The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-16 00:00:00

situencies, with sufficient concert in the bodies re-'
turned to insure harmonious action. But the subject

is important, and we have already exceeded our
We shall have ample opportunities for returning to it
—availing ourselves, in the mean time, of the ideas
thrown out by, intelligent contemporaries.—Morning
Chronicle.

The good people of Scotland have at all times had
lie credit of being much more wary, worldly-4ise, and
,rudent than their brethren of the south. This qua-

lity they do not seem to have lost, and it extends, as
might be expected, to their renresentatiies in Parlia-
ment, of which we have recent proof in a fact we be-
lieve at present but little known—that while in Eng-
land the harsh laws authorising imprisonment for debt
remain in force in all their rigour and deformity, an
Act was passed during the late Session, and received
the Royal assent on the 9th inst., intituled, " An Act
for abolishing in Scotland (why in Scotland alone?)
imprisonment for debts of small amount." The pream-
ble to this Act—which is as remarkable for its bre-
vity as its humanity—states that the Law Commis-
sioners in Scotland " have made a Report, from which

it appears that great hardship is frequently suffered by
poor persons, in consequence of imprisonment for civil
debts to a small amount, without producing thereby any
adequate benefit to their creditors." It goes on to
enact " That from and after the Ist day of' January,
1836, it shall not be lawful to imprison any

person or persons on account of any civil 'debt which
shall not exceed the sum of 8/. 6s. Bd., exclusive o

interest and expense thereon." There are severa,
other useful clauses in the Act, especially one to prohibit
the buying up of small debts, so as to render the
debtor by their accumulation liable to imprisonment.
This then is now the law`of Scotland, of one part of
the United Kingdom—how united, while such dis-
crepancies take place in its Legislature, we are at a
loss to understand. In a running commentary upon
the preamble we have already asked the question
which we now repeat, " Why is this the law of Scot-
land alone ?" Why are English small debtors to con-
tinue to linger in prison, and suffer what this Act
justly describes to be " great hardship," while on
the other side of the Tweed such hardship has thus
ceased by law_ to exist ? Where were our English re-
presentatives—where the metropolitan and other bo-
rough Members—where our professing patriots and
spouters of humanity at Exeter Hall—when this hu-
mane law is allowed to pass for one part of the empire,
while the other is excluded from it? Where, may
we not ask, were the Noble persons who have during
the whole Session been paying such laborious atten-
tion to prison discipline, when they let pass this op-
portunity of doing for England what its representatives
have done for Scotland, and by so doing unload our
gaols, especially those of the metropolis, of a host of
their most pitiable inmates ? Can any of the persons
we have alluded to be ignorant of the number of per-
sons annually incarcerated for debts less than one-half,
nay, one quarter, of the minimum named in this Act ?
If they are, let them inquire in Whitecross-street, the
Borough Compter, or any of tbe many other recepta-
tacles of wretchedness, and they will there learn that
more persons are in one year imprisoned on judgments
from our Small Debt Courts alone than are incarce-
rated in all Scotland for debts of all amounts in five.
Have not, then, the people of England, we repeat,
ample reason to complain of the supineness of their
representatives, especially of those who, with huma-
nity and patriotism constantly on their lips, let pass
the best opportunities of reducing their professions to
practice ?—Morning Herald.
Those of our readers who have perused the Frank-
fort article copied into yesterday's Times may probably
remember the following passage :—" The principle of
closing the Dardanelles against foreign ships of war is
laid down in the treaty of Hoonkiar Iskelessy, without
making an exception in favour of any Power. Russia
has not stipulated any privilege in her own favour in
this respect." As the whole treaty, including its se-
cret article, has long been before the public, those
who have read it were already aware that it contains
no stipulation granting to Russian ships of war, ex-
clusively or otherwise, the privilege of admission into
the straits of the Bosphorus from the Black Sea, or
those of the Hellespont from the Dardanelles. It is
even notorious that the stipulation in former treaties
relative to the exclusion of Russian ships of war
has remained unrepealed to the present day.
But while Russia assumes credit, in the north of
Europe, for having suffered that stipulation to exist,
her acts in the East show that she does not intend it
shall hereafter stand in her way. On the 9th of last
month there arrived at Constantinople a Russian brig
of war, coming from the Archipelago ; and on the same
day there was a Russian corvette quietly moored in
the Bosphorus, facing Bujukdere. No firmans were
demanded for the admission of these two vessels, nor
did they stop to ask leave at the castles which defend
the two opposite straits through which they came.
Russia, therefore, thinks herself at liberty to violate
the treaties, or considers the " principle of closing the
Dardanelles "as not applicable to her. But she re-
quires a rigid application of it to every Foreign Power
besides herself. On a former occasion we stated that
no doubt could exist about the right of the Porte to
close the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus
to ships of war of all nations. A formal acknow-
ledgment of that right was embddied in our last
treaty with the Porte (1809) in the following words :
" As ships of war have at all times been prohi-
bited from entering the canal of Constantinople—
viz., the straits of the Dardanelles and the Black
Sca, and as the ancient regulation of the Otto-
man empire is in future to be observed by every
Power in time of peace, the Court of Great Bri-
tain promises on its part to conform to this princi-
ple." But although claimed in former times by
the Turkish Government, the right of exclusion had
never before been enforced against, nor respected by
foreign ships of war, many of which went up and down
quite unmolested, not excepting whole squadrons of
Russian ships of the line. At the negotiations which
led to the treaty of 1809, however, the Turkish Pleni-
potentiaries insisted upon the stipulation acknowledg-
ince the right in question, as a sane qua non for the
conclusion of peace. What had then made the Turks
so tenacious on the point eras the hostile visit they had
received two years before from the-squadron under the
command of Sir John Duckworth, whose sudden ap-
pearance before Constantinople showed how com-
pletely their capital was at the mercy of any naval
force which might come up so far with the intention of
dictating terms to its inhabitants. Three years after
a like stipulation was introduced in the treaty with the
Russians negotiated at Buchorest, and the exclusion, in
fact, of foreign ships of war became an universal rule
with the Porte. In our treaty with Turkey, however, it
is agreed that we shall be entitled to every right and pri-
vilege extended to the " most favoured" nations with
whom the Porte was, or might be, under any engagements
of commercial anzi Political intercourse. The nation "most
favoured " just now by the Porte is evidently the
Russian nation, for we'find that her two ships of war
have come up to Constantinople from the two straits in
opposite directions, and their right of doing so has not
been called in question. It appears, then, that the
passage of the Pluto Government steam-vessel need
not have been made matter of negotiation between the
Ambassador of the Porte, for she has acquired the
right of going through the Dardanelles and the Bos-
phorus. Will it be contended that the passage of the
two Russian ships of war last month was a violation
of the treaties, and therefore cannot be rude by us the
ground of any proceeding to the same effect ? If i bp,
nothing remains for us but to acknowledge that the
rights and privileges of Russians in Turkey are to ex-
tend to violations of their treaty, while we are bound
by puts in such a way as it may be most agreeable to
Russia that we should be. It may not be desirable
that we should require the free admission at all times
of any ships of war of uur gym within the Dardanelles
--but. if Russia do not herself gQllkirrp to the ff prip7
ciple' which the Frankfort writer professes On 116 1.)-
t-nlf. it becomes expedient th4t W obtain
e should the
1,„;•
ant% from that " priPcipi9" Kirgelm,
--Av_ router each 4 COW 44:

faculty of w...

whenever circumstances ...

visable.—Times.,
The appointment of a First Lord of the Admiralty
seems to be as difficult to Lord Melbourne as that of a
Lord Chancellor. It is a pity that the Noble Premier
cannot in the case of the Admiralty as in that of the
Great §.eal resort to the expedient of a Commission, in