The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-12 00:00:00

hPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We yesterday received the Paris Papers of
Monday, and the Messager des Chambres and
Gazette de France dated Tuesday. The French
Three per Cents. at the close of 'Monday were
upwards of three francs lower than at the close
of .Saturday. So great a fall has, naturally
enough, filled the minds of men with apprehen-
sion of war. This fall has, it is said, been
greatly increased by the absconding of M. Kees-
ner, Cashier of the Treasury, who is a great de-
faulter, and greatly in :arrear with Government.
It will be seen from an extract from the Journal
de la Hay e (the official paper of the King of
Holland), that he speaks confidently of his
means of reducing Belgium, and that he appeals
energetically to the Monarchs of Europe not to
interfere between him and the Belgians in this
affair. From the language of this article, it is
hardly possible to avoid believing that his
Majesty is well assured that Russia, Austria, and
Prussia will not interfere. In fact it is, we believe,
known that Russia several weeks ago succeeded
in gaining over Austria to her views. Though
an additional fifteen days have been demanded,
within which the final determination as to the
ratification of the treaty shall be given, we may
assume with tolerable confidence that it will not
be ratified. The French Papers, in arguing on
this subject, talk of pretended interests of Eng-
land in the conveyance of goods from Antwerp
into Germany. We are sure that no English
statesmen would allow any considerations of so
peddling a nature to influence them in a question
of so grave a nature as the peace or war of Eu-
rope. The refusal to ratify on the part of the
three Powers may displease the English Go-
vernment, but will only induce it to withdraw
from an interference which can no longer be at-
tended with beneficial results. Rash would the
statesmen be who should dare to commit their
country to a participation in general war for any
such affair as the settlement of Belgium. It is,
after all, by no means certain, that Holland, not-
withstanding the expenditure in preparations
for this war, will, with the assistance of the
Orange party in Belgium, succeed in con-
quering that country. The Belgians have had
also time to make preparations, and though
the Dutch might have some advantages at first,
yet, if they could only protract the warfare, the
Dutch army, like all other armies out of propor-
tion to the means for maintaining them, would
gradually dwindle away of itself. Even on the
supposition that the French do not interfere, it
does not follow that Belgium will be reduced by
the King of Holland. The question remains,
whether, shall Holland again invade Belgium,
France will again interfere ? We rather fear
That the French Government will not dare to
leave matters to the parties themselves, but will
feel obliged to repel the Dutch, and that this
will lead to an interference on the part of the
three Powers in support of Holland. This
prospect is, no doubt, the main cause of the de-
ciir e in the funds. But France has no claim on
us to abet her in any such contest. Our inter-
ference had for object the preservation of peace,
by such a display of unanimity on the part of
the great Powers as might deter the Dutch and
Belgians from entering on hostilities. But the
moment the differences among the Powers
render that object impossible, we are
hound to withdraw. What might have
been prudent as a member of a sort of united
European Amphyctionic Council, would be-
come folly when the union no longer exists.
France then must decide on peace or war with
the knowledge of the tremendous consequences
of the first movement. What these conse-
quences might exactly be, is a matter respecting
which it requires more knowledge of circum-
stances than we profess to be able to pronounce
with confidence. The French are a brave and
high-minded nation. We are satisfied too, that
the moment a foreigner attempted to tread the
soil of France, there would no longer be Carlists,
Republicans, or Juste Milieu men, but only
Frenchmen, determined to maintain the honour
of their country. 'We never saw a Frenchman,
however bigoted a Royalist he might be, who.
during the revolutionary war, could conceal his
joy at the victories of his countrymen on the
Rhine, the Danube, and the Po. Whether, how-
ever, they would have the same facilities now
tor penetrating Germany, and overrunning
Italy, is doubtful. The issue of the contest
must depend greatly on the feelings of the popu-
lation in general in Germany and Italy. As far as
preparation for hostilities is in question, the French
themselves admit that the military organization
a Prussia is greatly superior to their own ; and
of late the .Journals have been filled with essays
on the manner in which that organization could
be most judiciously introduced into France.—
But, on the other hand, the territory of Prussia
is of a form as disadvantageous for war as can
well he conceived. Her population is about
one-third of that of France, and her revenue
one-fifth ; but her long line of territory can easily
he cut, and a large portion of it separated from
the rest. Without the hearty concurrence of
several German States, it will be difficult for her
to defend several of her recent acquisitions.—
While England and France are agreed as to the
ratification of the treaty, there are other points
as to what differences have arisen. The Gazette
de France alludes to two fortresses in particular,
as the cause of the difference. AL de Talley-
rand, we understand, has frankly told Lord
Palmerston that his instructions on the point
were peremptory. Such is the troubled aspect of
affairs at the present moment.— _Vora. Citron.
Some of our alarmist contemporaries seem
resolved to have war at any price, and find an
indication of its speedy approach in the most
ordinary appearances of politics. Its coming
horrors, " casting their shadows before," darken
the Exchange at Paris, and " perplex" the job-
bers more than an unforetold eclipse. Monarchs,
Ministers, and Statesmen, stand aghast at the
consequences of their own doings, and couriers
fly about, like the heralds of old, to cast the
javelin of defiance on hostile territories. Mars,
with our astrological brethren, is blazing in the
ascendant, and by erecting the horoscope of Bel-
gium, they discover first, non-ratification of trea-
ties,—then the rupture of alliances,—then the
march of armies from the Niemen to the Rhine,
--then general war and confusion,—then the
defeat of the Reform Bill,--and lastly, the
restoration of a Tory Cabinet. It may appear
malicious to destroy at once such sweet illusions
.—illusions which of late have visited so rarely
the journalists of the rotten borough and Anti-
Reform faction ; but truth compels us to de-
molish the " baseless fabric" of their fond dreams.
As they ground all their hopes of confusion on
the non-ratification of the treaty of separation
between Holland and Belgium by the majority
of the Powers of the Conference, we have quietly
to assure them that their presumed fliends,
the Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of
Austria, and the king of Prussia, are neither
so faithless, nor so absurd, as to gratify them

by resisting an arrangement made by their Pie-
, nipotentiaries in their name and under their in-
structions. These Sovereigns hare, in fact,
consented to ratify the treaty of London, and
their delay in announcing their ratification pro-
ceeded from motives which the world ought ra-
ther candidly to appreciate, than precipitately to
censure. The Emperor Nicholas, it ought to
be recollected, is the brother-in law of the Prince
of Orange, whose future inheritance he thus
consents to dismember by the treaty of separa-
tion. It was therefore to be expected that he
would try every mode of soothing the Court of
the Hague, and of reconciling his relatives to
the change, before he formally put his hand to an
instrument which was for ever to detach the Bel-
gic provinces from their crown, on conditions
to which they objected. We have no doubt
that his good offices in this last respect will be
as successful as his assurances to his allies are
strong and unequivocal. The Emperor of Austria
and the King of Prussia, though greatly attached
to the excellent but obstinate Monarch of Hol
land, have not the same strong motives for de-
laying their ratification, and, accordingly, we
entertain no doubt of a speedy official announce-
ment of the fact. Let the funds, therefore, at
Paris fall five per cent. instead of three, and let
all the arts of jobbing be employed to extend
the same panic to London--the alarmists must
be content to postpone their war for some months
at least, and to fix upon the cholera, or Mr.
O'Connell,—upon a revolt in France, or a tithe
rebellion in Ireland,—as fitter instruments for
their purpose than the non-ratification of the
recent treaty.—Times.
From our city article it will be seen, for the
first time since Mr. Pitt commenced his sleight
of hand performances on the finance of this
country, an excess of the public expenditure
over the revenue has been declared officially by
Government. The quantum of excess is, to be
sure, but little—not quite amounting to 21,000/.
'Or the year ending the 10th of last October.
Still, there is an end of the sinking fund—an
acknowledged end. Whereas, in Mr. Pitt's
time, and indeed until within a very few years,
the sinking fund—that is, any real sinking fund
—never had a beginning. Does the truth
confound us ? It certainly ought not ; nor is it
half so mortifying as the consciousness of having
been for five or six and twenty years made the
dupes of one unvarying juggle, by which the
same Mr. Pitt and his Tory successors never
railed to delude the people of England
with assurances that they were annually
paying off debt, while in sober earnest,
they were spending from 10,000,0001. to
20,000,0001. more than all the taxes that could
by art or force be wrung from the nation had
amounted to, and while the only payment of
debt that was exhibited was a transfer from the
hand of the tax-gatherers to that of another set
of placemen called commissioners, who between
them managed to cost the country through this
grave ceremonial of shuffling the cards, an addi-
tional sum of certain millions of money beyond
what it would have been charged with, had no
such apparatus as that attending Mr. Pitt's
war-sinking-fund ever been contrived. Had
that venerable practitioner, who once bore the
name of Vansittart, been now in the office which
Lord Althorp has, for the first time, divested
of all chicanery, he would have raised such a
confounded fog of figures before our eyes, that
even Messrs. Tierney and Hume might have
been puzzled to put their finger on the exact
spot which contained the pith of the fallacy.
Those days are fled. The fact, a dreary one,
stands confessed, that the Government, which
receives the taxes, finds them insufficient for its
wants ; whereas the nation, which pays them,
finds their pressure too burthensome for its re-
sources, and that instead of debt being liquidated,
further debt is incurred ; whilst no prospect of.
an increase of means, save only through increased
parsimony, presents itself to Ministers or people.
Under these circumstances, one consolation re-
mains. The disposition to war will be dimini.hed,
and England must seriously apply herself to cul-
tivate the nobler arts of peace. One reason
amongst many which would justify a strong sen-
timent of regret in the breast of enlightened Eng-
lishmen at a breaking down of M. Perier's
Administration, is the abandonment, or at least
suspension, which must follow such a catas-
trophe, of the prospects which have been some
time entertained, that a treaty of commerce might
soon be negotiated between these two countries, on
terms of solid benefit to their mutual interests,
and of high satisfaction to the feelings of all
honest and intellectual men in both. Nti'''e recol-
lect that so long ago as the 16th of December,
an article appeared in the Messager des ("hom-
bres, wherein the errors of the exclusive or pro-
hibitory policy, for ages cherished by European
States, and conspicuously by England, under
the false title of the mercantile system, and clung
to pertinaciously by the French Goverment ever
since the restoration, were admitted with great
frankness and good temper, and the superior ad-
vantages of the "reciprocity" system ably pointed
out, and clearly and familiarly illustrated. It was
well recommended by the enlighted Journalists,
and the suggestions of the article bore something
of an official flavour, that nations in their
dealings should follow the example of in-
dividuals, and purchase their goods at the best
and cheapest shops, The well-known parallel
of Adam Smith, between a nation of producers
aiming at a rivalship with one of established
and skilful manufactures, and the supposed
case of Scotland raising grapes in hot-houses, to
supply herself with sour wine, at 30 times the
cost of the finest burgundy or claret, was appo-
sitely quoted by the writer in the Messager des
Chambres, who seemed, however, satisfied with
feeling his ground, until the preliminary nego-
tiations between the two Governments, which
were understood to have been commenced by
persons high in office here, and have since, it is
said, been continued by one or more gentlemen
belonging to the department of the Customs,
should have been brought to something like ma-
turity. 'We hope that object, so precious to all
who are engaged in the pursuits of industry on
both sides of the channel, may not be wholly
lost sight of, but that the French people, gene-
rally far behind in matters of useful information,
the class from which Ministers are likely to be
taken, may have the comforts and advantages of
a free commercial intercourse with England
brought frequently before them by influential
writers, and thus an additional bond of amity and
good fellowship be created between two races of
men, whose sufferings, mutually inflicted by their
senseless wars, have done more to impede the
general course .of human happiness than any
other events on record.—Times.

It appears, by the last arrivals from Ireland,
that the summons issued by Mr• O'Connell,
commanding the attendance l‘f the Members of
both Houses of Parliament on the 27th ult., in
Dublin, to meet for the despatch of agitation,
has proved a complete failure. Only seven Com..

inners made their appearance, Mr. O'Connell
himself and his son, Air. Maurice O'Connell,
being two of the seven. No Peer was present,
but various letters were received accounting for
the absence of the different parties, almost all of
them demurring to the authority by which they
were attempted to be convened. Some three or
four, indeed, assigned private reasons, such as
illness and domestic affliction, and these avowed
their allegiance to the summoning power ; but,
in general, the refusal was upon principle, and
that principle was, resistance to the right assumed
by an unrecognised body, or rather by a self-
elected Dictator, unknown to the Constitution
and the laws. It is difficult to conceive how
Vr. O'Connell, to whom it would be as absurd to
deny the possession of great talents as of great
experience, could have rushed headlong into an
experiment so likely to fail him. Was it that he fore-
saw the failure, and was willing to encounter
it, as a means of fixing the attention and confi-
dence of his own party more exclusively on him-
self and the few who are willing to go all lengths
with him in the course he meditates with respect
to Ireland ? If so, he has certainly obtained the
failure ; but whether he will obtain the end is a
question not quite so clear. He may, and pro-
bably he will, denounce those who absented
themselves upon principle as enemies to Ireland;
but the charge will include men of almost every
shade of political sentiment ; and then will come
this extraordinary issue to be tried, whether the
Irish Members, as a body, acting almost unani-
mously in support of a constitutional resistance to
usurpation, can maintaiq themselves upon Irish
ground against one man, that man being Mr.
O'Connell ? If these Members should lose the
confidence of the country in consequence of the
step they have taken on the occasion to which we
allude, adieu to all independence from that part
of the United Kingdom. The politics of Ireland
will sink into a mere personal contest, and the
people will occupy a place in the scale of intellect
and civilization at which none but their enemies
could rejoice. But the thing is almost impossible,
whatever Mr. O'Connell's motive was, or however
he might have calculated as to the result;—the
people will see and feel that those who have served
them, and are prepared to serve them again, in
Parliament, the proper sphere of their duties,
have violated no claim to the confidence of their
constituents, by resolving to fight their battle on a
proper arena, without passing in review and going
through the manoeuvres before a commander
whom they were not bound to obey. We, there-
fore, incline to think that, in this instance, Mr.
O'Connell reckoned without his host, and spe-
culated on a result the very reverse of what has
happened. That it will not serve him even with
his own party, who look up to him as infallible
to be thus frustrated in the exercise of power,
seems to be the natural inference. That he will
attempt to shift the blame from his own shoul-
ders upon the shoulders of those by whom lie
has been disappointed, we may reasonably expect ;
but what will he do with his Parliament ? Seven
makes a quorum it is true, but they can hardly
represent those who refuse to associate with them
in council, though they were all Greeks to a man,
and equal in wisdom as in number to the cele-
brated junta of former days.—Morning Herald.