The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-27 00:00:00

POLAND.

The Net, Prussian Gazette states that at Itomir,
the chief town of Volhynia, a funeral service was
celebrated A few days ago for the yictims of War-

saw, and that everybody present was in mourning
and carried a lighted taper. Moreover, a number
of ladies attached knots of black ribbon to the
breasts of all the congregation, even servants and
police officers. After the service a collection was
made and the hymn, line CO3 Polskie, was sung.
Then a gentleman displayed a garment stained with
blood, and a shroud which had been sent from
Warsaw, and afterwards tore them into small pieces,
giving one to every person present. During the
service all the shops kept by Poles were closed.
A despatch from Warsaw, of the 23d, states that
the authorities, in order to put an end to the melan-
choly aspect of the city, have ordered the theatres
to be opened. The inhabitants are to receive
tickets, which they will be bound to make use of,
and occupy the places assigned to them. Such
persons as do not obey this injunction will render
themselves liable to certain penalties set forth in
the ordinance. The proceedings against the per-
sons arrested in consequence of the events of the
Bth have commenced. In the case of several indi-
viduals no charge has been substantiated, but they
will not be immediately set at liberty, in conse-
quence of the state of public opinion, but will be
sent to reside in the provinces.

7HE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

PLYMOUTH, APRIL 26.

A file of the Cape Argus up to February 28 gives
intelligence seven days later than that by the mail
steamship Athens, Commander Clark, which left
Table Bay on the 21st, and arrived here on the 29th
of March.

The estimated revenue :if the colony for 1860
was £516.505; the actual receipts, £503,956; de-
ficiency, £15,549.
The Cape Commissioners for the Great Exhibi•
',ion, 1862, met at the Agricultural Society's office
on the 27th of February, when Sir William
Hodges, Chief Justice, was elected chairman, and
Mr. John Curren secretary.
A wing of the 12th Regiment is said to be under
orders for Butterworth.

Two of the garrison guns have been appropriated
to the use of the Cape Town Volunteer Artillery.
The Fort Beaufort Advocate says that Sir G.
Grey contemplates proposing to Parliament to lead
out the Orange River, near the Witterberg Moun-
tains, into the Great Fish River. The canal would
be useful for barges and for irrigation. The Fish
River mouth might then become the "port" of South
Africa.

The papers of the captured slave vessel Famosa
Estrella are of such a suspicious character that her
case wi.l be brought before the Vice Admiralty
Court for Adjustment.

The United States' steam frigate Niagara, 12
Capt. W. W. M'Kenzie, from Jan. 21, for the United
States, was at anchor in Table Bay Feb. 21. The
United States' corvette Vandalia, 20, Capt. T. P.
Lee, from New York, Dec. 9, and Port Para Jaa.l7,
arrived in Table Bay Feb. 27.

His Netherlands Majesty's steam-vessel Retch,
from Plymouth, left Table Bay February 24, for
Batavia.

The French transport Iphigenie, with 280 sol-
diers from Brest Jan. 3, for New Caledonia, arrived
in Table Bay on the 26th of February.
The British ship Claremont, with 280 Coolies,
from Hong Kong for Demerara, which grounded in
Table Bay on the 18th of February, was got off on
the 22d without much injury.
The Mary, Captain Silfversparre, from Soura-
baya January 1, for Falmouth; the barque Admi-
ral, Captain Glendining, from Adelaide Nov. 16 ;
and Mr. Dunbar's ship Lord Raglan, for London,
arrived in Table Bay on. the 24th of February.

THE PRUSSIAN CHAMBERS.

A debate of some interest took place in the
Prussian Chamber of Representatives on the 22d
inst.

M. Niegolewski, a Pole, in the name of the
Polish members, brought forward a motion to the
following effect :
" Considering that the contracting Powers at the
Congress of Vienna could not come to an agree-
ment respecting the re—establishment of Poland,
which they had first projected, but were never-
theless agreed upon this point, that the peace and
tranquillity of Europe imperiously demanded that
Poland should at least retain her existence as a
separate member in the family of the peoples of
Europe, and that the different parts of ancient
Poland, despite their partition under three sceptres,
should be recognised as forming one homogeneous
whole, with the guarantee of their nationality ;
considering that the peculiar situation, con-
formable to the law of nations, granted
by these stipulations to the Polish people
in the family of European States, must be re-
garded as the minimum of the political existence of
a people; considering that this minimum of formal
right granted to the Poles is becoming gradualty
more and more restricted; considering finally, that
the innumerable victims and the martyrdom of the
Poles, incessantly renewed, speak loudly of their
national and political existence, and that these
proofs claim from the equity of Europe the expia-
tion of the injustice done them, or at least the
accomplishment of the concrssions forcibly granted
.!.o them in the interest of the tranquillity and peace
of Europe—the author of the motion proposes that
it ma:, please the Chamber of Representatives to
decide that finally the territorial unity of the
ancient Polish State of 1772, guaranteed by the
formal right of peoples, as well as the national and
political rights appertaining to the Poles within
those limits, may at least hold good and be carried
out, and that those rights may not henceforth be
arbitrarily restricted by the signing Powers to whom
virtue of the treaties of Vienna pt of Poland
have been conceded under conditionar ss
previously
stipulated."
M. Niegolewski, in bringing forward his motion,
asserted the right of appealing to the treaties of
Vienna. Those treaties guaranteed to the Poles
the maintenance of their nationality, leaving it to
the care of the three Governments to determine the
form of the national institutions which, in virtue of
those treaties, they were bound to grant to the
Poles. It was not his object to' propose the re-
establishment of ancient Poland, but simply to
claim the fulfilment of admitted stipulations. M.
Niegolewski read various despatches of Lord Cas-
tlereagh and the Councillor Hurdenberg and others,
to establish that the Powers had promised to pre-
serve to Poland her national institutions. No one
had a right to Russianise or Germanise Poland.
The treaties of Vienna denied such a pretension.
The King of Prussia had sanctioned those guaran-
tees by solemn promises, which ought to remain
valid tis long as the Prussian monarchy existed. If
the primitive intentions of Alexander I. had been
realised, Poland might have received a development
and have been spared many revolutions. These revolu
dons will occur again unless the Poles are allowed the
rights granted to them by treaties. As long as
Russia, Austria, and Pi ussia mutually advised each
other to have recourse to energetic measures of re-
pression, poor Poland would assume more and more
the appearance of a churchyard, and floods of inno-
cent blood would again be shed. The recent events
at Warsaw were a disgrace to history. "I t cannot
be denied," concluded the speaker, " that we never
cease to dream of the restoration of P.dand. You
yourselves would despise us if we did otherwise.
But thai is not the question now before us. For the
present we only ask the fulfilment of promised and
guaranteed rights. Do not yourselves leave the
peaceful path we have adopted to attain our object.
Do not drive us into revolutions, and do not. cast us
aside as useless elements for achieving the grand
aim to which our present epoch aspires."
M. de Vincke observed, that by the 14th article of
the final Act of Vienna the Grand Duchy of Posen
was incorporated in the kingdom of Prussia, and
that, consequently, there could be no quest ion of the
territorial unity of Poland as advanced in the mo-
tion- The motion appeals to the edict of 1772. Now
of the 352 members of welch the Cnamber consisted
53 belonged to the ccuntry which at that period
fell to Prussia. Of those 53 the Polish fraction
counted 18, while 35, consequently two-thirds, en-
tertained opposite views. The. origin..tors of the
motion were acting unconstitutionally in speaking
in the name of their Polish brethren. Article 88
of the Constitution enacted that the deputies re-
present the whole people. Prussian representatives
had no mandate as long as they sat in the Chamber
to speak in the name of Polish brothers. But what
particularly characterised the anti-constitutional
bearingof the motion was that it asked the Govern
ment to admit the territorial unity of the Polish
State of 1772,which was contrary to the Ist Article
of the Constitution, which expressly defined the

unity of the country, and according to which no
portion of the State could at any time appertain to
another State. Moreover, the real object of the
moton was the unity of the Polish State and the

restoration of Polan.d. In 1850 the Polish depu-

ties resigned their mandate, declaring that
by taking the oath to the Constitution they would
;JO renouncing their ugiontility. « Will ask them

if the. Constitution has changed since then. I will
ask them what would be said in France and Eng-
land if the Alsatians or the Irish wished to make
their nationality prevail in The Chambers."
M. Niegolewski—They have done so repeatedly.
M. de Vincke—" In my opinion the intellectual
.)riginator of this motion must not be sought for
i-ither at Paris or Warsaw. (Laughter.) It is tru,
rhat the member for Genesen, in the sitting of the
28th of January last, threatened that if the pre-
tended rights of Poland were not granted the Poles
would throw themselves into the arms of the
Emperor of Russia. But recent events at Warsaw
will doubtless have somewharcooled the desire for
a Russian embrace." M. de Vincke concluded by
quoting Count Ciessowski's words in the sitting of
the Chamber of the 12th of May, 1859, who said :
—"Nationality or revolution, that is the dilemma
of the' present age. We have made our choice;
make yours." " Gentlemen," said M. de Vincke,
" the dilemma has undergone a change. It is now
Constitution or revolution ? and 1, in my turn,
say to you, Our choice is made; may you soon
have made yours.' " (Loud cheers.)
Count Schwerin (Minister of the Interior) was
of the opinion that the discussion had left the ques-
tion before the House. He could not protest too
strongly against the opinions expressed by the
mover of the proposition. The point was not to
know what Lord Castlereagh said on this or that
treaty. The important point was that the King
of Prussia holds the province of Posen in full sove-
reignty, and that such sovereignty excludes the
territorial unity of ancient Poland am well as its
separation from the other provinces of the State.
That sovereignty exacts that no other law shall
prevail in the province of Posen than the law of
Prussia. That law is actually in force there, and
will continue to be so. The Government will know
how to put dawn any infraction of that law,
whether in words or acts, with the necessary
energy.

Count Ciessowzki desired to address the Chain.
her on a. personal question. It was true he and
other members resigned their mandates when the
Constitution was a lex ferenda, and they resumed
their seats in the Chamber in presence of the lex
lata, but reserving their rights by a public declara-
tion. As regards the dilemma put by M. de
Vincke, I will tell him—" We have also, long since,
made our choice, but you, you are rushing to-
wards revolution by violating justice."
President Simson could not allow such words to
be spoken without stating in the most serious man-
ner to the speaker that he committed a grave
breach of the rules of the house.
The Chamber then divided, when the order of
the day pure and simple was adopted. The ad-
vanced fraction of the Liberal party voted with
the Poles against the order of the day.