The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-10 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, NOV. 10, 1857.

The Bank of England has again raised its rate
of discount. Ten per cent. is now the minimum
rate of discount at head-quarters for unexception-
able commercial paper, and few, indeed, are able
to provide for their wants at that rate. The joint-
stock banks were taking money at 8 par cent.
previous to the last change, and it is possible that
they also will increase their rates, and that 9 per
cent. will be paid on deposits—the patties incur-
ring no risk or trouble of any kind. This is, no
doubt, very pleasing to the ready-money men
—the drones of the community—who wish to
live in idleness on their accumulated and realised
capital, but it is ruin to the industrious classes,
who cannot maintain their establishments without
serious loss, or who are unable to obtain adequate
samuneration for their labour—their only avail-
able means of subsistence. Those who gain their
daily bread by their daily labour should be the
chief objects of solicitude. Their interests should
be carefully guarded by the Legislature. But it
is quite the other way. " P rot ection," and that
of the worst description, is exercised. Protection
not to native industry but to foreign and domestic
extortioners, to usurers, and money lender; who
reap unholy profits from the exigencies and pri-
vations of the great body of the people, who
doubly gain, first by the extravagant rate of
interest that trebles their income, and se-
condly, by the reduced prices of every species
of commodity which are necessarily sold at less
than the cost of production or importation.
This state of affairs cannot possibly continue.
The moat patient must eventually rise against
the intolerable oppression. The burden is
more than they can bear, If they must fall,
far better that they should not be the only
victims, that those who, by their selfish proceed-
ings have brought about the ruin, should be
involved in one common destruction with them-
selves, Let there be a universal stoppage at
once, and then the vampyre tribe may find to
their cost that they have pressed the matter too
far, and followed the example of the short-
sighted bullionist in the fable, that reck-
lee sly killed the goose . that produced
golden eggs for his especial behoof. The Ameri-
can journals are already speaking of " a new
start." Let matters go much further, and the
demand may be re-echoed on this side of the At-
lantic. The nation is sick of these incipient and
rapid fluctuations in the value of money, which
have rendered commerce and manufacture
gambling speculations, rather than legitimate and
straightforward transactions, which have at the
same time doubled the weight of our taxation, and
diminished in an increased ratio the means of
bearing it. All complain, but, through the obscu-
Zity in which the subject has designedly been in-
volved, although they feel the evil intensely, they
cannot understand the nature of the remedy.
We have repeatedly explained the only cure for
the disease—the in6vitable adjunct of a purely
metallic currency, or one framed so as to vibrate

w

in the same direction. So long as the circu-
lating medium possesses intrinsic value—so long as
" the talent" can be buried,—so long will there I
be periodical panics and hoardings. What is re-
quired
is a measure and representative of value—
and it is quite obvious that every domestic trans-
action
may be carried on without the deposit, or
the use of a single ounce of bullion. LYCIIRGITS,
one of the wisest as he was one of the earliest
Legislators—deemed it essential that the money
of the State should be valueless—for the express
purpose of preventing either concealment, or send-
ing
it abroad ; and it would be well if we could
obtain a representative or taxation money, that
would answer for internal commerce, but which
could never be diverted to any other purpose.
Gold and silver would, of course, be occasionally
required for adjusting balances of our foreign
trade, but the amount would be compara-
tively trifling. The operations of the Clear-
ing House prove beyond the possibility of
doubt how greatly the use of precious metals,
or of their recognised representatives, may be re-
economised, and when we consider the effects that
may result from an improved system, then in-
dustry will receive fair play. We must look for-
ward to the time when the present monetary sys:
tern will be regarded as only less barbarous than
a state of barter.
There is one benefit to be derived from the
present untoward state of affairs. It has con-
demned the Bank Charter. That unwise and
impolitic system cannot be continued after its
second failure, and all the evils consequent
thereon. And the longer the struggle is pro.
tracted—the more bitter the misery thereby occa-
sioned—the more certain will be the overthrow of
the entire system. The golden idol must be
destroyed, root and branch, if we would prevent
our brethren from enduring the most terrible afflic-
tion and distress. Lord OVERSTONE thinks that
" a relaxation ought only to take place in the
last extremity, when the danger of general confu-
sion has become imminent." It is just possible,
however, that he may reckon without his host,
and that he cannot exactly fix the line of demar-
cation at which the evil may be checked, that he
cannot say to the raging ocean, " thus far shalt
thou come, and no farther."
The Mayor of New York states that there is a
prospect of two hundred thousand persons being
thrown out of employment in consequence of the
panic, and rendered dependent on public or pri-
vate charity for the means of existence, and he
doubts whether they will not rather resort to
violence and force, than submit to so humiliating
an alternative. It is a reasonable apprehension ;
and, possibly, similar fears may be entertained
by those best acquainted with the state of
Lancashire and Yorkshire, of Birmingham
and Sheffield. Government would give relief,
but they will not do so. Sir G. C. LEWIS is just
as indifferent to the sufferings of the million as
was Sir CHARLES WOOD, and until the matter is
forced upon his attention nothing will be done.
The people must speak out clearly and distinctly,
speak out so loudly that their remonstrances may
penetrate into the recesses of Downing-street, and
show that they are determined to obtain justice.
It is useless any longer submitting to the evil.
The Bank must be placed in jeopardy before any
relaxation can take place, and the sooner that can
be effected the better for all parties concerned—
fer the Bank itself, which will not be permitted ,
to fall, and for the people, who will thereby be
restored to comparative ease and tranquillity.

The Bishops of the Most High and Mighty
Prince AXES told him once, if we remember
aright, that they were " the breath of his nos-
trils." Whereupon his Majesty graciously pro-
mulgated for the edification of less suppliant Pres-
byterian Divines his famous adage, "No Bishop,
no King." Of the falsity of his dictum, his
kingdom of Scotland has ever sine,: remained a
standing proof, the bishopless Presbyterians
having continued as loyal as any of us ; but the
bishops' own confession of faith is as rigidly true
as ever. Dr. HAMPDEN is a living witness that a
bishop owes his episcopal breath to the fiat of the
Crown. SAMUEL WILBERFORCE Could not sub-
scribe himself SAMUEL OXON, till the secular head
of the Church had said, " Let hira be a Bishop."
Now, we may all of us be ungrateful, but Bishops
ought, of all others, not be so. They and their
Church ought, in language they sometimes read
to their flocks, to "remember the rock whence
they were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence
they wore digged." The Rock WAS the Legisla-
ture, of which the Crown is the summit, the elec-
tors of England the broad base, and the Houses of
Lords and Commons the intermediate cliffs. The
Church, as an establishment, has, and can have,
no higher origin. She is what the States of the
Realm made her ; she will be what they yet may
make her ; and one day, if Lord STANLEY be
right, these three estates will dispense with her
services altogether.
The Bishop of Oxford must excuse thin whole.
some little preamble, because the plain facts we
mention are just those against which he is now
kicking ; and he will assuredly find it, as he
ought to find it, " kicking against the pricks."
He is yet very sore about his defeat on the
Divorce Bill. We predicted at the, time that he,
and those of his school, would rue the day they
took up arms against Sir RIOIrARD BETHELL ;
and that when they almost forced him to the un-
desirable courtesy of allowing the non-jurors of
the hoar, on the plea of consciences to evade ful-
filling the duties affixed to their Office by Aet of
Parliament, his compelling them to admit into their
churches any other clergyman who tvisbed to carry
out his country's laws, would male them wince,
wince heart-deep. And it has done it. The
Bishop of Oxford talked at the time of mounting
his horse, and, riding whip in hard, prohibiting
the obedient clergyman from becoming voluntary
proxy for the disobedient one. And now that
the heat of discussion has surely subsided, yet our
episcopal knight-errant cannot dismount. We
find him, at his triennial visitation, challenging
queen, Lords, and Commons afre sh, and deter-
mined to do battle still against Acts of Parlia•
ment, and to vindicate ecclesiastical lawlessness,
insulted in the persons of his incumbents.
The Bishop complains that the law of the land
and the law of the Church are now separated, and
that this will tend to a separation of the Church
and State. All depends upon what the Bishop
holds to be the law of the Church. We maintain
that the Church of England, as by I,:aw established,
has and can have no other law than that which
the Church, sitting as the threw estates of the
realm, has enacted. Convocation is now a nullity.
The Legislature is the Church of Zugland in its
law-making capacity. We laymen are the Church,
or at least the immensely greater part of it, for
clergymen are but our Church administrators.
We take the priestly heads of the Church to our
counsels, and what we jointly enact, let it beat
how it may on ecclesiastical matters, is the law of
the Church.

This plain fact suffices to dispos,) of almost all
Bishop WILBERFORCE'S sophisms. Row can any
Act of Parliament prescribing du,-ties for clergy-
men separate Church and State, when the Church
itself in its legislative capacity hAs made those

Acts 1 Individual clergymen may dislike the law,
and may even, like some laymen, disobey it : but
the contumacy to law of the Bishop of OXFORD is
no more a step towards the dissolution of the
Church Establishment, than the contumacy to law
of the inhabitants of Newgate is a disruption of
our Civil Establishment. The same fact also
furnishes the kernel of the answer to a
discreditable memorial, to which the Bishop's
name is not, indeed, appended, but which adopts
his arguments, and in whick the memorialists
pray her MAJESTY to withhold the Order of Coun-
cil by which the Act is to take effect on the Ist
of January next. The Act of Uniformity sanctions
the Book of Common Prayer, and the Book of
Common Prayer, so say the memorialists, teaches
the absolute indissolubility of the marriage con-
tract ; therefore the late Act, or the framers of
it, must have been oblivious of the Act of Uni-
formity. Her MAJESTY is therefore prayed gra-
ciously to give the recusant bishops and clergy
a little breathing time until Parliament may re-
consider the matter !

Of course, Lord PALMERSTON will tell the me-
' morialists that the matter has had consideration
enough in all conscience ; he will gently remind
them [aside, of course] how Mr. GLADSTONE com-
pelled the 'weary House to consider, or at least
to hear, all that could be said or imagined on the
subject, till, what with talk and heat, Parliament
almost died of consideration ; he will probably add
that whatever clerical incumbents may do, he
and his gracious SOTEREIGN will be no parties to
• frustrating the object of au act of Parliament.
But as to their trotting out the Act of Uniformity
with the Prayer-book on its back into the discus-
sion, he will tell them at once that the last Act
of Parliament, so far as it touches on matters ad-
verted to in former acts, is the present law of the
land, and, therefore, the late of the Church too,
provided the matters be "any way ecclesiastical."
The Bishop, indeed,. speaks of Parliament as " a
body external to the Church." We beg his par-
don. Parliament is the representative of the
nation, and the nation of England is the Church
of England, for every Englishman is, in the eye
of the law, a member of the Church of England.
When the Bishop begs for new churches, he
always estimates the spiritual destitution by the
amount of the population, paying no attention to
dissenting congregations. He thus shows that
even he, when it suits his purpose, regards all
Englishmen as Churchmen, to be provided with
' church accommodation. Oa the Church-rate
question, too, the argument commonly is, that
Dissenters have a legal right to Church services.
We almost despair of it, yet we venture to hope
these facts may help to clear the Bishop's
vision. Dr. WILBERFORCE, indeed, deplor-
ingly exclaims, " Why, from such a begin-
ning, they may attempt to tamper with the
Prayer-book itself! " Certainly. And why not?
If the Prayer-book does not suit the National
Church as represented by Parliament in 1857,
is it any reason why we should not alter it that it
suited our ancestors in 1661, in the Godly times
of CHARLES 11. ? We have altered, repealed, or
amended, perhaps, most of the Parliamentary
doings of that day. Why, on earth, may we not,
if we like, altar and amend the Parliamentary
Prayer-book of 1661 t
We must, however, do the Bishop justice on
one point. He wants the Clergy to alter and
amend their style of preaching. We thank him
for that. He seems to have learned some wis-
dom from the popularity of the "Monster
Orator" of the Music Hall He would have his
subordinates write one sermon a week to keep up
their " refined taste" ; but in the other sermon
they are to speak like ordinary mortals ; like
barristers, Members of Parliament, and platform
gentlemen—to make themselves, in fact, a little at
home with their congregations. We do not know
that there is anything in the Act of Uniformity re-
quiring uniform solemn dulness for twenty
minutes in the pulpit. If it did require it the
practice could not have been uniform. All we
can say is, that at present, sermons and sleeping- ,
draughts are almost synonymous words, and that
we shall thank the Bishop if he can reverse all
that. We hear of no sleepers among the ten
thousand of the Music Hall !

It was with an unerring finger that Lord
BROUGHAM struck, the other day, the key-note of
our policy towards the Indian Mutineers. Retri-
bution, he said, and not ♦engeance, is what is de-
manded at the hands of our victorious soldiers.
Retribution a just, and stern, and vigorous
Retribution ! And that, forsooth, appears to be
what is actually deprecated as inhuman and blood-
thirsty by a certain class of maudlin mock-philan-
thropists I Men who are fain to behold only a
Christian lenity in the paralytic weakness of Go-
vernor-General CANNING !—who commenced the
drivelling leniency of Mr. J. P. GRANT to the in-
surgents of Cawnpore I—who would glue the
sword of HAYELOQZ to his scabbard, as hardly, so
much a "Scourge of GOD" as a Scourge of the
Devil !—miserable palterers with the national re-
putation, who recognise something un-Christian
in that noble Signal of Assault addressed by Ge-
neral WILSON to the army before Delhi, where,
in his Proclamation, that gallant leader warned
his men to spare the women and children while
giving no quarter to the Mutineers ! Against
the atrocious principles implied by these wretched
mockeries of Humanity and Religion we protest
now, in the hour of battle, while the sword is
yet naked in our grasp and the foe is still before
us. Meekness to that foe, after what has been
perpetrated by them wantonly, were criminal.
Pity for them were infamy for ourselves ! As
the good and meek Earl of SigArTESBURT has re-
cently observed, the Sword of the State is com-
mitted to the charge of a nation for some purpose.
It is a symbol of power and of justice—far more
than mere armament—to be drawn from the
sheath sometimes and wielded in the cause of the
people and in the name of the SOVEREIGN.
An empire that does not instinctively recognise
this inherent right may as well at once abandon
all claim to independent existence 'among the
States of Christendom. To question this essen-
tial prerogative of Government is, therefore—it is
searcely necessary to add—as foolish in itself as
it could not fail to be criminal in its consequences.
Wherefore, it were at once a sheer absurdity to
hesitate for an instant as to the, validity of the
right, and a monstrous dereliction of duty to
interpose at such crises between the Government
that ought to exercise it, and the violators of the
law upon whom it ought to be exercised. Here
are criminals requiring to be immediately dealt
with, whose atrocity is absolutely unparalleled.
Those criminals ought to bo punished, and to be
punished rigorously. That is all that is needed—
the punishment of the guilty—not the implication
of the innocent with them. Again, as Lord
BROUGHAM has said—not Vengeance, but Retri-
bution.

The Earl of Aberdeen, we Ara happy to hear, is quite
recovered from his recent illness. The noble oarl remains
at Haddo House.

The Countess of Durham and her infant on are pro-
gressing favourably.
The Earl of Shoffiela arrived in town yesterday from
Sheffield Park, Suesex.
Viscount and Viscountess Palmerston returned to
London, yesterday, from 13roadlands, Hants.