The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-27 00:00:00

admitted by every unprejudiced and disinterested

person.
As the Times long since admitted, there is not
the slightest necessity for bullion, so far as the
internal commerce of the nation is concerned. A
deposit of Government securities, or the fact that
the paper issues were receivable in payment of
taxation or duties would be all that could be re-
quired. Either would ensure the purchasing
power, although we have always asserted the
superiority of the latter principle, inasmuch as it
might, under a panic, be impossible to rea•
lise the Government Seeurities, and even
were it otherwise, great losses would
necessarily accrue in the operation. But
the visits of the tax-gatherer are, unlike those of
angels, neither few nor far between. Although
an unwelcome visitor, he must still be received,
and anything that will satisfy his claims will be
gladly accepted by the people.
It is true that we have an extensive foreign
trade, and that gold or silver may be required to
adjust balances with other nations ; but the pre-
cious metals can easily be obtained at their mar.
ketable value, in accordance with the invariable
laws of supply and demand ; and the difficulties
arising from a small premium would scarcely be
worth mentioning in comparison with an exor•
bitant rate of interest, and the difficulty, we
might almost say impossibility, of obtaining pecu-
niary accommodation at any price. In a proper
state of affairs, temporary loans or discount should
be much cheaper than permanent investments.
But at present we find that the interest of the
Government funds is but 3/. Os. 83. per cent.,
taking consols at 90, while the minimum rate of
the Bank of England is 10 per cent., or three
times that amount, for first- zlass paper, and nearly
double that for persons of inferiorpreseige.
We have great pleasure in commending to the
calm and earnest consideration of our readers two
exceedingly interesting and important documents,
which will be found in another part of this
day s impression. The one is the account of a
meeting, at whisk a truly consistent and honest
monetary reformer, the Rev. J. TWELLS, „now
rector of Gamston, gave expression to his opinions
on the subject, and the other from Mr. HAMER
STANSFELD, a gentleman of extraordinary ability
and sound judgment.
It is seven years and a half since Mr. TWELLS
delivered the admirable speech, or rather lecture,
referred to, but every sentence is applicable to the
present state of affairs, and it would be difficult
to find an address of equal ability. It clearly and
distinctly points out the nature and extent of the
evil, and of the suitable remedy. He puts for-
ward a clear, definite, and understandable object,
and it would be well for the nation if it had a Mr.
DWELLS in every district, equally capable of im-
pressing on the people the vital importance of the
principles which he advocates, and the effects
thereof on the welfare and prosperity of the
nation. His indefatigable exertions are the more
honourable, inasmuch as they are perfectly disin-
terested, for he would be amongst those who would
be personally benefitted by the stringent ob-
servance of the OTERSTONE principles ; but as a
high-minded and conscientious gentleman, as a
Christian Minister, he felt that he owed a duty to
those who only required to obtain employment,
and that great desideratum to the working matt,
" a fair day's wages fur a fair day's work,"
Mr. :STANSIFELD'S dialogue is also admirably
calculated to promote a knowledge of the subject,
and that is all which is required. Had we a
dozen such men as Mr. TwELLs and Mr. STANS-
MILD in Parliament we feel that the question
would be speedily decided, despite the specious
fallacies of the Times, or the shrill squeaks of the
Penny Whistles.

We are very glad to hear from Lord LYONS, at
Cagliari, when he has such intelligence to for-
ward as fiat we received from him on Wednesday;
but we should be much better pleased to hear from
him at Naples. Any one could have forwarded
us the Indian news. We could receive a sum-
mary of the contents of Indian journals and
letters quite as well without an Admiral's signa-
ture. One of our own Reporters, we have not
the least doubt, would epitomise the news better.
At Naples we want something more than a trust-
wotthy reporter. We want a man to create his
own report there, and send it to us. Nobody-
insults this country, and tortures our citizens at
Cagliari. At Naples, two British citizens still lie
in irons, untried, and denied the sight and counsel
of the British Consul.
All honour to the men of Newcastle. One of
the prisoners is a Newcastle man, an engineer,
and received his training in the factory of one of
England's real aristocracy, GEORGR STEPHENSON.
The workmen of the town partake of the charao
ter of that illustrious man ; they will try what
they can do. They are not to be put down easily.
They sent just a memorial eeith 800 signatures of
their own to Lord CLARENMON, through their, mem-
ber, Mr. RIDLEY. Th'dy receive a reply, cour-
teous enough, but col.d enough also, and assuredly
not such a one as TaiILTON would have written for
CROMWELL. They call a public meeting, under
the auspices of their Mayor, and a crowded and
enthusiastic teAeeting it was, although hold on a
wretched night. • Newcastle men care little about
weather when a fellow-citizen's life and liberty are
at the mercy of a Neapolitan tyrant, and when a
British Minister seems to be nonplussed by
a Royal bully. Mr. STEPHE.NSON'S men have
learaed of their master. The readers of his
deeply interesting life will remember, that when
charge of the coalpit steam-engine, his manage-
ment of it was insulted by a boxing bully ; he
challenged him at once. Friends tried to per-
suade him that his antagonist was certain to
punish him severely, and begged him to humble
himself to the terror of the neighbourhood.
GEORGE was far more peaceable in disposition
than half our peace men, but he would not accept
peace at the price of insult and of humbling himself
to the insulter ; he knew he had a good cause and
a strong arm, and he told his friends to leave him
to take care of himself. The bully would not
give in—the battle came off—Geostos thrashed
his man in a very few rounds,—avenged the in-
sult, and he and his insulter were good friends ever
after. Newcastle men think STEPHENSON a model
man, and so do we. They think Lord CLARENDON
would be more worthy the name of an English-
man if he showed the same pluck as he did ; we
quite agree with them here too. They do not
wish to hurt a hair of the head of an innocent
Neapolitan ; but they think that Neapolitan
arsenals and frigates, if there be any, might be
advantageously bombarded if immediate redress
be not offered. For ourselves we should think it
no loss to Europe if some of those mercenary or
miscreant Swiss who protect the tyrant from his
subjects, and but for whom the atrocities now
endured by our fellow-citizens could not be per-
petrated, were exposed to a few of our bombshells.
Whatever the laws of any nation, we affirm
that an Administration which refuss t) a gen-
tleman, recognised by
a foreign Government
as its representative, the natural. internat'onal
right to see one of his iellow-aubjects lying under
accusation of a crime against the State that that
administration is guilty of the grossest insult to

tke foreign Government. By implication, it im-
putes sinister motives, and denies the respectabi-
lity of the agent recognised by the foreign GJ.•
yernment. Such a request would never be refused
in this or any really civilised country, though the
guilt of the man accused hardly admitted of doubt;
but when the innocence of the accused is
well known—when he has been accused on al-
most technical grounds—to refuse to an accredited
Consul all access to the prisoner, is, we conceive,
an insult which no king in Europe but FERDINAND
could offer, and which no great power, with a fleet
almost alongside the Royal culprit's quays, but
England, would tolerate for a moment.

Can Lord PALMERSTON meet Parliament with
these men in prison ? Does he forget that he is
more responsible for these two men than General
HAVELOON was for Lucknow ? The mutineers were
ten times more difficult to deal with than a King
of NAPLES, and certainly their temper and their
cruelty were not worse than his. These men—
these Englishmen—are in irons ; the irons are
literally torturing their bodies, and the addi-
tional torture of their miserable damp dungeons,
and deprivation of food, is endangering their lives
and their sanity I The case is not one which ad-
mits of delay and of diplomatic rules and eti-
quette. Health and ife will not wait on diplo-
matic routine. Lord PALMERSTON must aot at once,
or he may incur the guilt and reproach of diplo-
matic manslaughter. Surely, in Lord PALMER-
STON'S eyes, one British subject—one of his Cives
Romani—is of more value than fifty such brutes as
FDINAND has proved himself to be. We can
assure his lordship that the public is getting im-
patient over this case. They do not deem it a
little one ; and we strongly advise him to wipe it
off the list of questions which he will have ti
answer very soon after Parliament meets.
Lord LYONS is near at hand. Lit him require
the men to be placed in his 'custody ; let him
answer for it that they shall be forthcoming at any
early day named for a trial; lot him await the
result of the trial with his ships cleared for action
(just to liberate the tongues of honest witnesses),
and let him inform His MAJESTY that he will not
leave the port without compensation for damages
to two British prisoners while merely accused
without a shadow of a pretext, and quite willing
to stand a fair trial.

It is never too late to mend. We hail with
satisfaction the adherence, albeit at the eleventh
hour, of our contemporary, the Times, to the
views which we put forward many a month since
on the immeasurable superiority of screw steamers
over sailing vessels, in the transmission of troops
to India. So far back as July last, when the
question of the expeditious conveyance of our
armed forces to the East was ventilated in the
House of Commons, we drew the attention of our
readers to the arguments brought forward by com-
petent authorities, of far superior weight and
experience to that egregious mis-ruler of the waves,
Sir CHARLES WOOD. It was, on that oclasion,
satisfactorily demonstrated that a vast difference
existed between the respective advantages of the
two modes of carriage : it being shown amongst
points of contrast, that the average time taken by
98 sailing vessels was 130 days to India, whilst
that of seven auxiliary steamships was but 93
days, making a difference of no less than thirty-
seven days—a difference of incalculable importance
at such an eventful juncture. In despite, how-
ever, of the obvious necessity and certainty of the
employment of the more modern speoies of nevi-
nation, such claims wore, in his usual vein of
official effrontery, ignored by the First- Lord of
the Admiralty, who endeavoured to support his
absurd and untenable position by a monstrous
hash of erroneous statistics,. At that time the
oracle of Printing House Square was mute, but
now, not for the first time falling into our wake,
it becomes suddenly awakened to a sense of
the detriment involved in the negligence of the
Government, and descants eloquently upon the im-
portant advantages that would almost cart tinly
have accrued had our struggling handfuls in
Bengal been timely reinforced through the agency
of screw-steamers.

It is really too bad that the fortunes of a
mighty empire, and the lives of its brave defen•
ders, should thus be made the sport of incapaeity,
perversity, and blundering. As to the misma-
nagement, in which Sir CHARLES WOOD systema-
tically revels, we have had such frequent occasions
of directing attention to the exercise of his powers
of mischief at the expense of the nation, that it
were needless to expatiate upon this particular in-
stance. We fairly confess that we never
hope for any measure of public good to
come out of his hands. Heaven alone knows
what evils might have been averted in India,
what successes secured, had the earliest military
drafts been despatched by steam transport, when
in spite of the incalculable emergency of the occa-
sion, and in defiance of grave and pressing re-
monstrances, sailing craft was pronounced more
advisable for the purpose, and time., every hour
of which was inexpressibly precious, lost to the
amount of several weeks.

Nor is this all. We earnestly impressed on
the Government the crying expediency of sending
troops overlatid from Malta and the Mediter-
ranean—which would have saved half the time
round the Cape—have averted the massacre of
Cawnpore—saved the precious lives of many gal-
lant men, besides enormous sums of money. But
our warning was unheeded until now, when it is
just too late.

It is now sought to throw the chief burden of
blame upon the shoulders of the East India
directors. It is said that they have been " the
partisans of that method of marine loco-
motion which best accords with their
antique traditions." We do not seek to
excuse or extenuate their conduct. Far other-
wise ! We are delighted that it has oven at
the very last hour been duly appreciated, and
that there is at length a prospect of getting
rid of the anomalous double Government, which,
in 1853, we exhibited in its true light.
The theory was--.lndia for the Civil Service, and
the "old ladies" of Leadenhall-street ; and the
nation will no longer submit to such "fictions."
It was echoed by the Times, from ourselves, " the
type of obstruction and circumlocution, has had
its day, and must now give way to something
better suited to the present time, and to
actual wants." It would be impossible
for Ministers to continue the obnoxious system
without incurring the censure of the entire com-
munity. But they themselves cannot be consi-
dered free from blame. They permitted one
of the most hopeless imbeciles that ever
presided over a public department to act on the
red-tapist theory, and to delay the assistance that
was so urgently required. Ile was a worthy
coadjutor of the Est India Company; and, if
they are to be sumruarily dismissed, it would be
well if the Yorksl ,ire Baronet, and Mr. SMITH,
of Cannon Rows were included in the same
category.

Lard and Lady John Scott have left the Clarendon
for Nuneham Paddux, Leicestershire.
SAenzu IiAIiMONIC SOCIETY.—The Siamese Ambas-
sadors will be present at the opening coneert
of the
sea4oll at Exeter Hall this evening.