The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-11 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, DEC. 11, 1857.

The question of monetary reform will greatly
depend on the result of the discussions that will
take place this evening in the House of Commons.
" The hard calculators" are now all in favour of
procrastination. The Fabian policy alone finds
favour in their sight. They well kaow that im-
mediate legislation would prove fatal to the Act
of 1844. Few persons could behold with indif-
ference the misery and privations endured by the
great body of the people, and the losses inflicted
on the trading, manufacturing, and commercial
lnteresta by the stringent adherence to the un-
wise and inequitable system—a system that may
eventually prove as injurious to those by whom
it was devised as was the act of their prototype, the
evaticious clown, who foolishly destroyed the goose
that supplied him with golden eggs. "The greed
of pin," however, knows no bounds. Cupidity
has no bowels of mercy, and will sacrifice all, with-
out compunction, who may stand in the way of
gratification,--nay, incur imminent danger of
Whatlong is already possessed in the vain en-
cleav"r to grasp at more. The great object then
is to shelve the question, to hang it up during
the whole of the Present session, under the pre-
text of inquiry,
until the People have become so
wearied and indifferent on the subject., that an
additional rivet may be added to the chain, and
the issues on securities still further reduced. A
scheme already advocated by some injudicious
par_
tisane of the measure.

This can only be achieve I by the appointment
of a Select Committee--a Secret Committee—
who will go on in the old routine course,
examining witnesses whose views are already well
known, and whose report may be regarded as a
foregone conclusion. But it is a stale dodge—
Sir Cita ULM WOOD already played it of—and the
most yen/ant yokel could not now be deceived by
a similar trick. Sir CHARLES WOOD declared that
no Minister should consent to the appointment of
a Committee unless perfectly certain of the nature

of the report that would be agreed on, and we
may rest assured that Sir G. C. LEWIS has taken
a leaf out of his book in that respect,
and that he is perfectly satisfied that his
favourite theory will incur no risk from any
adverse opinion of the carefully selected Com.-
mittee. In order to enhance the delay, he has
given notice that, in the event of the Committee
I being appointed, he will move that "itbe an
instruction to the Committee to inquire into the
causes of the recent mercantile distress, and also
to inquire how far it has been affected by the laws
regulating that bank-notes shall be payable on
demand." This, if carried, will provide ample
work for the whole Session, so that legislation
will be rendered impossible before 1859, or, more
probably, 1860. During all this time " the hard
calculators" will continue in the enjoyment of
exorbitant profits, and will have feathered their
nests to considerable purpose at the expense of
the industrial community. The mere delay will
occasion mischief which years cannot rectify.

The amendment of which Mr. DISRAELI
has given notice would, if successful, avert these
evils. It is to the effect that "no further in-
quiry is necessary into the operation of the Bank
Act of 844, 7 and 8 Vic., cap. 32." This is
surely the truth. If ever a subject was exhausted,
it is that of the currency. The parties are
diametrically opposed to each other. The advo-
cates of free-trade in currency and the hard cal.
culators cannot be brought together by any
possible process. Ministers must now act on their
own responsibility. Should they ever decide on
maintaining the obnoxious Act without change or
modification, the people will at least be the sooner
relieved from suspense, and an opportunity will
ba afforded of testing the opinion of the country.
We earnestly hope, then, that the amendment
may be carried. The result will indicate the
probable results of the great contest now pending,
and on which our future welfare, happiness, and
prosperity are so entirely dependent.

In a recent article we urged on our Manchester
friends, as we have frequently done before, the
vast importance of moving themselves in the busi-
ness of obtaining cotton from India, We have
insisted that it hardly becomes the great capital
of Free Trade to be for ever crying to the G-
vernment for help, and we pointed out what had
just come to our knowledge, that a Company had
then been formed, " The Madras Irrigation and
Canal Company," which proffered to Manchester
1 the precise aid which, as we think, is needed. It
is perhaps, needless, to say that wa have no per-
sonal interest in the Company ; but ever since the
appearance of Colonel ARTHUR COTTON'S well-
known book, we have felt deep interest in the
subject of Indian Irrigation and Canals, and feel
therefore gratified in supporting such a tho-
roughiy legitimate attempt to bring into practical
operation the views we have for some time held.
All we have read and heard on the subject since
Colonel COTTON first wrote upon it, has only
increased our conviction, that cheap con-
veyance rapidly opened all over India, with
irrigation to furnish products, is of infi-
nitely more importance for that country than
all the schemes hitherto devised for its commer-
cial civilisation, and the deliverance of its exche-
quer from debt. Colonel COTTON'S principle—
to rely for increased revenue on enriching the
payers of taxes—is the very polestar for Indian
financiers. His other practical principle—to
utilize forthwith all the water in India for navi-
gation and irrigation—is equally the polestar
which must guide those who would increase some
fourfold the wealth of the population of India.
It is, therefore, gratifying indeed, to us, to
see that the practical men of Manchester,

Liverpool, and Glasgow, are seriously giving their

attention to the proposals of the Company.
These commercial chambers and associations have
memorialised already the East India Company in
favour of the Madras Irrigation and Canal Com-
pany, and strongly pressed its claims on the
Board of Directors. The interests of the Indian
Government are so directly implicated with any
system of improving land and increasing its pro-
duce in India, (since three-fourths of its revenue
is derived from land), that the Irrigation Cam-
pany and the Cotton Supply Association, are
entitled to ask of their prospective landlord the
fullest support which he can furnish. This aid
they ask, in the form of a guarantee of a minimum
rate of interest on the capital expended ; a request
preferred not from the slightest doubt of the gua •
rantee being quite superfluous, but to enable the
Company to raise the required capital with the
greatest ease, and on the best terms. Oa the ono
hand Englishmen generally know little of India
and the probable success, in a financial point of
view, of public works there ; on the other hand
the Company knows the country well, and has
had ample experimental proof that all canal and
irrigation work, hitherto, have issued in splendid
returns. The attestation of the Eat India Com-
pany, therefore, to the pecuniary character
of the New Company's plans, would at once
draw forth the contributions of capitalists
here ; and there is, of course, no form of
attestation which can equal that of a guarantee.
The Government has granted it for Indian rail-
ways, irrigation and cheap transit are of far more
importance, and certain to be much more remunera-
tive both to the East India Company and the
shareholders, than first-class railways can possibly
be. The Landlord Company will, therefore, be
perfectly safe in giving its guarantee to the Tenant
Company, and both will be benefited by the earlier
command of more ample capital.
We have reason to hope that the Indian Gc-
vernment is becoming fully alive to the importance
of the Company's canal and irrigation projects, and
that the required guarantee will not be withheld.
The Indian Exchequer is unable at present, and
will be for a long time to come, to spare money
for such works itself ; it is, moreover, better it
should not. A commercial company wi 1
work the whole thing better than the East India
Company could do, while the latter can give to
capitalists a degree of confidence which no ordinary
commercial company has power to create. It re-
solves itself into the East India Company's pur-
chasing a rapidly augmenting revenue from the
improved districts, by the very cheap agency of a
purely nominal guarantee ! The security of the
Government is indeed complete. Since the pro-
posed company wishes all the works to be under
the superintendence of Colonel Corrotc, the very
man who has already executed large works of the
kind, paying on the average 70 por cant. to the
revenue; and a great part of which defrayed their
own cost while in process of construction.

Let the reader not forget the main point. It
is net proposed to put a stop to the construction
of first class, high speed railways to the (xlent to
which they can be made ; their military and po-
litical advantages are obvious, and their social
uses, of course, great ; but they cost, on the average
10,000/. per mile, and must be the work of a long
time. As Colonel COTTON observes in a letter
published last year, "There are from 8,000 to
10,000 miles of river at this moment,
available for navigation, in a more or
less important degree ; to greatly improve
them so as to make them thoroughly effective lines

of navigation, conveying goods at the cost of one-
quarter or one-eighth of any land carriage, would
not cost more than 1001. or 2001. per mile—from
one-fiftieth to one hundredth part of the cost of
the present railways. Hence, to throw away this
enormous natural advantage, worth from
50,000,0001. to 100,000,0001. sterling, and
expend our time upon railways at the rate of
10,0001. a mile, is one of the greatest mistakes
that ever was made."

Then railways can only reach a few hundred
miles to a few districts, while rivers and canals
could in five or six years open to all India the
means of exporting its raw produce, at a price for
transit which that produce could afford to bear.
At the same time, the very works which would carry
the produce would irrigate the country, and multiply
that producefourfold, and often tenfold in value. We
can hardly conceive a case more complete. PROVI-
DENCE seems to have put into our hands the key
to unlock the real treasures of India, the en-
chanter's wand to detect her hidden wealth, and
the charm for attaching her population to our
rule, in the single gift of water. A people en-
riched by our management will be quiet enough ;
especially populations like those of India, which
probably were never, any of them, guilty of an
insurrection for political liberty. As has been
truly said—" they ask only to be governed."
Govern them well ; improve their lands by good
tenures and by public irrigation works ; lighten
their taxes, while increasing their amount, by in-
creasing yet more their capacity to pay them ;
and such people will follow you with blessings,
as they did Sir C. NAPIEIt in Scinde, though
he had conquered them but a year or two before.
Commerce, good government, philanthropy, all
alike demand water for India. Manchester,
Liverpool, and Glasgow would be gainers at
home —we should all be gainers—but more
millions in India than twice the population of our
Isles would in five years' time be elevated from
poverty and wretchedness, and delivered from
horrible periodical famines, by the single boon of
water. This question, then, cannot slumber. It
ought in some form to be brought before public
notice in that grand national advertiser, the
House of Commons. It is infinitely more worthy
of a night's discussion than numberless crotchets
and squabbles on which so much time is
wasted ; at least we should suggest to the
cotton manufacturing gentlemen to get up a
large, well•arranged, and influential public meeting
to bring the main facts of the case before the
public in a form to attract definite attention.
Cotton supply meetings have been held : we
should suggest a meeting to promote what the
supply of cot ton from the East depends on—canals
and irrigation in India.

We have, at last, even at the eleventh hour,
had an official explanation respecting the facilities
tendered by other Powers for the conveyance of
English troops to India ! The fearful conse-
quences of the delays that had taken place have
already been commented on. It is, in conse-
quence of procrastination in the first instance,
that the public mind is still harrassed as to
the possible fate of the innocent and heir-
less fugitives at Lucknow and of the gallant
HAVELOCK and his indefatigable troops. Had ade-
quate energy been displayed in the first instance,
their danger would have terminated ere this, and
the nation would have rejoiced in the glad tidings
of their rescue, and the disappointment of the
miscreant NANA SAHIB in beholding the anti-
cipated victims escaping from his grasp.
Redtapism, however, prevailed. It would be
quite opposed to the usual routine, if there had
been too early a display of zeal and activity. The
I TAPERS and TADPOLES would have been horrified,

and even the junior clerks in the circumlocution
office, would have stood aghast at the revolution-
ary principle. "PETER DICK," if surviving,
would have swooned on the spot !
It now appears that en the very first authentic
intelligence of the magnitude of the outbreak,
Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE had telegraphed
that he would apply to the Turkish Government
to allow troops to pass through Egypt on their ,
way to India, if it was thought advisable to do
so. This was on the 30th June. On the 2d
July he was informed that it was not the
intention of Her MAJESTY'S Government to
send any troops through- Egypt. The
indiscreet zeal of the diplomatist who thus ven-
tured to hint to the Cabinet respecting the course
they ought to adopt in such an emergency, was
thus effectually snubbed. He received a gentle
hint to mind his own business, and permit the
British Government to attend to their own con-
cerns. On the 2d October, just three months and
three days afterwards, Lord STRATFORD was directed
to make application to the SULTAN and the PASHA
for permission to transmit troops across the Egyp-
tian territory. It is needless to say that it was at
once granted, as it would have been three months
sooner, if applied for. It was on the sth of OcP.
that the French Government made their volun-
tary offer of a passage through France,
which was declined. But, surely, if it
were deemed advisable to apply to the
SULTAN and the PASHA on the 2d of October—
the offer from the EMPEROR, on the sth October
should have been gratefully accepted. As it is,
one point is too plain that three months were
uselessly sacrificed—time, of such immense value,
that it is impossible to estimate the extent of the
evils that resulted from the dilatory proceedings.
The reasons assigned by Lord PALMERSTON will
be estimated quantum valeant. We believe that
there would have been no extraordinary difficul-
ties, or, at all events, any that could not
have been easily surmounted. But the responsi-
bility was bandied backward and forward between
Cannon•row and Leadenhall-street, as Lord PA N-
munE declared, in answer to Lord HA RDWICKE' S
inquiry on Tuesday evening, the conveyance of troops
was one of the functions of the East India Company,
and they were responsible for its proper discharge."
Thus it happened that no one looked to what was
the business of so many, and that none of tho
steam flotilla of the Royal Navy could be ren-
dered available for what was perhaps the most im-
portant service that could possibly be rendered to
the country.

This was really too bad ! We are happy to find
that a full investigation will forthwith take place
into the whole subject, and that a select commit-
tee is to be moved for with that object. The
whole facts of the case will thus be elicited, and
we suspect that tho result will not be quito F,o
satisfactory to the Government as Lord PALMER-
STON seems to imagine.

A LORD IN THE INSOLVENT COURT. Lord George
Osborne appeared yesterday in the Insolvent Debtor.'
Court. His creditors numbered 110, and consisted of
bakers, butchers, oilmen, the milkman, &c. The debts
amounted to about 2,0001. His lordship's allowance
was 5001. per annum.

PoSTAGi: UPON NEWSPAPERS FOE -NEW GRANADA.—
On the 17th Dec. next, and thenceforward, British
newspapers posted iu conformity with the authorised
regulations, addressed to New Granada, will be charge-
able with a British postage of ld. each, which must
be paid in advance, or the newspapers cannot be for-
war led.

FATAL CARRIAGE ACClDENT.—Yesterday morning Mrr.
E'izabJth Arthur, an aged widow lady, residieg in
Horton-street, Burton-crescent, was knocked down bya
carriage ne u i
dy opposite the Foundling Institution, n
Guildford-Street, Russell-square. The poor old tidy was
conveyed in a call to the Free Hospital, Gray's-inn-road)
where she expired soon atter her admission.