The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times remarks upon the strange scene in the French'
Corps Ltislatif, with M. Thiers, the historian of the'
First Empire, acting as Minister of the Second. Accord-)
ing to him a zone of petty duchies, of petty cantons, Ger,
many parcelled out, an unarmed Switzerland, an enslaved
Italy, an effete Spain, is what best suits France. Our
contemporary cannot believe that France orthat the French
Emperor is to be strayed by views of such refined selfish-
ness. The time was when every European nation looked
upon our neighbour's gain as a loss to ourselves. There"
were selfish men among us who held it as an article of
faith that England should seek a quarrel with France at
least once every score of years, so as to secure our shores
from invasion by leaving not a single stick of the French
Royal Navy afloat. But we have ceased to be jealous of
France, not because we deem her a less formidable adver-:
sary, not because steam navigation does not render our
shores more vulnerable, but because, with the conscious-
ness of our own strength, our confidence in our neighbour's
peaceful disposition has also increased. We think less of
the power France may have to go to war, and more of the
reasons she has to remain at peace. Why France should not
be equally easy on the score of Italy and Germany we are
unable to see. Were she to applaud herself for the generous
impulse which won Solferino and for the wise neutrality
which countenanced Sadowa, we think Italian and Ger-
man unity would rather add to than take away from that
moral ascendancy to which it ought to be France's boast
to aspire. As to Italy it is very evident that the breath
that has made can also unmake her. M. Thiera dwells at
full length on the sad spectacle of anarchy and bankruptcy:
presented at the present moment by the Italian kingdom.

France, who has long seemed to halt between two
opinions, has, according to the Herald, resolved her doubts
and those of the world by throwing her aegis defiantly and
resolutely over the head of the Pontiff. It is not for the
death of Pope Pius IX. that the Italians have to wait for
the accomplishment of their scheme of unity. Nor will it
make much difference to them who is the ruler of France
so lcng as the majority of Frenchmen are, as they seem to
be now, of the opinion of M. Thiers, that France must
still be true to the worship " which has held her in
its arms for twelve centuries ;" that it is monstrous
" that she who has it in her power to be the protectress
of 200 millions of Catholics should not be willing
to exercise that power." The illpjudged enterprise of
Garibaldi, the battle of Mentana, and the discussions and
recriminations which have followed them, are now events
of the past—sad memories which should be suffered to
sleep. For the moment they have caused a deep estrange-
ment between France and Italy, and may in this way
make themselves felt in the politics of the day. That Italy,
when she has had time for reflection, will be ready to
• confess that had she been in the place of France she could
not have acted otherwise, and determine within herself
that she must wait for the acquisition of Rome until such
time as the necessity of the perpetuation of this temporal
power shall have ceased to be an article of faith with
Roman Catholic Christians.

The rejection by the House of Representatives of the
motion to impeach President Johnson has created sonic
interest on this side of the Atlantic. The Post thus in-
terprets it. It was well known that a large number of
the most bitter opponents of the President were averse
from the employment of a measure which would strike
a much more fatal blow against the office of chief maxis
trate than against the individual who at the present
moment happens to fill it ; and, on the other hand,
it was equally notorious that many of the Demo-
crats who have given a consistent support to
the President were not unwilling that their oppo-
nents should commit the serious blunder which.
would be involved in the proposed impeachment. When,
however, as an antecedent step, a resolution was sub •
mitted having for its object the suspension of Mr. Johnson
from office pending the inquiry into his supposed guilt,
many who regarded his impeachment with disfavour
supported that resolution, in order thereby to supply an
additional argument against the adoption of the proposal to
impeach. There was, in truth, no blinking the fact that
if, after the resolution for suspension, that for impeach-
ment were carried, the office of Chief Magistrate of the
Republic would henceforth become contemptible, since it
would simply require the adverse vote of a majority, with
a naked assertion of guilt, to procure the deposition of the
President.

Hard and fierce has the winter come upon us a
season which is dreaded by the poor as an invading
enemy. The vague eulogies of frost and snow as " season-
able," " natural," and " healthy," which proceed from
portly and well-wrapped figures and rosy countenances,
must sound like cruel mockeries in the ears of men
who have no defensive armour against the attacks
of cold and want. Thus opens the Daily News as
article, painting in strong colours a terrible picture
of the distress which exists in the East of London. That
part where suffering is now most intense was a few years
ago the centre of a thriving industry. In the Poplar
district, and especially in the Isle of Dogs, lately the
seat of an active shipbuilding trade, with ironworks and
chemical factories, and great industrial establishments of
various kinds, there are, a medical visitor writes, " hula,
dreds of persons quietly and calmly dying by inches'
Four thousand persons are at work where sixteen
thousand once had employment. The tradesmen'—
the butchers, bakers, grocers, drapers, publicans,
who are the camp followers of the great industrial
army—have shut up their shops and gone. The num-
ber of persons receiving outdoor relief is greatly in
excess of what it was last year ; and the number of (cases
on the books of the medical officer is more than four-fold
the average of the past three years. From many houses
every article of furniture has been sold. The people sleep
on the bare boards, with old sacks only for their covering.
At Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Hackney, the same features
are presented. In the East of London, north of the
Thames, twelve thousand men, representing not fewer
than fifty thousand persons, were a fortnight ago out of
employment, and, with those dependent on them, starving.
The increased severity of the past few days cannot but
have increased the number of sufferers and the severity of
their distress. The Poor-law system is quite unequal to
grapple with this mass of misery.
In an article on the annual display of stock at the
Agricultural Hall, the Standard contends that we are
eating up, notwithstanding all the loud pretence about a
preference of green crop over wheat-growing soils, our
stock-rearing lands—not in all districts, but in many, and
those of an important character. Without assigning a
general result to any single cause, we maintain that one
influence of this process is seen operating in the-butcher's
shop. As to the cattle plage, which suspended the
Christmas Show at Islington for a season, the magnitude
and gravity of its import were, from the beginning, fortrade
purposes, grossly exaggerated. There was smne loss of
property, some derangement of business, some interrup-
tion of fairs and marketFoome damage to dairy produce,
but, with sixty millions' worth of live stock in the country,
was a rise of thirty per cent. and more, in the cost of meat
for public consumption ever, in the worst titne of the
,pestilence, justified? That, perhaps, is an old argument
which need not again be pressed ; but we could wish that
the Smithfield Club, now holding its annual splendid
show, could ultimately tell us a little more about the most
important system of husbandry in England, the means we
enjoy of supplying a meat diet to the people, the protec-
tion of our rural economy from foreign infection, and the
possibility of reconciling, with any number of incompa-
rably symmetrical oxen, sheep, and pigs on show, the
profits of the trade with the necessities of the population.

The Telegraph does not think that such processions as
those which have lately traversed the streets of Dublin,
Limerick, and Cork should be permitted if their tendency
is to excite to a breach of the peace. There can be no
doubt that Allen, Larkin, and Gould made a good end of
it in a religious sense. There was no latitudinarian indif-
ference to the priest : they went to their doom chanting
the sad psalms appointed by their Church, and consoled
to the last by the ministrations of their spiri-
tual guides. This has in a manner endeared them
to many thousand Roman Catholics who have as great a
horror of Fenianism as any Protestant in the land. With
some cunning the Fenians have played on this national
and sectarian sentiment, this womanly tenderness, and
their mock funeral processions have had a Catholic
char:let:a- which has greatly helped their success. But
the slight union between Romanism and Fenianism
cannot last : it is the offspring of the emotion of
the day. While it did last it was as well not
to affront the feelings of poor pious souls by arrest-
ing even mock hearses or seizing even empty coffins ;
but probably we have heard the last of Fenian funeral
processions permitted by the authorities. If such sedi-
tious language as that recently delivered by a man named
Martin were allowed to be repeated, the impunity would
be interpreted as an incentive to license. Thus, we might
have disturbances of such a character as to demand the
exercise of lamentable severity. To save the country
from such a melancholy necessity, the Government may
have to invoke the agency of the law, and to punish
sedition with a rigour which shall be merciful in its stern.
ness i • -,J

THE NEw GOLD MINES OF NEW ZEALA-Nii.-:-
The discovery of gold on the western shores of the middle
island of New Zealand has added much importance to the
anchorages on the open and exposed coast.. The Board of
Trade have published a pamphlet compiled from the re-
marks of Captain Charles W. Hope, R.N., commanding
her Majesty's ship Brisk, 1867, from which it ap-
pears that the whole population on the west coast is at
present estimated at from 40,000 to 50,000 colonists. Li
1850 not a single European resided on the whole lice of
cqaatel:Ncw Zofansi Eva!;frig