The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-31 00:00:00

cepted by the ruling powers of the State depend the
maintenance of our mercantile supremacy, the con-
tinuance of our maritime dominion, and the preser-
vation of our scattered possessions. For the principal
problems of a political nature now asking solution,
have reference to the marine sway of England, to her
trading prosperity, and to her colonial authority.
Almost every other object of legislation must be re-
garded as, for the time being, immeasurably subordi-
nated to these ; almost every other aim of the national
ambition must be viewed as placed in temporary
abeyance. Otherwise the affairs of the country,
already embarrassed by anxieties upon these heads,
will inevitably fall into deeper and yet deeper con-
fusion. Even the necessity for taking into considera-
tion the advancement of the beneficent labours of the
sanitary reformers is small when compared with
those other necessities already specified; the more
particularly so when we remember that the chances of
success in the former instance are all but secured by
the propitious train into which every improvement
relating to the public health has been put through the
instrumentality of the Noble Earl at the head of the
Woods and Forests Department. With the
other subjects for legislation, however, which
are above particularised, it is altogether different.
There the want of legislative interference is imminent
in the extreme, no ameliorative effort of any value
having been of late adventured upon, and the cause s
necessitating some such interposition being perpe-
tually and alarmingly multiplied.
Glancing, for instance, at the want of improve-
ment in our Colonial Legislation, it must be suffi-
ciently manifest that something more is desirable
towards the dissipation of many sinister forebodings
than the temporary expedients adopted by the sagacity
of the Colonial Secretary. When we recollect the
disturbances which have occurred in the Canadas, at
the Cape, in Australia, and elsewhere among our
numerous and enormous dependencies ; when we re-
membe the charges of misgovernment brought for-
ward against Lord ELGIN at Montreal, and Lord
TORRINGTON at Ceylon ; when we take into con-
sideration the 'circumstance that the origin of all
these outbreaks and of all these ill-feelings—feelings
tending to insubordination, and, if allowed to pass
unchecked, to a perilous and sanguinary defiance of
the central Government—when we take into consi-
deration, we say, the circumstance that the origin of
these outbreaks and of all these ill-feelings has refer-
ence to the great questions of emigration and trans-
portation, of convict labour and of provincialization,
we shall have reason enough surely to appreciate the
extent and depth of those anxieties which are at pre-
sent agitating the public mind, and immediately
affecting, alp, the deliberations of the Legis-
lature. It is natural, it is surely rational
and comprehensible, that the settlers in
Southern Africa should recoil with horror from
the notion of finding themselves jostled by a swarm
of reprobates gathered together froni all the haunts of
depravity in England, and disembarked upon their
shores periodically in hundreds. It is reasonable, it
is surely allowable and judicious on the part of the
aboriginal inhabitants of Ceylon, to shrink with
terror from the permission of punishments regarded by
them as insults to the gods of their adoration and as
desecrations to the sanctuaries of their religion. It
is permissible, it is surely just and laudable in the
mass of the Canadians to aspire to a position worthy
of an English dependency so capable of large
and rapid development. Yet it is precisely
against these elevating aspirations for progress, against
these honest instincts of self-preservation, against
this earnest and beautiful reverence for the august
and venerable, that the majority of the efforts of
British legislation in regard to the British co-
lonies have, generally speaking, been directed.
True, doubtless there has been much occasion-
ally in the conduct of the population of Ceylon,
of the Cape, and of the Canadas, to justify the
most stringent efforts at the repression of rebel-
lion ; yet, after making every allowance for the
required exercise at times of a stern command over
those three divisions of our colonial community, we
do aver that there has been also much reason for the
heartburnings of those sections of the subjects of our
Most Gracious SOTERRIGN. They have felt themselves
at periods treated in a manner different, essentially dif-
ferent, from that which characterises the treatment of
the mother country. They found their local interests
despised, the;rites of their religion contemned and in-
sulted, and as, in the instance of the Cape Colony,
the place of their residence threatened with an inter-
minable and terrible pollution, being rendered in fact
the dust-bin, or cloaca, fur the moral refuse of Great
Rritain. No wonder, therefore, that, at intervals,
they have found it impossible to preserve with their
accustomed serenity their attitude of loyal obedience.
No wonder they have found themselves, on one or
two occasions, driven to extremities such ,as threat-
ened their violent separation from the English em-
pire. Every additional reflection upon this subject
only tends to increase our conviction that the preserva-
tion of our vast and widely scattered dominions
in both hemispheres is dependant upon the colonia

policy about to be adopted by the Imperial Legisla.
ture.

A similar attention to the necessities of judicious
innovation in regard to our Navy, and of the pur-
suance of a wi.-e course of proceedings in reference to
our comm erce, must inevitably lead us to a similar
conclusion. And this it is which fills the mind and
heart of every patriotic observer with so much and
such profound solicitude, now that these three
paramount problems for political elucidation are

coming formally under the scrutiny of the Parlia

went. That the policy about to be adopted
by the Legislature in regard to our mercantile

and maritime position is intimately associated with

those great and all-important topics, the Currency
and Taxation, must be sufficiently obvious to prevent
the necessity for any prolonged or detailed argument
in elucidation. One cannot be brought directly
under discussion without the other being indirectly
introduced likewise ; and this consideration it is

which so materially enhances their already consider-
able importance. Therefore, moreover, it is that a
session destined to witness debates upon three re-
forms of a chlracter comparable to those above in-

dicated, must be considered as one calculated to be in

no small degree memorable; and hence, consequently,
we have been induced to mention this morning, as one
likely to be borne long in the national remembrance,
a morning which has witnessed, under such extraordi •
nary circumstances, and with such remarkable aus-
pices, the re-assembling of the two Houses of the
British Parliament.

The long-expected and anxiously looked-for open
meeting, on the all-important subjects of Free-trade
and Protection,' took place on Monday, at the
Rotunda, Dublin, and, if any doubt could have
existed as to the feeling of the great majority of the
Irish people on these question, after the results of the
Downshire, and other county " demonstrations," it
would be completely and fur ever set at rest by the
recent appeal to the inhabitants and visitors of the
metropolis of Ireland.
A deep debt of gratitude is slue to the talented
and patriotic LORD MAYOR of Dublin for the
prompt and manly determination at which he
arrived to ascertain the real sentiments of the
citizens, of whom he is the efficient Chief Magis-
trate on these nexatte questiones. It was manifest that
no reliance could be placed on the proceedings and
resolutions of the so-called National Demonstration,
from which all persons were studiously excluded
save those in favour of the re-imposition of a bread-
tax—and where, even if admission had been obtained
by a Free-trader, no voice could be uplifted save on
the side of protection. " Unanimity" thus attained
could be of no possible value as indicating the lean-
ing and tendency of public opinion. The advocates
of monopoly had dared to assert that a great change
had taken place in the minds of Irishmen, and that
they were now as strongly in favour of protective
duties, and of taxes on the chief necessaries of life, as
they had formerly been urgent fur the abolition of all
commercial restrictions and an unfettered trade with
all the nations of the world. These statements had
been so often reiterated, so loudly and confidently
proclaimed on all occasions, that some, at least, of the
interested parties were induced to give credence to
them, and to believe that a reactionary policy would
be received with approbation at their side of
St. George's Channel. Undeceived by the nu-
merous and decisive failures that followed
every effort in the provinces, as well among the
Orangemen of Ulster as the Liberals of the south and