The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-16 00:00:00

:VAITIVAITA 4'l'T:it 1(4

67'40.
LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1850.

The statement made last night, in the House of
Com Mons, by Lord JOHN ItugSELL respecting the
present condition and future prospects of Ireland, and
the liberal and judicious propositions respecting the
advances made to that unhappy land, and now due
and owing to the Imperial Exchequer, will he re-
ceived with the utmost satisfaction on the other side
of St.• George's Channel. It was eminently prac-
tical, and well deserved the warm commendations
end ail but unanimous approbation which it received
from Irish representatives...On every side of,:the House.
Members from the four provinces of Ireland, from
Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, tendered
their warmest thanks to the Noble Premier for
bringing forward a measure at once so comprehensive
and so useful. There was one exception, and one
only to the general rule. The Honourable Member
for Meath, who has recently abandoned the glorious
standard of free trade, and arrayed himself under the
flaunting rag of protection, took exception to the
views so ably put forward. The Honourable Gen-
tleman appears to have decided on adopting the course
followed by a place-hunter of the last century, viz.,
" to take all he can get and keep grumbling." Nothing
that could be suggested would satisfy his desires. Indeed
we entertain but little doubt that if a carte blanche
were placed before him, and he were asked to specify
his own demands, he would subsequently find some-
thing objectionable in the arrangement, and give ex-
pression to the most bitter complaints at the ill-treat-
ment of his injured country. With the utmost indig-
nation be repudiated the idea that Ireland was a
beggar, " a situation be despised," and in the very
same breath he declared, that "he was unable to see
any means at all of returning the loans she had
contracted." 'We shall not, however, dwell on the
inconsistencies of the Protectionist son of
the mighty GRATTAN. We gladly turn to a more
congenial theme—the views and suggestions of her
MAJESTY'S Government enunciated by the First
Lord of the Treasury.
The resolutions proposed by the Noble Lord, and
unanimously adopted by the House, were of a two-
fold character. First, with respect to the repay-
ment of the advances already made, and, secondly, to
the further advances to be made during the present
year for the relief of the divisions which may be
termed, par excellence, " the distressed unions." And
the reasons adduced on both points were such es to
convince the mind of every unprejudiced person on
the propriety and wisdom of the course suggested.
On the first point, it was shown that the entire
sum now due by Irish unions to the National Ex-
chequer was 4,483,0001., which entire amount was
made up of the following items, viz.: —For balance
of loans advanced in the years 1839 and 1840, when a
poor-law was first introduced into that country,
1,130,0001., to which is to be added 100,000/., which
is intended to be advanced for the same purpose, of
providing adequate workhouse accommodation in
those districts where it is still defective ; then,
fur the amount remaining unpaid under the 9th
Victoria, cap. 107, of tl'e sums advanced for labour
works ie the spring of 1846, 158,000/. ; the sum
lent during the famine year 1846-7, for which re-
payment was required, 2,305,0001., and advances
under the:temporary Relief Act, 790,0001.—making a
gross total cf 4,483,0001. In addition to the above, it
is intendel to advance a further sum of 300,000/.
flaring the present year, for the purpose of liquidat-

.> .

ing the debts of the distressed unions, and enabling
them to start on fair terms, so as to procure the
necessaries required at the market prices of the
several commodities. This will make the entire
debt amount to 4,783,0001. sterling. The repayments
of these sums are to be spread over a term of forty
years. Interest is still to be paid on the portions
which were originally intended to bear interest,
while no additional charge is to be made for the
further time allowed for the satisfaction of those ad-
vances, the principal whereof was only to be required
from the debtors, according to the Acts by which
these loans were sanctioned.
The reasons assigned by the Noble Lord for the
decision arrived at by the Cabinet are conclusive as
to the propriety and expediency of the proposed
course. He stated that two great dangers were to be
avoided—" first, of allowing the people who have no
longer the potato to depend on, and who have no more
means than they previously possessed of obtaining
wages for labour, to perish from famine, and next, of
imposing such heavy burdens upon Ireland, that
persons of property may be discouraged, and the pro-
duce of the soil may be insufficient to sustain the in-
habitants of the country." These are the " Scylla
and " Charybdis," from which it is the duty of the
Government to steer clear, and which require a nice
discrimination and skilful pilotage to escape.
From the diminished pressure of the poor-rates,
and the increase of industrial employment in Ireland,
there is every reasonable prospect that henceforward
each union will be able to maintain its own paupers,
if its resources are not absorbed by urgent demands
from the Treasury f,r former debts. Any im-
mediate pressure for that purpose could only have the
effect of preventing the ratepayers from being able
to encounter the double burden for present subsistence
and past arrears. Their efforts would totally fail,
and the country would experience the evil effects of
an overgrasping policy, by having to pay much more
than would have been required had a more liberal
course been pursued. The dread of the heavy arrears
which might be demanded at any period has un-
doubtedly deterred capitalists from investing their
money in the purchase or improvement of the Irish
soil. This evil will now, however, be removed, and
we may look forward with hope to the future pros-
pects of the country—that there will be fair employ-
ment and sufficient food for the people, and that the
social condition of the nation may gradually be ele-
vated from its present depressed condition.

After the gigantic scheme recently projected of a
grand trunk railway from Calais to Moultan, what
other scheme shall be deemed extravagant, or impos-
sible of realisation ? An electric telegraph commu-
nication between France and -England, a tunnel to
cur antipodes, a balloon intercourse with the moon—
anything worthy of being patented by Mr. HeelsoN,
or advocated by Baron MUNCIIAUSEN, any enterprize
capable of enlisting the sympathies of M. CABET, or
of ensuring the co-operation of the believers in the
millennium, may surely, after this, be seriously enter-
tained and applauded. Without wishing, however,
to depreciate the daring of those adventurers,
who occasionally arise to startle the world with
their enormous novelties, and whose wildest
dreams, notwithstanding their apparent impractica-
bility, are sometimes actually carried out into a
veritable achievement--it is impossible for us never-
theless to observe the prospectus of any such imagi-
nary route as the one spoken of between Calais and
Moultan without indulging in a momentary smile
of incredulity. That such schemes as these should
be entertained for one moment even by the most

visionary of speculators, and that derision should be
cast upon others of an infinitely less inconceivable
character, is to us an anomaly sufficient to provoke
our indignation. With regard to the line of
communication between this country and our Asiatic
possession:, running across the centre of both con-
tinents, it is manifest at the very outset, for example,
that the obstacles are more numerous and more gi-
gantic than could be discovered in almost every other
quarter of the globe, whether habitable or uninhabit-
able. The broad and rapid rivers intersecting that
line of route, the diversities of soil that have to be

penetrated, the varieties of elevations requiring to be
levelled, the different kinds of government to which
the company wculd find itself amenable, to say no-
thing of the other moral, political, social, and
physical obstructions remaining to be overcome, are
enough of themselves to carry despair into the ima-
gination even of the most sanguine. What would
1 become of the freedom of passage along such a rail-
!
road in the event of a continental war, or in the event
of the recurrence of those wide-spreading and de-
vastating revolutions which in 1848 and 1849 con-
vulsed Europe to its foundation ? Where would be
the security of that iron causeway ? Are the rails never
torn up on the occasion of a civic commotion ? Might
no barricade be thrown across the line to impede the
progress of the traveller or to lead to his destruction,
through some horrible catastrophe ? Who would
like to jeopardise their lives upon such a highway ?

The peril could scarcely be less than that of journey-
ing by xailroad over the smouldering craters of a long
range of volcanoes, liable at every moment to expe-
rience the terrors of their eruptive violence. In re-
ferring thus, however, to the rumoured scheme of a
steam intercourse between the cities of Calais and
Moulton, we are not actuated by any
serious intention of casting discredit upon
a project whose very enormity is a proof
positive that in the present state of things
it is impracticable. Our purpose at this mo-
ment is rather to express regret that while people
can take such fanciful enterprizes as these into con-

sicleration, seriously or jocosely it matters not, other

enterprises almost as great, it is true, but at the same
time infinitely more capable of realisation, are passed
over with an unpardonable indifference., Espe-
cially are we disposed to regret this circum-
stance, when we bear in mind that the
latter schemes, while being positively and conspi-
cuously practicable, are calculated to ensure many
advantages to the mother country, advantages, too,
both immediate and permanent.
One of these immense but still practicable schemes
has already more than once occupied our attention ;
but as our allusions to it have not been recent, and
as our recollection of it has been revived by a letter
addressed to the Colonial Secretary by its originator,
a printed copy of which letter has lately
fallen into our hands, we cannot but
deem the present an allowable opportunity

for some additional reference to its character. The
project to which we allude is that of laying down a
railroad across the centre of our North American
possessions, and of thereby establishing a direct com-
munication between the two great oceans, the Atlan-
tic and Pacific—the shortest route, if once opened,
between England and her principal colonial terri-
tories, Canada, India, and Australia. From the com-
munication which has recalled to our remembrance

this magnificent day-dream,* we perceive that
the original projector of the scheme is still assiduous
in its prosecution, and still as earnest as ever in his
belief of its ultimate realisation. Nor can we our-
selves be less hopeful, unless we arrive at the conviction
that the Government of Great Britain is resolved to
close its judgment against the acceptance of sound
argument. Not a man amongst us with one iota of
intelligence but must have long since recognised the
necessity of some grand and comprehensive measure
for the better government of our colonies, or
rather, we should have said, for their actual conserva-
tion. Without a change in our present system of
colonial administration the notion of the permanence
of our empire over those scattered possessions
will very speedily begin to evaporate. What is
required for the prevention of this calamitous disrup-
tion of the noblest and grandest colonial empire that
ever owned the sway of one sceptre, either in
ancient or modern times, is the binding of
the whole of the British possessions together
with some connecting influence incapable of dissipa-
tion. Formerly, when error reigned supreme
in
Downing-,tret, men fancied that this bond of union
was discoverable in the maintenance of Protection.
The miseries and privations of the masses at home,
coupled with the growing discontent of oar colonists,
aided in the disruption of that commercial system
already seen to be old, rotten, and obsolete. The
people, the Parliament, and the Government per-
ceived, after profound consideration, the truth, the

* " Letter to the Right Hon. Earl Grey, on the Sub-
jects of Transportation and Emigration, al connected
with an Imprrial Railway Communication between the
Atlantic and Pacific." • Bvo., pp. 28• Lletchim: London,
1850.