The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-10 00:00:00

soon enforced with vigour, and the whole of the
Southern ports from Baltimore to New Orleans
will probably soon be effectually closed. The South
will therefore be soon driven in all probability to
commence a serious war by land, and as Kentucky
will not move either way, Virginia, and perhaps
Maryland are not unlikely to become the scene of
the first conflict. In Maryland the negroes are
comparatively few, and the Union feeling strong in
a great part of the country. It is through Mary-
land also that Washington must keep up its corn-
munications with the Free States. There are corn:
plete railway communications through Baltimore
with the North, but if that city will not let the
troops and supplies pass through, no alternative is
left but a land route to Pennsylvania, of at least
sixty miles, or the Potomac, if it canibe kept open,
and the sea. The Virginians seem now to be the
most dreaded. For the safety of the capital, they
must also be the first object of Northern attack, the
more Southern States must, of course, come to the
help of " the Old Dominion" when attacked by the
North, and hence we should not be surprised to
hear soon of fierce conflicts in Virginia.
It will be seen that agents from the South are in
all probability in England seeking privateers;
and doubtless Mr. MAGUIRE and Mr. BOWYER
Will tell us that they have as good a right to them
as GARIBALDI had to English volunteers ; and we
may add, as the POPE had to the heroes of Spoleto.
Happily, we cannot doubt that the whole country
will practically differ from the hon. members, who,
however, we may well hope, will agree with the
rest of the country, that no Englishman can take
a part in this war. He cannot join the Southerns,
and make a ;gain of fighting for slavery ; he can-
not join the North, which probably will not ask
him in a fratricidal war. No man could retain his
place in English society who could fit out a priva-
teer to plunder American vessels, whether of the
Northern or Southern confederacy.

Mr. COBDEN has, at length, turned his footsteps
in a homeward direction. He is reported to have
arrived in Paris from his recent sojourn in Algeria,
and to have alighted at Meurice's. How soon he
may be expected to appear in London we know not ;
but it is to be hoped that many more days will not
have elapsed before he takes his place once more
by the aide of his friend, Mr. BRIGHT, on the
second bench below the gangway on the Minis-
terial side of the Commons House of Parliament.
He is wanted there very urgently. The time has
just arrived si hen his reappearance in the Legisla-
ture would be regarded by all parties as singularly
opportune. For is it not borne only too vividly in
recollection that to Mr. COBDEN'S hard head was
entrusted the responsibility of negotiating that
soi-elisant Reciprocity Treaty between France and
England, one of the most remarkable results of
which we are but just now beginning to appre-
ciate. Everybody in the House of Commons
we believe to be, at this moment, more or less
desirous of hearing from Mr. COBDEN, viva voce,
some clear, distinct, categorical explanation as
to the meaning, as to the value, as to the origin
of those portions of the Commercial Treaty be-
tween France and England relating on the one hand
directly to Paper, and on the other hand directly to
Rags. Perhaps Mr. COBDEN, when he resumes his
place in the House of Commons, may be able to ex-
plain that matter to us now in someway satisfactorily.
Any more of those little generalised letters haughtily
"putting down" this and that objection, and at the
same time blowing the trumpet in favour of what
is nominally a Reciprocity Treaty, and doing so,
oddly enough, upon the plea that it is the latest
and the most signal evidence of the triumphant
extension of Free-trade Principles—any more of
those small epistles addressed by Mr. COBDEN every
now and then of late to " My Dear Sir," Some-
where—will fail to be accepted, as in any parti-
cular even, acceptable. The English people are
beginning at length to want, instead of these
almost pert generalities, something in the shape
of a candid and matter-of-fact explanation.
The impost upon Paper has at length been defini-
tively removed. The question was last night decided,
just for once and for all, between the Government
i and the Opposition. According to the numereJs upon
the division list, the dispute was put an end to by,
as nearly as might be, two to one—at acv rate,
while the proposed evasion of the matter was sup-
ported by 54, it was triumphantly scattered to the
winds by 100 ! The Chairman of the Comnkittee of
Ways and Means, it was decided, shou,l.d not
report progress at that particular stage of the
proceedings. The resolution, instead of that,
being put by him and agreed to by the
Committee. So that the question &Iv; been
again—(shall we say now positively for the last
time 9)—settled. It was decided, most people
' thought, several days back, when the great Party
Fight brought the Opposition to grief, a xid gave
the palm to her MAJESTY'S Government, by
fact of the famous clear majority of Seventeen.
But there is a scarcely calculable amount o!f vitality
in the Opposition to the paper duties; so that,
after all the heads of the hydra had be et a lopped
off, one after another—lo ! and behold there was
yet one more (a very small one—one in :no respect
by any means formidable), sprouting :forth last
evening from the yet almost raw and bh 'Ming, and
apparently fatal wound, inflicted by t. tic .t deadly
master-stroke of " Seventeen." However —as we
have remarked—the matter yesterday v Pas settled
for once in a manner the most off-hand,. summary,
and we will try to believe now, conclusi Qua.
Accepting the decision of last night as conclusive,
there still remains, however, after the Qmtestion of
Paper—the Question of Rags. And certai "ay we are
not far wrong when we assert quite phainly in
regard to these two Questions, that tl to ' general
impression, the almost universal impil ,ssion in
this country is, that in the matter of I tags and
Paper Mr. COBDEN has blundered woful;ly in his
negotiation of the French CommerciaL Treaty.
The popular impression in this matt( u. may be
erroneous: But that has yet to be demo nstrated.
We shall be heartily glad if it can be II o demon-
strated. And it is precisely because wev want to
planation that'. -
ODDEN
hear what M ' C
re-
turn forthwith to his are
his
one can of course speak with
he can in respect to has to say' in ex-
placseoliinci tio,uaarliafoni:4
mhti
.s
Nothe auth‘lity that
everything relating
to the Commercial Treaty : he himsda having
been chiefly and primarily the means or calling it
I t is
tos have
inipl a question sof figures
that decided—? is purely
a intothexn
Housetece wants
. m aett,
matter
rsofc a
lculation. Is there this blunder?
lias Mr. COBDEN been guilty here of thin-egregious
oversight ? It looks uncommonly likes it. We
cannot in any way understand at this moment how
it can be otherwise than as we actually Si ie it. Yet
it is the nation, it is the House that ma:c be labour-
ing all this while under an error in cherishing
these gloomy anticipations. We wetz' t
the in-
quiry plainly put to Nlr. COBDEN
rns elf, as the
responsible negotiator of the Commerciai' Treaty--
U
we want the query put to him in his pace in the
House of Commons. And we want to listen there
to what lie—the fittest person of all to speak in
this matter—has to say in the way of explanation.
Abolished the Customs and Excises duties upon
paper—will not our own paper -n tutufacturvro

here in England be placed forthwith at a glaring
disadvantage as compared with the foreign paper-
manufacturers? The belief is that—by reason of '
the continental nations imposing an export duty
upon rags amounting in the average to £9 per ton
—our English paper - manufacturers will be
placed at an immense and obvious disad-
vantage. Mr. COBDEN may have some
arguments stowed away in that wonderful brain of
his, that may prove to absolute demonstration the
fallacy of this wide-spread opinion. If so, let him,
in the name of fortune, hasten homewards with all
convenient despatch, and from
.his old:familiar post
below the gangway upon the Ministerial side of
the House, dissipate into thin air, by a few words
of his masterful common-sense, by a few "passes"
with his potent fore-finger—these delusive and
lugubrious misapprehensions.

A simple communication from a minister of reli-
gion, who has recently left England for Jamaica,
is really well worth more attention than a mere
publishing of the letter. It gives one little fact,
which fact, however, seems capable of indefinite
repetition. Sir JOSEPH PAXTON said of his plan
for building the Crystal Palace, that it was a series
of repetitions of one large greenhouse. And may
we not say of cotton cultivation in Jamaica, that to
supply Manchester from thence would be but to
obtain a series of repetitions of the missionary's
garden experiment.
On the 9th of March, he writes, that, only six
months previously, he took out with him some cotton
seeds; and, by the time he wrote, he had three
bags of beautiful cotton in his possession. We ere
accustomed to hear so much of the elaborate sys-
tem of cotton cultivation in America, that we think
of it as almost a mystery ; something certainly not
to be done off-hand and informally. Yet, for ought
we can see, there is nothing to prevent every negro
in Jamaica who lives in a suitable locality, from be-
coming at once a cotton grower, and supplying
forthwith the loss, should it occur, of the past
American crop. One would think all Liverpool
and Manchester would prick up its ears at
the following statement :—" Although I am a
Minister of the Gospel who had not be-
stowed an hour's thought on cotton culti-
vation till I met you in Manchester, not a year
ago, I think I could now grow cotton as well as any
American slaveholder. It is the simplest thing
imaginable in this colony, at any rate ; a delicate
London lady could manage the whole affair.
Scratch the grass off the surface of your garden
with a nice hoe ; make a hole with your walking-
stick, or the heel of your boot, deposit the seed,
and in three or four months your wife and little
ones, basket in hand, will start out to the ' pick-
ing' with as much delight as ever an English
mother and her little daughters went to gather
roses or gooseberries. My dear boy, who is not
three years of age, is a capital picker."
The plant seems to be exceedingly beautiful,
while flowering and blooming it was quite an
ornament to our missionary's garden, and he ex-
presses the wish that he could persuade 50,000
British families to come out with him and grow
this beautiful and valuable plant." It may be hoped
that Mr. FLETCHER'S example, on the island will
be contagious. The negroes readily follow the
lead of their religious teachers, and if other mis-
sionaries take the same course, it might be to cotton
growing in Jamaica, what Father MATHEW'S
example and influence were on behalf of temper-
ance in Ireland ; nor would it be unworthy
of their sacred calling, for putting the
people into the way of •an honourable
and profitable industry would be doing much
towards making them steady and respectable
Christians. Unsettled and indolent habits are at
least unfavourable to religion. So favourable is the
soil and climate of the island to the production of
cotton, that the Jamaica Cotton Company received
by the last packet forty samples of very superior
cotton picked from stray trees on different estates
in the eastern part of the Island; four of them

the largaa and best, were sent by ladies. What
with India, Jamaica, and all our tropical possessions,
it will be a disgrace indeed to us if we cannot save
the operatives of Lancashire from ever wanting
cotton to spin and weave.

DISCONTINUANCE OF SECOND MONTHLY MAIL
To CHINA.—The second monthly mail to Penang, Singa-
pore, and China, viz., that now despatched via Southamp-
ton on the 20th and via Marseilles on the 26th of the
month, will be discontinued after the month of Jane next.
Commencing with July, therefore, the mails for Penang,
Singapore, and China will only be forwarded via South-
ampton on the 4th and via Marseilles on the 10th of eaeh
month.—By command of the Postmaster-General. Row-
LAND HILL, Secretes.

FRANCE, SYRIA, AND ENGLAND.—The Inclepen-
dance Beige says :—" A report of great importance was cur-
rent yesterday in Paris. The Government, it is said, with
a view to develope the moral resources of France and to
enlist auxiliaries against the clergy, intends to complete its
decree of the 22d of November, 1860, by a series of measures
which will modify in a liberal sense the laws on the Press.
Another rumour states that a treaty offensive and defensive
has been concluded between France and Italy, which will
lead to the renewal of diplomatic relations between both
countries. The discussion on the occupation of Syria is to
come on on Monday next. Whatever be the result, it is
doubtful whether it will have much influence on the reso-
lutions of the Government, which is bound by its engage- ,
ments to England, and if the latter Power insists on their ,
being fulfilled, France must either comply or assume the
responsibility of whatever consequences may arise. The
proposal of a joint occupation by France, England, and Sar,
dinia, having been rejected in London, it is said that the
French will not retire—that they will remain at Beyrout
and in the Labanon—that the English will occupy St. Jean
d'Acre with 8,000 trcops drawn from Malta, and that a
communication to this effect was made yesterday by Lord
Cowley to M. Thouvenel."
CENSUS RETURNS.—The result of the census for
Newcastle-on-Tyne has been published. The total of the
population is 109,000. In 1851 the population was 90,156
and in 1841 the numbers were 71,850. These returns are,
exclusive of the census of the river, which is taken by the
Customs, and which is not published. The most re-
markable increase in the numbers of the popu-
lation is in the parish of Elswick, in which Sir W.
Armstrong and Co.'s ordnance and engine works are
situated. In 1851 the population of this parish was 3,539.
This year the population is 14,345; and in Westgate, where
many of the men employed in Messrs. 8.. Stephenson and
Co.'s and in Messrs. Hawthorn's works live, there is a
population of 21,225, as against 16,477 in 1851. In this
latter parish, however, there has also been a large increase
in the number of respectable houses since 1851. In the
parishes of St. Nichoh s and St. John's, where extensive
building improvements have been the means of @leering
away a number of wretched tenements, infamous in cholera
annals, there is a falling off in the population; but in the
parish of All Saints, where a number of rookeries were
cleared away' by the great fire, the population has increased
from 26,117 to 29,490. The following is the result of the
Census for the city of Canterbury :—Males, 10,545 ;
females, 10,778—total, 21,323. Houses—inhabited, 3,921;
uninhabited, 120 ; building, 25. Increase of population as
compared with 1851, 3,120.
THE OPERATIVE SHOEING SMITHS.—Last night
a numerously attended meeting, convened by circular by
the Amalgamated Society of Farriers, was held in Soho
Theatre, Dean-street, Soho-square, to protest against the
introduction into the trade of horseshoes made by machinery.
Several addresses wore made, and it was resolved, "That it
is the opinion of this meeting that the steam-made shoes are
in nowise fit for the animals ; therefore they (the operatives)
pledge themselves not to use such shoes in any shape or
form." A resolution was next passed thanking those mas-
ters who had met the men so liberally by adopting the
Saturday early-closing system, after which the meeting
closed with a vote of thanks to the chairman.
ANOTHER RESULT OF THE FRENCH TREATY.—
We published recently an advertisement from the Man
chester Guardian, in which a " gentleman of Lyons" ex
rres'Pl a desire to form the acquaintance of an English or
Scotch young lady with a. view t() a matrimonial alliance,
as he expected to be stationed at London r-a• commercial
purposes. This notiacatim has called forth another ad-
vertisement in the same journal, which is a favourite " me-
dium" for such announcements, a "young lady of London"
notifying that she is " most desirous to make the acquaint
ante of a French gentleman With a view to a further
alliance," &c,