The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-01 00:00:00

rHE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 1, 1844.

was over supplied. Opium was firm, being supported
by the smallness of the supply. In rice prices had
given way. In tea very little doing. The second
and third crops are said to have been destroyed by the
late rains. Rates of Exchange on London, at six
months' sight, 4s. 3d. per dollar ; Governmerit bills,
at thirty days' sight, 4s. 10d., in little request. Freight
to London and Liverpool, 3/. per ton of fifty feet.
The Hindostan arrived at Suez on the 24th of
September, with a considerable cargo of silk goods,
and about fifty passengers ; she sailed from Calcutta
on the 18th of September.

less factions and intrigues which every year
were concocted, as if for the very purpose of
proving that Spaniards had no real conception either
of liberty or patriotism, and that they could be kept
down only by the iron hand of despotism. These are
the real causes of the apathy of Englishmen, and
many years will elapse before the words " Spanish
patriots," " Spanish liberty," and " Spanish credit," be
even mentioned in England but with contempt and de-
rision. In all the phases of constitutional as well as des-
potic government, one deplorable proof of debasement
stood out pre-eminent, a fixed determination to skulk
from the payment of just debts. Money borrowed
under one regime was disowned by the next, and even
during the brief period of constitutional government,
no rational plan for meeting the claims of public creditors
was ever seriously entertained. Schemes in abund-
ance were hatched, promises of the most flattering
description were held out, and every now and then
some celebrated financier or money-jobber, and occa-
sionally a Spanish grandee, the richest of course in all
Spain, were announced as on their way toEngl and to do
justice at last to the public creditor and restore
Spanish finances to a flourishing condition. Eng-
lishmen, however, were not to be taken in a tenth
time; they justly regarded these schemes as swindling
tricks, sanctioned, too, by the Government, and they
have at last rather generally come to the conclusion,
that on the other side of the Pyrenees, promises, pa-
triotism, and public faith, are words without meaning.

Every day brings with it, to our mind, increasing
confirmation of the apprehensions we have not
ceased to express with regard to the operation of the
Premier's Bill for the so-called "Regulation" of the
Currency—from its first announcement. We have
very lately endeavoured to urge upon the serious at-
tention of our readers the growing disproportion
between the circulation which the supporters of the
measure have assumed to be sufficient for the
enormous transactions of our home and foreign
trade, the ordiney other demands of social inter-
course, &c.—and the new and multiplying channels
through which the energy of speculation is now en-
deavouring to diffuse our hitherto undeveloped capi-
tal. The immense works connected with railway
lines, whether perfected, in progress, or still uncom-
menced, appear to be the favourite directions into
which that capital is tending. And there is nothing
wonderful in this fact. At a time when the financial
policy of the Government has reduced the interest of
the public debt so extensively, and on so many
classes of Government securities, it is natural that
they who have money to invest (especially when the
sums to be invested are but small ones) should
prefer those concerns which, by the daily lists of the
share and money market, appear to yield the best
returns. Thus, the extraordinary premiums of from
75 to 100 per cent. now paying on original shares
of the three most powerful railroad associations,
operate as a direct inducement with persons whose
limited capital renders them more anxious to secure
a large interest for it, in the shape of share divi-
dends, than considerate of the disadvantageous—be-
cause exorbitant—terms, on which they invest their
principal. The very facts that recommend such in-
ve,tments to their selection ought, in a prudential
view of the matter, to operate with them to select
other lines, shares in which can he obtained at the
far more modest premium of some 2 or 3 per cent.,
which is commensurate with their smaller scale or
more limited revenue It is, however, quite indis-
putable that this preference for the shares command-
ing such extraordinary premiums is, prima facie,
justified by the confidence and patronage bestowed
on them by the public ; the grand and even magni-
ficent system on which they are administered ; and
the vast and permanent market they furnish for cer-
tain descriptions of our industrial and mechanic
labour. No such considerations can fairly be predi-
cated of those immense railway lines on the Conti-
nent, executed, or in course of execution, by English
contractors, however profitably they may have re-
munerated, or may promise to remunerate, their
undertakers. In these latter instances, it is too gene-
rally the case that there is a vast efflux from this
country of British capital, subscribed by British
shareholders, which is rapidly absorbed by the wages
of foreign labour, expended in foreign countries, and
but slowly and disproportionately returned to the
limited number of individuals here who are benefited
as iron-masters or constructors of locomotive ma-
chinery. The return through the contractors them-
selves will probably be slowest of all. They will
have but little capital to remit and invest at home,
pending the construction of works which must de-
mand, until they be completed, the almost entire de-
votion of their time and means, either in the per-
sonal discharge of their contracts, or the personal
supervision of those who execute them, on the spot.
Let the amount of British capital thus diverted, or
locked up, or impounded, as it were, from British
circulation, and carried off in bullion, or exchanged
against it, on the Continent, be taken into account,
together with the demands of the new forty railway
lines just now candidates for public approval and
sanction, and what will be the extent of the conse-
quences that must ensue upon any groundless panic,
Or other possible event, that may have the effect of
producing a temporary depression and discourage-
ment of railway stock ? We tremble to contemplate
it. The day, however, will come, when the pres-
sure from this single source alone—on a currency
which is committed to the disorganising action of a
standard cheap price of gold, irrespective of its
scarcity or abundance, and the effect of either of
those conditions on the prices of all other commodi-
ties ;—when this pressure, we say, will be felt in
tremendous force. The last week's return of the
Bank stock of gold and silver bullion showed a
formidable decline in quantity, as compared with its
amount a week or two after the passing of the Bank
Charter Renewal Bill, of something like four mil-
lions sterling. And again, the price of gold does not
appear to fall at Hamburgh or Paris in the propor-
tion which might have been theoretically anticipated
from the large exports of silver within the last ten
days to Rotterdam, Hamburgh, and other foreign
ports. The truth seems to be, that, notwithstanding
the apparent improvement which has been taking
place in the general aspect of our trade for some time
past—the causes are already at work which will pre-
cipitate the testing of those disastrous fallacies in the
Premier's currency policy that %re fraught with ulti-
mate ruin to the whole industrial classes of this coun-
try; to that very commerce, the interests of which
the infatuated Premier supposes he is upholding by
his Bill of pains and penalties against the better re-
presentation and more easy transfer of property or
capital ; and to all the legitimate markets of trade or
employment in which it ought to have been his aim
and his gratification to secure to the honest artisan or
labourer " a fair day's wage for a full day's work."
Instead of this, he has done his best to crush and
keep down wages ; to lower prices to the standard at
which cheap gold would keep them ; and by that
means to throw upon the overburdened shoulders of
the famishing operative producer, and the agricul-
tural labourer, three-fourths of all the immense
amount of indirect taxation levied in the United
Kingdom!

Madrid journals of the 23d have been received.
Troops had been marched in different directions, and
rumours of insurrections were prevalent. The
capital, however, was tranquil, and NARVAEZ was
evidently prepared for any outbreak. So long as he
can pay the troops—and he will stick at nothing, not
even forced levies, for that purpose—he will keep
down the people. Should the military chest, however,
became exhausted, he will find the Prwtorian cohorts
throw him off, as they threw off their favourite
General, ESPARTERO. The only news in the papers
is the announcement that a comedy by MARTINEZ DE
LA Rosa, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, entitled
The Daughter at Home, and the Mother at a Ball, was
about to be performed at the Madrid Lyceum.
Upon the Madrid Exchange of the 23d instant the
Three per Cents. were at :254 for' ready money,
and at 26+ at sixty days ; the Five per Cents. were
not noted.

The Paris journals are chiefly occupied with the
affairs of Spain, the Liberal journals, in general,
denouncing the new Reform Bill, while the Ministe-
rial Globe and the CHRISTINA Presse speak of it in
terms of praise. But if we are to believe one of the
Republican organs, the National, that Bill is a mere
farce compared with the conditions to be imposed
upon the Spanish nation by his Holiness the POPE
and the QUEEN-MOTHER. The new compact has
been furnished to that journal by its correspondent
at Madrid. Possibly it may be founded on fact, but
as it appears in no other journal, and we have no
means of judging whether it is entitled to credit, we
give it without comment from the National. " The
Papal bull," says the writer, " arrived at Madrid on
the 10th of October. The envoy sent by his HOLI-
NESS immediately demanded an audience of Queen
CHRISTINA, in which he declared that before deliver-
ing the bull he was directed to demand of her MA-
JESTY a renewal and confirmation of the conditions
previously arranged for the marriage of Queen Isa.-
BELLA with the son of Don CARLOS. These condi-
tions were accordingly renewed, accepted, and
signed. The bull was delivered on the 12th, and on
the 13th Madame MUNOZ saw her crown of orange
blossom blessed by the Patriarch of the Indies. The
following are the conditions of the contract between
Queen CHRISTINA and his Holiness :-
1. The legislative declaration decreed in 1834 during
the Administration of M. Martinez de la Rosa by the
Estamentos, shall be annulled ; and the first decree, by
which the eventual right of Don Carlos and his family
to the Crown of Spain was taken away, shall be decreed
null and void.
2. In virtue of this official act, the property of Don
Carlos and of the Infant Don Sebastian, which was con-
fiscated, shall, with all the revenue derivable from that
property, be restored.
3. The marriage of Isabella 11. with the son of Don
Carlos shall be celebrated, and the Prince shall take the
title of Isabella Carlos.
4. Should Don Carlos choose to reside out of Spain,
he shall be guaranteed in a pension equal to that enjoyed
by Maria Christina, as Regent of Spain, namely, twelve
millions of reals (120,000. sterling).
5. The Spanish nation shall acknowledge all the ex-
penditure, loans, and obligations contracted by Don
Carlos and his Government during the seven years of
war between the two rival Sovereigns.
6. All the titles, rank, employments, and honours
conferred during the same period shall be acknowledged,
and no one shall be prosecuted or kept out of employ-
ment on account of his opinions.
7. All equipments and other necessaries supplied to
the troops which supported the rights of Don Carlos,
shall be paid by the public treasury in the same way as
those furnished to the troops of Isabella.
8. The independence of the Catholic Apostolic and
Roman Church shall be acknowledged all the property
of which the clergy have been spoliated shall be re-
stored, and if that should be impracticable, the property
not sold shall be restored, and an annual revenue shall
be given to the full value of the income of the property
of which the Church has been deprived, that property,
according to present calculations, amounting to 4,000
millions of reels (40 millions of pounds sterling).
The writer then makes the following comment on
this extraordinary document :
" You will now see the reason why the troops in Na-
varre were increased, in order, on a given day, to pro-
tect the return of the family of Don Carlos to Spain.
You will see why the disturbances at Alicant and Car-
thagena were taken advantage of to dissolve all the Na-
tional Guards of the kingdom, and why the disarma-
ment of the citizens has been made an article of the
Constitution. You will also see what has induced the
suppression of the paragraph relative to the sovereignty
of the people, and why article 48 was expunged, which
compelled the Queen to have the consent of the Cortes in
the choice of her husband; and also why article 54, which
decreed the decheance of Don Carlos and his family, has
been destroyed—an article pronounced in 1834 by the
Estamentos, then sanctioned by Marie Christina, and
now rejected by Madame Munoz. You will also see
the reason for removing from the Constitution the ar-
ticle which compelled the budget to be annually pre-
sented to the Cortes, for who could dare to present to
that assembly a document in which was included an in-
crease to the public debt of a milliard of reals to fulfil
the conditions of the infamous contract of the 11th of
October ? If Martinez de la Rosa showed himself so
anxious to close the field of public discussion; if Narvaez
attacked the Deputies with a bayonet in his mouth; if'
all these Seids showed themselves so bold and so auda-
cious; if it throws the whole of Spain into trouble and
alarm; if they wish to destroy from the foundation the
constitutional edifice, you will now comprehend the rea-
son. This inexplicable necessity is thus explained by
The apathy with which the destruction of the the projects which are already decided upon.
Spanish Constitution is viewed by the people of this " And all this, be it known, and let the French press
re is
F vdeornyeth7nwitgh twhaesavaorwraalligte)fd thweheFnreenchhrisGtinoaverrne:
country, forms a new feature in the history of free
States. When the Duke D'ANGOULEME, at the head turned to Spain. In the absence of the Chambers let
of French troops, marched into the Peninsula to put public opinion come to the aid of this unhappy country;
down another Constitution, and to take under his pro- . d
let not your
b
urlibetrae delsbetftil
bee
under
calm around
tiem Counter-
revolutionandllet tiemno not
tection the beloved FERDINAND, who, on the approach beecev-
will h
not be confined within the Pyrenees; once
t.f his royal cousin, was amusing himself in flying installed in Madrid it will soon reach Lisbon, and the
kites from the roof of the Custom house at Cadiz,
Torieslsirit which animates it will not stop there. The English
there was a general outcry against this interferenceisthperyofiretgfoarrdthietml.vit
Coan Conspiracy
e
with the affairs of a neighbouring State. English- anem embarrassment combato for us is
is not local; it is European, and the first prize of the suc-
men took some interest in the event, and to the last cess of this reaction will be the recognition of the nor-
entertained hopes that such a wanton act of aggres- them Powers. I can therefore cry out to you with all
sion would rouse the people in defence of their coun-
my strength, Tua res agitur.' "
try. A. similar feeling prevailed when, in 1826, The Constitutionnel gives no credit to the report of
British troops were dispatched to Lisbon to a marriage between the QUEEN and the son of Don
protect the new-born Constitution. All wished CARLOS. "We do not believe," it says, " matters
the Portuguese Liberals success, and rejoiced are so far advanced. There really exists a desire on
when Don MIGUEL'S troops were driven across the part of Queen CHRISTINA, of the POPE, and of the
the Tras-os-Montes. A wondrous change has northern Powers to conclude such a marriage, but the
taken place since. The destruction of the Constitu- will of Don CARLOS opposes an impediment."
Lions of both countries is regarded as a matter of The following are miscellaneous extracts from the
perfect indifference, and the hosts of Spanish refugees, papers :
loaded with money, and openly let loose by the The Constitutionnel says—
French Government—an act of aggression more On Sunday and Saturday dispatches arrived, which
the"
relative tsortyhe astsantent
0 tf.h4).aulTihetiafi teet((ii
o publish. Tehetyowf
the
provinces. great
atrocious, because less open and candid than that of
n the
the Duke D'ANGOULEME—attracted no more notice in
ivltronieoenpetssossent
which
Accordingitcoh prevent
threaten
o oau
Tinve er
several°nnu npe pro-
hordes ntod.
Madrid andnrmi
England than the ordinary passage of smuggling
hordes across the Pyrenees. This arises from noata,triohne
continues to reign at
want of sympathy on the part of Englishmen. They Captains-General of several military districts demand an
have still the same veneration for free institutions, for augmentation of force. The Government finds it impos-
municipal Bible to strip Madrid, where there are, however, 25,000
government, and a Parliament consisting
or 30,000 men."
of three states, more or less under the control of
The Grand Council of Lucerne, on the 24th inst.
each other, and would gladly see the same bless-
after a warm debate, which lasted from eight in the
ings enjoyed by all their neighbours; but they have
morning till seven in the evening, resolved to recal
given up Spain and Portugal in despair, and apparently
the Jesuits, and intrust them with the education of
have come to the conclusion that in these days at
put
the people, by a majority of 70 votes to 24.
td ofwairent hint
least Southern States are incapable of enjoying the
The Amoricain, of Brest, states that—
blessings of liberty. The constant outbreaks of the ,
" The Prince de Joinville is expected shortly to visit
people in the principal provincial towns, and their re- that port, Cherbourg, and Rochefort. The same journal
peated attempts, often successful, to set the Central also announces that the Major-General of Marine at
Government at defiance, were bad omens for the pro- ' Rochefort has issued an order forbidding the officers
The
press of freedom, but even these were nothing corn- the. navy to wear mustachious or long beards.". T
Prince himself is the most egregious offender in this
pared with the want of princi l •
e in every leading respect.
statesman without exec
cers
of
high
rank
from p loin,. the desertion of offi- 1 The Patrie says—
the enemy, the total incapacitywfilor Phatt?' business
that of "We learn by express that serious disturbances have
juslttbroken out in Gallicia."
by their senators and representatives, anndssthevinendd
is stated, in a letter from Perpignan, that a mili-