The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-09 00:00:00

C 1
terms, or anase of our opponents? The country
replied—yours. It seems, therefore, but fair to
support them, if they give the country what the
country accepted by the majority it gave them.
It cannot be denied that this reasoning is plausi-
ble. To a considerable extent it is just; The coun-
try could have deinanded more at the election, and
if it has not done so, it seems unfair to ask more
than was offered and accepted. So reasoned Mr.
BRIGHT, and so apparently the meeting generally
reasoned with him. The resolutions, however, went
much further. They fully maintained the old prin-
ciples of the society, and affirmed that any of these
half-hearted compromises could never be regarded
as a settlement by the country. In a great part of
the speaking it was also strenuously asserted that
the Ballot was an essential of any Reform Bill worth
having, and that suffrage extension without it was
but extension of temptations to corruption, and of
electoral bondage rather than of electoral freedom.
What we gathered from the meeting was, that those
most likely to know the counsels of Government ex-
pected no more than the extension of suffrage above
mentioned—that they thought such an extension
would give them a better footing for the advocacy
of the Ballot and other reforms; that Ministers
must be Confessed to be honest if they per-
formed what they had promised ; and, that if they
did so, all Liberals ought to give their support to
the confessedly very defective Reform Bill, regard-
ing it as the instrument of obtaining something
better. As we have decidedly advocated not ac-
cepting less than this at the hands of Lord DERBY,
although we certainly think Whigs ought to do
much more, we shall not be amongst the opponents
of any instalment of Reform.
But we have, nevertheless, reason for heavy com-
plaint. For £2 we shall have turned out a Govern-
ment which would have carried its bill through the
House of Lords. The Tories, when pronounced
unworthy of confidence, offered us an £B-franchise
in boroughs ; Lord JOHN and the Whigs say £6.
Very likely the Tories—Mr. HENLEY and Mr. WAL-
POLE almost certainly—would have accepted the £6
too. At best, however, we have changed a Govern-
ment, with so many advantages for carrying a bill,
for one at the mercy of the Lords, for £2 per vote.
Was this worth while ? But the meeting at the
Whittington Club was the supplement of the day's
work. That meeting declared plainly and broadly
that the Whigs were bound to give us something
for which it was worth while to change Admini-
strations. The Whigs, it was justly held, were
bound to do something better than make a higgling
advance of 403. on a Tory offer, to which advance
Tories were probably willing enough to come up—
and what should that advance be ? What, when
three-fourths, or two-thirds at least, of the Liberal
party are pledged to the Ballot ? What, when the
want of the Ballot has deprived the counties ;of
their liberal element almost entirely, and converted
our yeomanry into political serfs of the landlords ?
There was not, nor could there be, more than one
answer to that question. The Ballot is the grand
point with every sincere Reformer. And Colonel
THOMPSON, in a speech worthy of his best days, and
Mr. WHITEHURST, and Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON, in
eloquent and earnest speeches, demanded from the
Whigs this first element of electoral independence.
The Whig leaders, we think, are wrong, politi-
cally as well as morally wrong. They must rule
by the help of the Tories, or by the strength of the
people. They are now seeking to maintain their posi-
tion by the aid of both Whig and Tory combinations.
We•hope they will find themselves mistaken. We
should like a Reform Bill this year, but we should
much better like to see a liberal Ministry which re-
fused the Ballot kicked ont of office. They would richly
deserve it. Wakefield, Gloucester, Norwich, are sam-
ples of some hundred more boroughs like them,
which, though not indicted, imperatively demand
the Ballot. The political Zahara of the coun•
ties imperatively demands it, to call forth some-
thing like life—where the Ballot would be like
an irrigation of liberty on arid plains ; and the
majority of Liberal representatives in Parlia-
ment equally demand it. The Corrupt Practices
Prevention Act—declared by Sir A. HATTER him-
self to be a dead letter, expires this year, and if
the Ballot be not offered in its place, we heartily
wish the Whig Ministry an ignominious exit from
office: We are therefore pleased to see that the
Ballot Society, having laboured long and actively
in the country towns, has resolved to open a cam-
paign of public meetings in the metropolis. We
have, it is true, but one anti-Ballot member, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL; but we ought to give our moral
support to the most important of all reforms, and
we ought especially to make the City too hot for
Lord JOHN RUSSELL if he persevere in refusing the
universal demand for the Ballot.

LAT

be a fair specimen enough of the bluff countenance
of a freeborn Englishman. His nationality
looks forth even in the luxuriance of his

whiskers. It is JOHN BULL as much as
it is Joni BRIGHT you have before you—

only it is JOHN BOLL without his top-boots
and his cord hunting-breeches, JOHN BULL in
seemly broadclpth. Every sentence almost, when
Mr. BRIGHT has fairly warmed to his argument,

" tells" with the ring of a sledge-hammer. We
have heard him speak in the House of Commons,
when, for nearly an hour at a time, his every

successive sentence has been followed by a cheer !
Those cheers resounding now from one side, now
from another—now from the Opposition, now

from the Government—now from both sides toge-

hcr. Without being the scholarly rhetorician that

Mr. GLADSTONE is, or a consummate master of
all the arts of debate like Mr. DISRAELI, or an

ornate and accomplished elocutionist like Sir

BULIVER. LYTTON—Mr. BRIGHT is beyond al

manner of question the most effective and
telling speaker within the walls 'of Parlia-
ment. k During the time that ho is speak-
ing —then and there —he is perfectly
triumphant. It is only afterwards, upon calm
consideration, that you begin to see distinctly the
perversity of his logic and the shallowness of his
arguments. _ _ _

A considerable modicum of both, of the shallow-
ness and the perversity, was laid bare in these
columns only yesterday. It was not only that we
ourselves last evening scrutinised the last dis=
play made by Mr. BRIGHT as a reasoner—
our allusion has reference rather at this mo-
ment to the keen and searching analysis of Mr.
JOHN BRIGHT'S latest financial fallacies by Mr.
ERNEST JONES, the Chartist. You may observe
the drift and purpose of Mr. ERNEST JONES'S very
earnest reasoning—as opposed to Mr. BRIGHT'S
recent arguments in regard to taxation—at
the very outset. " The Manchester school," says
the Chartist leader, " has issued a financial
programme in favour of direct taxation, much of
it, like the corn-law repeal agitation, very good
as far as it goes, but practically merely a decoy to
draw the people off the right political scent. For
this purpose the financialist speeches are highly
spiced with political allusions. We are told that we
have a class Pailiament, that the rich impose
taxes to suit themselves, and spend them to sub-
serve their own interests. All very true. But if
the assertion proves anything, it is manifestly the
necessity of an altercation in the electoral law, and
that a financial roform agitation before a suffrage
agitation is simply putting the cart before the
horse." Now there is nothing spurious in this mode
of putting the matter plainly before the public. It
is a common-sense view of what may be called Mr.
BRIGHT'S initial fallacy in respect to taxation and
reform separately considered. " But we will sup-
pose," continues Mr. ERNEST JONES, "that
by getting up a great agitation under false
pretences Messrs. BRIGHT and COBDEN could
force from the Government a reform in the
system of taxation, of what benefit do the
working classes suppose this would be to them ? I
repeat that the result could be obtained only by
holding out false hopes to the people—hopes of
plenty of work, high wages, and cheap food.
Would these, I ask, flow from direct taxation, or
even from Government ? Nothing of the kind, un-
less other and most radical reforms accompanied the
financial change. Labour, like everything else in
this country, up to the very soul of man (as witness
the sale of livings and patronage), is an article 01
barter. If taxation decreases in amount, prices
fall in amount; and if prices fall in amount, wages
do not remain stationary—they fall in proportion.
Invariable experience has proved this. Nay, the
presumption from such experience is, that they fall
disproportionately. Of what avail to the working
classes is, then, low taxation and cheap Govern-
ment, unless the demand for labour bo increased,
or the supply of labour diminished ? Not the
slightest." Now, all these—while they may be
sneered at as the words of a Chartist Leader—arc
(nevertheless, at the same time also, as surely and
certainly) the words of common sense. It is the
same throughout the whole of Mr. ERNEST JONES'S
communication. To the which communication we
would particularly commend the calm and serious
scrutiny of both the electoral and non-electoral part
of the community.

The two meetings which were held in the metro-
polis on Wednesday cannot be considered in any
sense as antagonistic, but there was a weighty dif-

ference between them. That of the morning was ,
for the middle class leaders of the people, that in :
the evening for the people. Both were, we believe, I
honestly and earnestly in favour of obtaining all
they possibly could for the people, but the gentle-
men who met in the Guildhall at one o'clock, con-
vened by circular, laid chief stress on an Extension
of the Franchise ; the people who met at half-past
seven at the Whittington Club demanded as the
primary necessity, the Ballot. We watched care-
fully the spirit of both, and we are bound to con-
fess that with the spirit of both, so far as related to
their ultimate objects, we could heartily sym-
pathise. But in regard to immediate objects
there was the weighty difference that the first
was chiefly occupied with the question, What
can we fairly expect from the present Govern-
ment ? the second with the question, What is
the first thing we ought to insist on with any
Government ? The first dissussions„ therefore,
were tinged throughout with the lights and shades
of Cabinet and party difficulties. The latter ones
were conducted in the daylight of a good cause, un-
modified by petty and party considerations. It is
almost needless to add that the straightforward-
ness and simplicity of the evening work made it in-
finitely the more pleasant.
In the morning there were staunch advocates of
manhood suffrage present, among them Lord TETN-
HAM, who, by a very happy illustration, showed
that the money qualifications proposed might
even involve the absurdity of a man losing
his vote because his intelligence was the
very reason for his being summoned from
the town to the country, it being his qualification
for work to which our rustics are not as yet equal.
The speech of that meeting was, of course, Mr.
BRIGHT'S. He has already advocated what we may
consider a household suffrage for boroughs, between
which and manhood suffrage there is no serious
practical difference. To this he still adhered. Bat
the question of the moment is, How shall such a bill
as the Government will introduce be dealt with ?
-What, therefore, may we fairly ask of the Govern-
ment according to their own professions ? Mr.
Bnicarr answers the question thus. When Parlia-
ment
was on the eve of dissolution, Lord JOIN, to
whom chiefly is intrusted the charge of the Govern-
ment Bill, offered the disfranchisement, partial or
.11 entire, of about thirty boroughs, with a £6 franchise
for the boroughs, and a £lO franchise for the cowl-
; ties. Those were, therefore, their offers to the coun-
try, With these offers before it, the country gave
them a majority sufficient to displace the existing
Ministry ; and if they do not retreat at all from
these offers, they must be held, constitutionally, to
have acted honestly, and so far to deserve support.
They asked the country—will you accept these,

SUN, ' J,ONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 9, 1859.

ST NEWS.

The following telegrams have been received at
Mr. Reuter's office :

PARIS, DEC. 9.

The ltioniteur of this morning publishes the
usual monthly return of the Bank of France,
which shows the following results as compared
with the previous return :

but the necessity for special trains for the purpOSe
of transit is lessened, thus diminishing a source of

possible danger which, upon a single line of railway
more especially, is always more or less to be appre-
hended. Those among your readers who are per-

sonally interested in the Egyptian transit will also,

doubtless, learn with satisfaction that for the future,
none but European drivers are to be employed upon
the trains conveying passengers through the

country.
I am informed that the Peninsular Company have
taken the opportunity to urge upon the Viceroy the
expediency of converting the present single line into
a double one ; but financial difficulties are in the

way, and although the railway itself, from its pros-
perous condition, would enable the Government to
offer ample security for any advances that might be
required, such an arrangement is one which the
sensitive anxiety of foreign Governments for the
neutrality of the Egyptian Railway will hardly

permit.
This question of financial difficulties forms, in-
deed, a standing and growing evil, to which atten-
tion can hardly be too anxiously directed. The
annual revenue of the country, it is well known,

amounts to nearly £5,000,000 sterling, which, after
deduction of the light tribute of £280,000 payable
to the Porte, remains at the absolute disposal of the

Viceroy for defraying the charges of the Govern-
ment and for his own :personal expenses. And

yet, with this splendid income, not only is the
Treasury always empty, but the Government is
gradually plunging more and more deeply into
debt. According to the most moderate compu-
tations, about two millions sterling are due
to European merchants for supplies of different
kinds to the Government and to the Pasha's house-
hold. The greater portion of that debt is in the
form of bonds having three to 12 months to run,
and bearing interest at the rate of six per cent. per
annum. At the present moment they are negotiated
on the market at a discount of from 15 to 17 per cent.
per annum. Hitherto these bonds have been met with
regularity, and this, together with the knowledge of
the vast resources of the country, will render it pos-
sible for the amount to be largely increased. But

the weight is sufficient to be already sensibly felt by
all classes. A new tax upon the land has been pro-
posed, and I believe actually carried into effect,
which, although of itself sufficiently light, must
weigh considerably upon the agricultural popu-
lation of Lower Egypt, already suffering from the
failure of this year's grain crop: Throughout the
whole of Egypt, moreover, the imposition of a new
tax, and the well-known embarrassments of the
Government, are rousing the ever watchful and
suspicious fears of the population: The people are
more than ever afraid lest they should seem pos-
sessed of any superfluous wealth, and these fears,
to a far greater extent, no doubt than their actual
poverty, are manifesting themselves by a reduction
in the consumption of foreign goods, which is be-
coming more and more apparent to the European
merchants of Alexandria, who, notwithstanding an
immense diminution in imports, and in the face of
unusually small stocks in the hands of country
dealers, behold their warehouses encumbered with
goods, and sales reduced to an almost incredible
extent.
There is, perhaps, no man in Egypt who manifests
a more sincere desire for the promotion of the well-
being and prosperity of his subjects than the Viceroy,
and none among his countrymen will, in conversa-
tion generally, exhibit a truer and more intelligent
appreciation of its wants and of the true interests of
his people; but, unfortunately, in his acts he is mo!e
apt to follow out the designs of those by whom he
allows himself to be surrounded than the dictates
of his own good sense.
For some days past he has been much engaged at
Calm with festivities of welcome to his little son,
Toussoun Pasha, who has just returned from his
usual summer excursion to Europe. A banquet
was given to the chief functionaries of the Govern-
ment, which wound up with toasts and speeches in
Turkish, the whole conducted according to the most
approved models afforded by the great British in-
stitution of public dinners. Said Pasha delivered a
speech, in which he dwelt upon the progress made
by Egypt and the Ottoman Empire generally towards
the attainment of a standing among the civilised
nations of the earth, exhorted his hearers to further
the good work by every means in their power, yet
while doing so he gave way to certain feelings of
despondency; the glory of Islam throughout the
world, he said, seemed to be rapidly waning ; its
people, he feared, could never overtake the nations
of Europe, and far less keep pace with them in the
march of improvement. He concluded with ex-
pressions of the hope ho rested upon his son, in
whose honour the entertainment was given.
Little Toussoun Pasha is now about seven years
of age. He has acquired from his English nurse,
and through his frequent visits to England, a per-
fect knowledge of our language, which, indeed, he
speaks more fluently than his own mother tongue.
He has just now been placed under the charge of
an English tutor, and, provided only that he can
be kept sufficiently apart from the mischievous in-
fluence of the harem, there is fair prospect that ho
will grow up with enlightened and practical ideas,
the good effects of which may yet become widely
manifest, should he one day succeed to the inheri-
,anc:.‘ of his family.