is made. After the nomination of
course comes the compaign, and we doubt if a more
exciting one has ever occurred. It is safe, there-
fore, to predict, that Mr. Johnson, insignificant
already, will, after the Ist of January next, becomes
more and more so, and will cease to be spoken of at
all as the winter wears on, and that some of those
who are now most eager to try him will then be
least disposed to trouble themselves about him.
Moreover, suppose an impeachment process were
commenced in December, if conducted with legal
form, as it ought to be and certainly would be, it
would last till the following summer at least, and
conviction might possibly be secured about the time
of the next election-; but we doubt if either the
cause of the country or the interests of virtue
would be served by it.-7he Notion.

REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES.-HARE'S SYSTEM.
A majority may be too strong for its own good
and that of the state. It would be easy to find
illustrations of this in recent legislation. Some mea-
sures of the late Congress would have been much
more carefully and justly constructed if the domi-
nant party had not felt its power to pass them over
Presidential vetoes and to silence opposition by
sheer force. In this consciousness of irresistible
power, the majority too often attempted to rob the
minority of the poor privilege of discussion and re-
monstrance, or when they permitted it, it was
granted as a favour, not allowed as a right, and
the most frequent reply to an argument in opposi-
tion to any measure was in substance :—" Who
cares ? We can vote you down." Indeed it seems
to be one of the natural tendencies of representa-
tive government to cultivate a contempt for mino-
rities and their rights. And this is all the more
provoking and dangerous when the aggregate
majority of the party in power is but a small frac-
tion of the whole vote, and liable to be trans-
ferred at any election to the other side by some
revulsion of popular feeling, or an extraordinary
expenditure of money in the purchase of votes.
Aside from party considerations altogether, and on
public and general grounds, the rights of minorities
are entitled to respect in a free government. How
to secure to minorities a share of representation and
power is one of the problems over which the thinkers
in politics are now much exercised. The plan of
Mr. Hare, endorsed by John Stuart Mill, is the most
practical and direct yet suggested. It is called
the cumulative vote. Mr. Hare wonld make the
representative districts larger, and then divide the
representatives in each between the different parties
as nearly in proportion to numbers as possible.
For instance, Massachusetts would elect her ten
representatives to Congress on a general ticket, and
the Democrats would be entitled to two or three of
them, according to their proportion of the whole
vote. This would be secured• by a law that no voter
should vote for more than seven or eight representa-
tives, as the case might. be, so that all the names on

the Republican ticket would be elected and thetwo or
three on the Democratic ticket receiving the largest
number of votes. 'The plan would have the further
advantage of allowing the selection of candidates
from the whole State, and so increasing the chances
that the best men would be sent to Congress. The
same system might be applied to elections for the
State Legislature, by increasing the size of the re-
presentative and senatorial districts. It would be
easy to find objections to Mr. Hare's plan, and it
is not likely to be favoured by any party that is
strongly in the majority, and yet the idea that
minorities have rights, and should be heard and
represented in the Government, is one that will force
itself more and more upon attention as a desir-
able check to the despotism of the numerical ma-
jority, which may sometimes become as intolerable
as that of the mailed hand of a single' tryant.
While all afloat as to first principles on many great
political questions, and seeking for solid footing
somewhere, the suggestions of these great English
thinkers in politics deserve at least respectful atten-
tion. 'They may give us essential help.—Spring-
field Weekly Republican.