The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-09 00:00:00

OF SEAMEN.

" We, the undersigned members of the Royal
Naval Reserve at Hartlepool, now in port, in our
own names and on behalf of our brother volun-
teers who are from home at present, request that
you will express to her Majesty's Government
that we feel indignant at the gross insult to the
British flag by the recent outrage on board the
Trent, by the United States war vessel San Jacinto.
Should her Majesty's Government require our ser-
vices, to demand satisfaction, her Majesty may rely
upon a hearty response from the Royal Naval Vo-
lunteers of this port,
" Signed on behalf of the Royal Naval Reserve at
Hartlepool, by 82 members, being all then in port."

"Admiralty, Coastguard-office, 12, Spring-
gardens, S.W., Dec. 6.
" Sir,—With reference to the offer of the men of
the Royal Naval Reserve in the port of Hartlepool,
for service in the Royal Navy, forwarded by you on
the 4th inst., their lordships have expressed their
high satisfaction at the loyal and patriotic feeling
so readily manifested by the able seamen of the
Royal Naval Reserve.
" Their lordships rely with the most entire cons
fidence that the hearty services of the Royal Naval
Reserve will be forthcoming should her gracious
Majesty see fit by royal proclamation to call for
them.
" I have much pleasure in conveying the above to
the Reserve men of Hartlepool, having witnessed
the zeal and :promptitude with which these me
enrolled in the Reserve from the date of its earliest
formation, and the ability they displayed in their
great gun exercise at my last inspection.—l am
sir, your most obedient servant,
" H. R. YELVERTON, Commodore
Controller-General.
"J. H. Brown, Esq., Registrar-Gen. of Seamen."

THE SUN.

LONDON, MONDAY, DEC. 9, 1861.

The American Press is most unfortunate in
changing its tone. We all remember that when
Mr. DISRAELI had declared the last Reform Bill
to be not worth opposing, and it seemed likely
to walk the course in the Commons, Mr. GLAD-
sTONE significantly told the House that ho had
done what he could in abolishing indirect taxa-
tion, and that next year the representation would
be in the hands of those who would certainly
incline to placing taxes on property rather than
on articles of consumption. Such, at least, was
the drift of his half triumphant remarks. What
followed we know. Those who had something
to save, from a fifteen or twenty por cent. income-
tax, took the alarm, and the bill which Mr. GLAD-
STONE and Mr. BRIGHT might have worked for
that purpose never even reached a third reading.
The American press is imitating Mr. GLADSTONE.
It has found but that the North cannot well fight
England just now. It is busying itself therefore
in finding out honourable and advantageous rea-
sons for giving up the prisoners ; but, as if to
show that whatever the pretexts it yields to neces-
sity alone, it intimates that when the war with
the South is over, it can fight it out with us at
leisure. In other words it says to England, Stop
till we are stronger, for we mean to have war
with you sooner or later. Thus the New York
Tribune wishes the timorous in Great Britaia to
be assured that " Great Britain not only has no
direct pretext for fastening a quarrel upon us,
but that President LINCOLN will take good care
that she shall not get one—at least till we shall
have settled our little account with JEFF. and
COMPANY." We fear there is much of this cun-
ning bitterness towards England in America, and
it is too obvious not to invite us to treat Americans
rather according to their meaning than their acts.
One thing is now certain from the last mails—
those of the 26th from Newlork by the Niagara--
the four prisoners had not then been delivered up.
The LINCOLN Government has thus lost the only
opportunity it had of doing the thing nobly, and-
in a really peacemaking spirit. They seem as e,
Government Incapable of foresight and of large..
hearted acts. All through their dealing with the
South, circumstances have "led them by the nose;"
never once have they taken a bold and independent
step as a Government. In the present case they
had a splendid opportunity of making friends
of England by the wrongful act of their own
officer. He has relieved them of responsibility
by declaring that he • acted on his own judg-
ment only. Hence, they were free to disavow
the act. Next, as they got no despatches, the per- A
sons of the prisoners were of little worth to the
Government—JEFF. DAVIS, no doubt, has " within
his realm ten thousand good as they." Yet, thus
free to act, and with nothing to gain by retaining
the men, the Government had, up to the time of the
departure of the mails, madQ no communication to
lota, taws
$ who, up to that time, had Ile

" official " knowledge of their capture! How differ-
ent must the effect have been here, and all over the
civilized world, had the news been, that as soon as
their law officers could give an opinion, the Govern-
ment had placed the men, with an apology for the
violation of law, in the hands of Lord LYONS.
The wrongful act, would have then become a right-
ful ground of commendation. Repairing the
wrong nobly would have done the Government
far more good than its disavowed commission could
have done them harm. It would partly have re-
deemed them from that contempt into which they
have justly fallen by their swaggering and ill-bred
diplomacy. We should have felt that America was
beginning to respect herself, and we should pro-
portionably have respected her.
On Thursday, probably, the PRESIDENT will re-
ceive our communication. Any time previous to
its reception would be better than any time
after, for the necessary surrender, though none
could equal the first few days for that purpose.
We do not expect that the LINCOLN Government
will do anything so dignified and conciliatory.
We should not be surprised at a good deal of
lawyer-like nonsense being the first reply we shall
receive. We trust, however, that if it be, Lord
LYONS will be its bearer, as even the Americans
themselves are beginning to perceive that legally
they are in the wrong. One thing the last arrivals
show at least, that the hot haste to get into a war
with Great Britain is fast evaporating, and only
seeks excuses for surrendering the prisoners with-
out humiliation.

It seems rather late in the day to give a resume
of the last Parliamentary session in December—
just in anticipation of Christmas. Yet this is really
what was done the other afternoon by Lord FER-
MOY in the exordium of his discursive address to his
Marylebone constituents. And it is a remarkable
fact that the character of that session, the further
we recede from it, appears to brighten under the
scrutiny of these retrospective analyses of it by our
popular representatives.

Hardly were the Lords and Commons dispersed
by the Royal Speech at the time of the prorogation
—but one after another member rose in this part
of the country and in that for no other purpose, it
seemed, than to turn the then recently concluded
legislative labours down at Westminster into ab-
solute ridicule. It was " incontinently" dubbed a
Do-Nothing Session. The Commons especially
were declared to have been more than ever
infected by that contagious Parliamentary
malady that may be most accurately designated,
perhaps, under the title of the cacoethes
loquendi. One industrious gentleman, in fact—[of
course, himself A Silent Member : just possibly the
vivacious contributor, under that nom de plume, to
the columns of our weekly contemporary, the Lon-
don .Review]—actually took the trouble to count
up the number of times such and such another mem-
ber had spoken during the course of the late sittings
of the Imperial Parliament. The statistics thus
accumulated—statistics very valuable in themselves,
and certainly to all appearance rather spiteful, as
it would seem, in their origin—served their purpose
so far for the time being, that they went the round
of the newspapers, making almost everyone laugh
" consumedly," if not with the true Homeric gusto
appertaining by right only to the truly witty or
the exquisitely humorous, that is to say, of course
(everyone knows the phrase who knows the
Iliad), " inextinguishably." Other rer:esenta-
tives, with the indigestion due to BELLAMY'S still
weighing heavily upon their spirits—causing them
to take a decidedly atrabilious view of political
affairs in general and of Parliamentary affairs in
particular—protested against the last dead and gone
session as about the most discreditably useless session
probably within the recollection of the Father of
either House of the Legislature. Gradually, how-
ever, as the autumn has ripened, and ripened until
its final decay into winter, the retrospect has tome
to be regarded less and less gloomily.
It was only the other day at Durham that the
right hon. gentleman the Leader of her Majesty's
Opposition, took occasion to vindicate in a really
signal manner the character of the British House
of Commons, in combining :the labours of pro-
longed and outspoken debate with those of earnest
and practical legislation. And now the noble lord
the member for the great metropolitan constituency
of Marylebone, has followed suit con amore, speak-
ing of the last,session, while so doing, more in de-
tail, and less in mere complementary generalities.
Lord FERMOY certainly goes far to justify
both his own remarks and those of Mr.
DISRAELI, as to the useful industry in the way of
, hard work as well as of pretty " talk, talking "
manifested during the session of 1861 by the much
vilified Commons House of Parliament. One after
another he adduced—in the acts passed during the
late Session—proof positive of all this. " First,"
said Lord FERMOY, " the country had obtained a
recognition of the fact that the privilege of imposing
and continuing taxes on the people belonged to the
people's house, and that the functions of the House
of Lords consisted in registering the decisions of
the House of Commons on financial matters.
Having in 1861 repealed the duty on paper they
had, as far as men could do, reasserted and re-
covered the rights which had been invaded in
1860." Again, "By the consolidation and amend-
ment of the criminal law a reform of the most useful
character had been effected," he argued, remarking
conclusively in evidence of this, " In some seven
bills more than 100 statutes had been repealed or
altered, and the criminal law of the country
had been placed upon a sounder and a better
footing." Then, observed Lord FERMOY, with
comprehensible exultation, " They could point to
the reform of the bankruptcy law, by which they
had practically abolished imprisonment for debt,
given to the creditors a speedy and cheap means of
obtaining possession of the debtor's property, and
abolished all distinctions between traders and non-
traders." Besides all which, " They (the two
Houses) had established cheap and safe savings
banks for the people, which would enable thrifty
working men to deposit their savings securely when
they were fortunate enough to have any. The Irre-
movable Poor Bill," he remarked, " was a step in
the right direction, reducing as it did the term
which gave the poor man a right to a settlement
from five years to three years." The Affirmation Bill
was then referred to—and after that the three Indian
Bills—and, after those, the act regulating the
voting at the University Election, " which," said
the noble lord, "he had been at first in-
clined to oppose, but afterwards supported, in
the belief, as Mr. HENLET declared, that it
would lead to vote by Ballot "
! Added to these
recollected doings of the late session, there flitted
pleasantly across Lord FERmov's remembrance the
ever memorable Commercial Treaty with France,
negotiated by our unadorned plenipotentiary. An
these being genuine Pleasures of Memory both to
Lord FERMOY and to the mass of his liberal and
sympathising
in constituents. Old though the story
hits become by this time it is still agreeable enough
to listen to, after all the senseless diatribes that have
been indulged in against the session of 1861, as a
mere blank in the way of practical legislation.
Granted (unhappily !) that it gave us not the
ary reform, it 'dill
Am4lleat modicum of parliAment

effected much that was useful, and for doing so—
organised—in its own way—a lasting title to
the grateful remembrance of the nation.

Lord CANNING will be remembered in India
when the mutiny and his share in suppressing it
are both forgotten. Victories, especially the vic-
tories of a kind of civil war, are known only to the
readers of history; but for hundreds of years at
least every freeholder, every proprietor of a
landed estate which he calls his own, will trace
up his title to an act of Lord CANNING'S. His
Land Code will be remembered when Delhi and
Lucknow will be forgotten. The year 1862 will
mark a new era in India. At this moment we
believe that there is not a freehold property in
India, but the two or three acres of land which the
Danish Government gave to the Serampore mission-
aries, when the Company refused them protection ;
which land the KING expressly stipulated, on the
cession of the island, should be their property for
ever. All the rest of India acknowledged the Com-
pany as its landlord, and now acknowledges the
Crown, while the Land-tax is the most trusted
source of revenue.

In the days of the Company the object was
double—to keep out interlopers, that is to dis-
courage European settlement, and to wring the
utmost possible amount of tax from the ryots,
villagers, or zemindars. The Civil Service could
not endure the pressure of outsiders, who
saw and could expose their incompetency)
and the extravagance of their incomes. They
had also a notion that to screw the utmost possible
out of land was the perfection of taxation. Even
after the Company passed away, the civil service
remained, with all its maxims, jealousy, and ob-
structiveness. It may be that Lord 'CANNING has
preferred the last year of his Viceroyalty for the
accomplishment of a measure, certainly not inferiar
in importance to the emancipation of the serfs in
Russia. He will at least escape the murmurs of the
Covenanted Civil Service.

Freehold will, before long, become probably the
customary tenure of land in India. All the waste
lands are to be at once offered at a few shillings per
acre, without reserve, and every facility provided
for their sale and purchase. A writer in the
Spectator, well acquainted with India, thus de-
scribes its waste lands :

"All over India the Government possesses vast tracts of
land which have never been peopled, or from which the
wave of population, the traces of which are still left, has
from some cause receded. All the mountains, to begin
with, belong to them, and the lakes, and the forests of
heavy timber. Almost all Assam, a province just twice
the size of England, nearly half Chittagong, a third of
Arracan, nine-tenths of Moulmein, nearly the whole of
Pegu, great part of Cachar, Sylhet, Tipperah, the slopes
of the Himalayas, which extend three thousand
miles in an unbroken circle, about a third of
Nagpore, all the Gond country and Bheel coun-
try, territories, in short, equal to kingdoms,
belong to them not only as rulers but as proprietors, and
are as yet without inhabitants. They have inherited not
only the general rights of the Mogul which gave them the
mountains and the rivers, but the estates of a hundred
princes, lands like the Nerbudda banks, with their quarries
of snow-white marble, and the Malabar forests, with their
million acres of teak. These districts are still unpo-
pulated, for the Hindoo will not, as a rule, break new
soil, and some of them are among the most culturable
in the East. Assam, for example, with its glorious
river, which for a thousand miles is broader, deeper,
and swifter than the Ganges, will grow tea from end
to end. So will the slopes of the Himalaya, the teas
of Kangra ancfbarjeeling being only kept out of the mar-
ket by the prices Indians are willing to give for a leaf
which surpasses that of Assam as much as the Assamese
surpasses that of Shanghai. The Chittagong hills, Cachar,
and Sylhet, suit the plant equally well, and the tea-growing
land may at this moment be estimated at an acreage which
we may best describe as equal to five Great Britains. The
hill-slopes of Southern India are the natural home of the
coffee-plant, while in the great desert province which
stretches from Calcutta to the sea, in Orissa, and on the
wilds of Nagpore, cotton grows to the perfection which Li-
verpool believes to belong only to Sou' hem America. There
is no deficiency of labour, for the native, who will not com-
mence the work, will and does follow the European, and
the wild tribes always ready to emigrate are willing to
labour for pay. They have no caste, and consequently do
not come into conflict with the European contempt for pre-
judices which interfere with work. Hitherto, in all these
great regions, no European could safely invest his capital.
He could never acquire a title."

To future ages it will seem incredible that a
country having such possessions should tolerate
" stupid old Indians," in retaining a governmental
proprietorship in the land which prevented its
colonisation by the capital and intelligence of its
population at home. India has abundant labour
and land on which to employ it—but it wants
the capital ;it wants the superintendence. We
had both to spare, their value was seen, but sheer
commercial selfishness and obstinacy would not
concede the reasonable terms essential to obtain
them. The districts asked for were the most
healthy for Europeans, they were uncultivated
by natives, yet the single concession could not be
obtained, that the land should become the pur-
chaser's own.

We may now hope that Manchester will do its
duty. It has been insisting of late, and not more
than it ought, on the question of land tenure—the
land is now open to it. And not only is the waste
land procurable on such excellent and easy terms,
but the land tax can also be redeemed, and the
estate converted into fee simple, all improvements
being for the benefit of those who make them. The
quantity of land which may be thus redeemed is
indeed limited at present, but that is merely for
trial of the experiment, and to prevent
any shock to public credit, in a ques-
tion of revenue. The revenue, however, is
most effectually protected. The land tax is re-
deemed at a price which pays as much of the in-
terest of the Indian debt as was paid by the taxes
on the land sold. A £lOO is received for the land,
and liability for the interest of £lOO Government
debt ceases therewith. So far as we can judge, all
the details of this double measure appear to be
framed at once in the spirit of liberality and caution,
and, we may add, of regard for native right. In
the redemption of the land-tax special care is taken
that none of the sub-rights should be in any way
infringed. The legacy which Lord CANNING
Will bequeath India in quitting it will be a very dif-
ferent one from that of the annexation of Oude by
his predecessor. Lord DALHOUSIE gave to India a
new province and a mutiny—Lord CANNING will
give her the emancipation of her land, and with it,
we doubt not, an increase of prosperity hitherto un-
rivalled.

The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland have
arrived at Lilleshall, Salop, from their estates in Scotland.
The duke was to go on Saturday to Trentham, to receive a
select circle of friends for partially clearing the game pre-
serves.

The Earl and Countess of Ellesmere have left
Bridgewater House for Barwood Park for the winter.

The Earl of Macclesfield and Viscount Parker,
who have been visiting the Duke and Duchess of Marl-
borough at Blenheim, returned to Sherborne Castle on
Friday last.

Lord Dufferin arrived in town on Friday from
visiting the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough at Blenheim
Palace, near Woodstock.
It is rumoured that her Majesty's Theatre will
positively open next season under the direction of M. Bagier,
of Madrid.
We regret to hear that Mr. Wigan is shortly to
secede from the management of the St. James's Theatre.
After Christmas his admirers will be deprived not only of his
chwatg ipplo9lool9P )?lit tbßso 9tlgif talcAtecl wile!