The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We observe that the Sovereigns of Western
and Northern Germany dread the celebration of
another festival like that of Hambacli. The
measures concerted by the patriots, and the dis-
courses delivered by the orators who met on that
occasion, seem to have created a general alarm
among the rulers of that country. Even the
Grand Duke of Baden, who had acquired po-
pularity by agreeing to a law for establishing the
freedom of the press, has declared against such
general assemblages to discuss politics and to
listen to patriotic harangues. He has, there-
fore, issued a manifesto to his subjects, strongly
censuring the conduct of the multitude who
lately celebrated the enactment of constitutional
liberty, and forbidding any meeting for similar
purposes within the States of his Grand Duchy.
The Grand Duke, probably urged by the Diet
of the Confederation, calls the late speeches de-
livered at Hambach seditious, and accuses their
authors of wishing to establish a German re.
public. We have no doubt, therefore, that
either a new Congress of German Sove-
reigns will be formed,—to check this alleged
evil, or that the German Diet,—power-
leas to do good, or to restrain folly,
—will attempt to impose new shackles on
the comparative freedom of the smaller states.
The Grand Duke is not very consistent in his
reasoning on this subject in his proclamation.
He says, that the very idea of the convulsion
which these meetings may occasion, has excited
terror in the minds of all the proprietors, agri-
culturists, and manufacturers, in his dominions ;
and yet he warns these same terrified proprietors,
agriculturists, and manufacturers, not to frequent
them ! Nothing could better evince the ten-
dency of the German mind to political change,
than this ordinance. It appears, that in meetings
which shall take place for the purposes of fes-
tivity, the people will take the opportunity of'
discussing politics, and it imposes a penalty on
such discussions, even independent of their se-
ditious or treasonable character, which is left to
be settled by the judgment or the usual tribunals,
and according to existing laws.—Tinzes.
We have repeatedly mentioned, that the Par-
liamentary Reform Bill, which is now happily
beyond the reach of danger, is only the means
to an end. That end is the correction of exist-
ing abuses, and the attainment of a future bene-
ficial administration of our national interests and
resources, through the establishment of a con-
trol in the people over the management of their
own affairs. We have now got the instrument
in our hands—a mighty instrument of improve-
ment we think it will be—and the next question
is, to what purpose shall we first apply it, or
how shall we derive from it some of those va-
rious advantages, the prospect of which stimu-
lated our zeal and supported our efforts for the
last eighteen mouths ? The multiplied applica•
Lions of this great moral engine (compared with
which on the future happiness and prosperity of
this nation and of the world the physical powers
of the steam-engine dwindle into insignificance)
we cannot at present stop to enumerate ; but, one
of the first subjects which will come under the
notice of the new legislature which it will return,
will be the state of the Church. The two Bills
of the Archbishop of Canterbury, for diminish-
ing the shameless abuses of pluralities, and for
effecting a composition for tithes, are meagre,
wretchedly meagre, but they lay the foundation
for a great Ecclesiastical Reform, with the con-
sent of the body whose interests they affect, and
at least announce that the heads of the Esta-
blishment see the necessity for changes, which,
if proposed by a layman two or three years age,
would have exposed the hardy projector to the
charge of blasphemy or sacrilege. But we have
before us more unequivocal proofs of the neces-
sity of the coining investigation, and of the
length to which, in order to be satisfactory, it
must extend, in some pamphlets on the subject,
both by clergymen and laymen, to two of which
we beg more particularly to call public attention.
The first is by Lord Henley, entitled A Plan of
Church Reform; and the second is A Letter
to Earl Grey on Church Property and Church
Reform, by the Rev. J. Miller, Vicar of Pit-
tington, Durham. Lord Henley unites in him-
self every quality which can strip an Ecclesias-
tical Reformer of' his terrors, being not only a
religious Nobleman, attached to the venerable
ecclesiastical institutions of the land, and con-
nected by family ties with their most strenuous
supporters—but occupying a judicial situation
which leads him to study them, and gives him
a bias in their favour. The extent to which
he goes, therefore, if it does not excite alarm,
may at least create surpri,e. We shall let it
burst upon the reader all at once, before we
make any remarks upon its policy, or state any
of the reasons on which it may be justified or
resisted. The most prominent evil in the church
appears to his Lordship non-residence and
pluralities. He is, therefore, for enforcing resi-
dence in all cases, and abolishing pluralities in
all cases, as soon as both can be effected con-
sistently with the vested interests of the present
incumbents, and a necessary provision for all the
parish clergy by the augmentation of' the smaller
livings. He finds the means of this augmenta-
tion in the Church itself, by abolishing the si-
necures of the cathedrals and collegiate esta-
blishments, and by applying their revenues for
the support of the working clergy. The admi-
nistration of this fund he proposes to place in a
Board or Corporation, like that of Queen Anne's
Bounty, which has hitherto been totally ineffi-
cient from its trifling produce, occasioned by
the most absurd management. The Noble Lord
then carries his reforming hand to the mitre,
and proposes to prevent translations from
one see to another,—to enforce episcopal as
well as parochial residence,—to abolish the
inequality between the revenues of diffe-
rent bishoprics, and the privilege of holding
commendams,—to give them all about 5,0001.
a year, with an addition to the two Arch-
bishops,—to exclude them all from the House
of Lords,—and to take steps for renewing the
Convocation, on its ancient footing, for mana-
a CI C, im, their purely ecclesiastical affairs. Two
other parts of his plan are not unimportant,
though of far less consequence than any of the
previous arrangements. As several of the
dioceses are inconveniently large, he proposes
the erection of tato new Bishopricks ; and
as the efficient performance of clerical duties
may not be compatible with a certain age, lie
suggests the propriety of retiring allowances, as
in civil or military service. The Noble Lord
does not enter on the subject of tithes, though
he seems evidently inclined for an immediate
commutation of that species of property, so as
to increase the utility of the clergy, by destroy-
ing the existing chances of collision between
them and their parishioners. He is, of course,
opposed to every scheme for diverting any pot-•
tion of the revenues of the church from the
church itself. Mr. Miller enters at greater
lengthinto the question of tithes, and feels

equally disposed to render residence con-
venient and possible by augmenting small
livings out of a real and not fictitious
' levy of first-fruits and tenths ; but he is
not hold enough to propose any reform in
the higher order of the hierarchy, or to
shut the doors of Parliament against the Bi-
shops. So far as Lord Henley's plan goes to
enforce residence, and to improve the condition
of the lower clergy, at the expense of deans,
chapters, and collegiate dignitaries, he must have
nearly all the reasonable portion of the public
attached to the church on his side. What can
be thought of the age—what can be thought of
the country—in which so well-endowed a church
as that of England does not afford a resident
clergy to above-two-thirds of its parishes—in
which there are 4,809 livings upon which a cler-
gyman cannot reside,—in which there are pa-
rishes where divine service is not performed but
once in three weeks or a month,—in which there
are benefices under 12/. per annum in contrast
with others worth 2,000/., 3,0001., or 4,000/.,
—in which there are large districts where the
week-day ministrations of a pastor are as little
known as in a heathen land, and in which, with
all the learning and piety of the great body of
the clergy, the purposes of an ecclesiastical insti
tution for the religious instruction and consola-
tion of the poor and laborious classes are so im-
perfectly fulfilled ? But in the present state of
church livings, it is impossible that such a
reform can be realized. There are, by a Par-
liamentary return, 4,361 livings in England and
Wales under the annual value of 150/., and
therefore unable to maintain a resident clergy-
man. There are 2,626 livings where there is no
parsonage-house, and 2,183 more, where there
are houses rented at 2/. or 3/. a year, unfit for
he residence of a clergyman. It is to provide a
necessary clerical income, and a habitable par-
sonage-house in every parish, so as to render
residence possible, and to wipe off this blot from
our Church Establishment, that Lord Henley
proposes to appropriate :he revenues of the Deans
and Chapters, after deducting the sum neces-
sary for the due performance of the cathedral
service. The whole of this sinecure revenue
he calculates at 300,000/. a year, (a sum, by the
way, greater than that which is allotted for the
support of the whole church establishment of
Scotland) and, leaving a sufficient income for
the deans and their chaplains, he finds, or may
find, nearly 200,000/. for increasing small
livings and building clerical dwellings, under a
proposed board of management. Reserving for
another opportunity more detailed and more em-
phatic observations on this and other parts of the
proposed Church Reform, we must conclude at
present with the following quotation, which ap-
pears to us to contain remarks as just as they are
well expressed
" It seems astonishing that this great and understand-
ing nation should permit such a continual violation of
the spirit and letter of Christianity to exist in its very bo-
elm. That while so many thousands are annually raised
by voluntary subscriptions to send forth missionaries in the
remotest corners of the world, we should dole out the re-
venues of the national church in so unequal a manner,
that more than 4,000 of its districts are unable to support
a minister in the decent habits and respectability of a gen-
tleman. And that while we have millions at home who
arc living in total alienation from the sanctions and com-
forts of religion, we should ' sow beside all waters; except
those whose borders have the first claims for our culture.

"` These things ought not so to he,' and if there were no
overgrown and unwieldy endowments in the church—if
there were no sinecures, the existence of which brings dis-
credit on the establishment, no payments utterly dispro-
portionate to any service that is rendered for them—these
details would have established a right to require the legis-
lature to devote a grant, or a series of annual grants, to
this great exigency. And if ever the time shall have ar-
rived when no revenues are paid, except such as ure fit for
the just and legitimate dignity of the hierarchy, and when
no stipend is received but in return for some adequate
amount of service done to the cause of religion, then, and
not till then, may Parliament properly be called upon to
supply all deficiences.
" In the mean time, we must remember that the en-
dowments of the church are property given for a special
purpose. They are the subject of a gre►t trust for the
maintenance and service of religion. And whether we
regard the church in the abstract as one viast corporation,
or in one technical point of view, as a❑ aggregate of cor-
porations, she must equally be considered as a trustee
invested with the management and control of funds given
fur the discharge of a duty of the very highest and holiest
nature. And if by time, or accident, or neglect, or by the
rise or improvement of property, or by the increase of
population, any material impediment shall have arisen to
prevent the due performance of this trust, it is the clear
right and bounden duty of the Legislature to enforce its
faithful execution. And if this cannot be effected except
by some change in the channel through which the fund is
transmitted, notwithstanding all objections to extensive
alterations, yet such alterations must inevitably be effected.
It would, indeed, he injustice and tyranny to abridge the
life-income of any individual ; but when the highest inte-
rests of the community, and the strong call of religion,
unite with the clear will of the donor, in pointing out
the necessity of a❑ alteration i❑ the specific mode of effect-
ing his intentions, there should no longer be any doubt of
the justice or of the propriety of varying any existing
mode of distribution as to all subsequent objects of his
bounty. No one now maintains the inviolability of cor-
porate rights, where a clear case of public necessity or
expediency demands their sacrifice. And when the first
of all duties, and the most urgent of all necessities, call
for an alteration in the application of public property, it
would be preposterous to contend that the embryo rights
of any number of unappointed or unborn functionaries can
legitimately interpose to prevent a just or necessary mea-
sure of Reform."— Times.

The Select and Secret Committee of the
House of Commons now sitting " to inquire
into the expediency of renewing the Charter of
the Bank of England, and into the system on
which Banks of Issue in England and Wales
are conducted," involves a public and Ministerial
trust of most immediate and critical importance.
This difficult and momentous subject compre-
hends neither more nor less than the whole
monetary system of the country ; it vitally con-
cerns the integrity of every commercial contract,
and the happiness of all the productive classes
and the millions engaged in labour. This legis-
lative inquiry is undertaken at a period of un-
exampled national distress and political diffi-
culty ; it involves every interest in this vast hive
of industry; and surely such a responsible and
grave matter of legislation will not be " slurred
over" and settled by hocus-pocus trickery, or
filially determined at so late a period of the
session in an unreformed House of Commons,
when neither time nor circumstances admit of a
full or dispassionate inquiry. The affairs and
connexions of that great Political Corporation,
the Bank of England, must be fully investigated ;
and although it is a subject surrounded with
difficulty, it may nevertheless be satisfactorily
and prosperously settled. We well know that
all the money-changers are on the run, and in a
monetary perspiration—we hear, on good autho-
rity, that the Bank Directors, and their country
agents, are affecting great alarm for " the best
interests of the nation," if their question in the
Commons' Committee be " kept open." We
are well aware that every class of the Old Lady's
servants, retainers, hangers-on, and debtor-slaves,
are raising the hue-and-cry, " For GrOd's sake
let the Charter be renewed ; the monopoly must
be continued ; you don't know, &c., we shall
have all the money matters of the realm in con-
fusion," &c. We know that all these old agencies
and stale devices are at active work; but surely
the good nature of Lord Althorp and the coin-

mercial acuteness of Mr. Poulett Thomson will
not be imposed upon or bamboozled, even
though Sir Robert Peel (our committee-man)
and Mr. Herries should be playing the game
of the Bank Directors. We confess, how-
ever, fears are justly entertained by the public
that inquiry will be smothered, that a long
renewal of a partial and most injurious mo.
nopoly will be hastily conceded—in short.
that Lord Althorp will be humbugged—a
vulgar but expressive term. The public, and all
practical and enlightened Political Economists,
are suspicious' and highly dissatisfied with the
usurped powers enjoyed by the Bank of Eng-
land over the circulating medium, and with the
mysteries of the Bank parlour. The illicit in-
tercourse of the Old Lady with every Ministry
of the day has mainly contributed to the present
fearfully embarrassed state of the country. This
great monetaryand political paper-mint originated
in the difficulties and debts of the British Go-
vernment—a moA sandy and dangerous founda-
tion. In 1694 the Bank of England was formed
out of a loan of 1,200,000/. for the public ser-
vice. In two years it became embarrassed, and
suspended payment of its notes on the occasion
of the great recoinage in 1696. For further
advances to the public service in 1710, the Cor-
poration obtained a renewal of their Charter with
a certain monopoly of English banking. Thus
grew up this enormous piece of State machinery
and paper manufacture. The Charter was first
granted to continue for eleven years certain, or
till a year's notice after the Ist of August, 1705;
it was further prolonged in 1697. In 1708, the
Bank advanced 100,000/. to the Government,
without interest, and the exclusive privileges of
the Corporation were again prolonged till 1733.
The Directors, at various subsequent periods,
again bartered with the Ministry of the day
in further loans and advances for successive
renewals of the Charter, which, in consequence,
is now continued, subject to a year's notice,
after the Ist of August, 1833. This last renewal
was made in 1800, in consideration of a further
increase of the National Debt, in an advance by
the Bank to the public of three millions for six
years wHiout interest ! At this moment, and
which most unfortunately involves the fair con-
sideration of the monopoly, the public are deeply
in debt to the Bank of England, in a sum ex-
ceeding, we believe, seventeen millions sterling,
besides I. 0. U.'s in floating debt, Exchequer
hills, and dead-weight. Such is the deplorable
situation of this mi,governed and Bank-robbed
country—such the fangs of the money-changers
fastened in the vitals of the people. And while
the doctrine of free trade is preached by every
enlightened man of the present day, we are for-
sooth to have a close monopoly of money ; and
a few irresponsible and self-elected Directors of an
embarassed public Bank juggling with all Govern-
ments—be they Tory or Whig—to be the sole and
uncontrolled creator of the currency of this nation,
and through England the regulators of a great
portion of the monetary transactions of the com-
mercial world ! The history of the Bank of
England is the record of one continued series of
embarassment and money-juggling, alternately
the slave and tyrant of the Government, its funds
have been ever improvidently lent; and a most
• injurious connexion has been maintained with
every Minister. Hence the Bank of England
has always lived in the breath of the nostrils of a
Cabinet ; and in every political crisis of the coun-
try must inevitably have shared the fate of the
patties and changes of Government. In 1745
the Old Lady received a severe shock when the
Highlanders and Pretender arrived at Derby;
in 1780, 1792, and 1793, she was subjected to
alternate "hot and cold fits." In 1797 the
firm of the Bank of England ought to have been
" W. Pitt and Company." German loans ;
foreign bills drawn by British agents abroad on
the Treasury ; unwilling advances to the Govern-
ment,,,
gave the Old Lady a " sweating sickness.
Her final stoppage in that year, and her long subse-
quent disgraceful situation ; the alternate robberies
perpetrated through her agency on the creditor
and debtor interests of the country ; the tremen-
dous consequences of returning to cash payments
without any alteration of the standard ; the pre-
- sent absurd and artificial existing Legislation on
Small Note Currency ; the prostration of all
branches of industry ; the existing Bank Mono-
poly, and the artificial restrictions on the inte-
rest of money and on barter, are too well known
unhappily, too acutely felt in every corner of
the empire—to require any present illustration.
Any of our readers who may desire to under-
stand the grave importance of this vital subject,
need only read Mr. Cobbett's " Paper against
Gold," the pamphlets on the Bank of England
by Mr. M'Culloch and Mr. Wells, and a re-
cently-published " View of the Banking Ques-
tion, resulting from practice and experience, at-
tributed to Mr. Henry Burgess—than whom no
man is more thoroughly conversant with the
credit and general monetary transactions of both
England and Scotland. Now, we ask, is this
grave matter of inquiry and vital legislation to
be smothered, and prematurely closed, when the
errors of a century of misgovernment have to be
detected, exposed, and remedied ? Have the
public no right to the fullest knowledge of this
labyrinth of monetary chicanery ? Is the circulat-
ing medium ofthe country again to be farmed out to
a few metropolitan capitalists ?Are we to he again al-
ternately subject to unexpected issues of paper, and
the most destructive and unforeseen contractions of
the circulation ? Are the past frauds to receive no
remedy ? Is inquiry to be stifled, and are we
gravely to be told that the currency has had no-
thing to do with fall of prices—no agency in the
suffering state of labour? Are we to be told
again that the currency is in " a most healthy
state ;" that the existing Legislation is " a final
measure ?" With a full knowledge of the jug-
glery always at work between the Government
and the Bank Directors—that the Bank of Eng-
land has been the great architect of the Na-
tional Debt—that her secret and mysterious loans
to British Cabinets have rendered abortive and
ludicrous the great representative right of the
Commons to grant or withhold supplies—can
Lord Althorp, a sensible and honest man, satisfy
his conscience that a close room and hurried in-
vestigationlen
gthened renewal oeofn,,,tdihuielcitleo7
Bank Charter ? We
of the Bank affairs can justify any
feet confidentinquiry,
p et hr
layt
must
s tc a nnneocte. s s
aTr
ye
last several months. It is the fitting subject of
a thorough examination, and the gravest legisla-
tion by a Reformed House of Commons. The
investigation involves a thorough sifting into the
Debt--into Taxation—the Circulating Medium
—the practical knowledge and theoretical opi-
nions of Country Bankers and Economists ;
the subject cannot now be " settled."
A long renewal of the Charter—nay, a
renewal exceeding two years, would not
be recognised nor respected
by a Re-
formed Parliament. It would be equally im-
politic and futile in the Bank Directors to re-
quire, or in the Government to concede, any—
thing more than a temporary renewal of this un-
popular and fatal monopoly. The Government

may rely upon it that the mercantile classes of
the metropolis and the country are viewing the
determination of the Commons' Committee with
intense and jealous interest. The public will
have a balance-sheet, a good accountant's re-
port of the state of the debts and credits of the
Bank ; a reformed Parliament will dissolve the
partnership between the Bank Directors and
Cabinet Ministers ; this great " mystery of in-
iquity" must be unveiled. We shall return to
the subject in a day or two; in the mean while,
it is curious to observe how consistent the con-
duct of Ministers, Bank Directors, and capital-
ists, has been for a century past, in relation to
the Bank monopoly. In an old quarto tract,
by John Holland, of the date of 1715, entitled,
The Directors of theßank of England enemies
to the great interests of the Kingdom, we find
the following apposite sentence—" As it is now-
a-days the interest of so many men, and among
them a great number who are exceedingly rich,
that the nation shall remain under a great debt—
as these gentlemen have visibly increased in
their number and substance every year, and are
become (who is not witness of it ?) very formi-
dable in their power and influence, there want
only that several of the Ministry be brought into
the same interest,—that is, to find their best
account to arise from the funds—and then we
are an undone nation ; for these joining together
will be able to change the very Constitution, de-
stroy the Monarchy and Parliament, and come
into their places themselves under what form of
Government they shall think fit. God forbid
that any of the Ministry should come into their
measures—they have hitherto mistaken those
gentlemen's interest ; they are not aware that they
desire nothing less than paving off' the debts of
the nation !—a principle sufficient to denominate
any man to he no friend, but an enemy, to his
country." We will only say that we think the
stability of the form of Government and security
of property far more deeply involved in the de-
termination of the Bank Committee than in the
mad selfishness of the Tories or the designs of
St. Simonian Republicans. Money is the organ
of respiration in a nation.—Morning Chron.

COURT OF CHANCERY, JUNE 16.

IN RE I3AGSTER.

The LORD CRANCELLOR, after having deliberated
on this matter, had come to the determination that
a commission of lunacy should issue from this Court.
He had paused, because he was desirous of avoid-
ing the trial of the inquisition, if it was probable
that another similar inquiry might take place before
another tribunal; but as he found that it was not
likely that the trial of the traverse, if it should come
to trial at all, which was not indisputably certain,
could come on for some months, and as in that form
of proceeding the unfortunate individual who was
the subject of it would not be produced before the
Jury, he had c ime to the conclusion that the peti-
tion for a commission ought to be granted. He
thought also that it would be less prejudical to Mr.
Newton, the alleged husband, because many of the
circumstances which must form part of the case in
the Court of Common Law, and to which it was
not necessary to allude more particularly, would not
be brought forward before the Commissioners.

An application was made to the Court for leave
to Mr. Newton to appear on the commission, and
for medical men to visit the lady; which was granted
with')ut prejudice to the question of costs.
His LORDSHIP had been referred to a case " In
re Chapman," which appeared in its circumstances
to be very like the present, and which, as the last
precedent, he thought it would be well to follow.

COURT OF KING'S BENCE!, JUNE 16.

THE KING V. TIIE JUSTCES OF SALOP.

Lord TENTERDEN delivered the judgment of the
Court in this case, which was argued yesterday. It
was an application for a mandamus to the Justices
of Salop, commanding them to appoint overseers for
the township of Oldborough, which was one of the
townships in the parish of Hales Owen, and was
situate partly in Salop, and partly in Worcestershire.
There was only one church and one set of church-
wardens. In that part of Hales Owen which was
in Salop there were 13 townships, and for that part
there were four overseers appointed. The whole
13 townships were considered as divided into four
quarters, and it had been usual to appoint for over-
seers a person resident in each of these quarters.
For a considerable number of years, that part of the
township of Oldborough which lay in Salop had
been subject to one overseer, but in the other part
there had been always a separate overseer.--Rule
absolute.