The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-01 00:00:00

4. rng.nm

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1844.

The House of Lords went into Committee on the
Factories Bill; and, after some discussion, and a
division, all the clauses were agreed to, and the Bill
was ordered to be a third timeon Monday.

In the Commons, the order of the day was read
for going into Committee on the Ecclesiastical Courts
Bill, when Mr. T. DUNCOMDE moved an instruction
to the Committee to abolish all ecclesiastical courts,
and transfer the jurisdiction of these courts to civil
tribunals. The motion was lost, by a majority of
115 to 70. A number of other amendments were
proposed, as particular clauses were brought forvvard„
all in favour of the Bill. After some discussion, the
Chairman reported progress, and obtained leave to sit
again. _

In answer to a question from Mr. HUMS, Sir R.
PEEL fixed the 10th inst. to proceed with the Bank
Charter Bill.

The other orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjoUrned at a Quarter to One o'clock.

The scene in the Dublin Court of Queen's Bench on
Thursday, was one which,,we believe, has no parallel
in the history of, the country. The man who has
more power in Ireland thin any other leader ever
had, who is looked up to by the bar, and even by the
bench, as the first lawyer of the day, who has long
held a prominent place" in the House of Commons,
and virtually represented the whole of his native
land, war brought up before his colleagues, several of
them his juniors, to receive judgment. On his
entrance, the bar rose simultaneously, and cheered
him, the judge who pronounced sentence wept like a
child, and when the chief traverser (we use the un-
couth epithet enjoined by law) declared his
,Annocence, "three- -times- three " and " one cheer

more" were given for O'CONNELL,

Was ever

martyr so honoured ? And martyrdom it may
be justly called. We have said all along that
he has not had a fair trial. Lord Chief Justice
DEN➢IAN, and all his colleagues,, have virtually as-
serted the fact; no English jury would have con-
victed him on such evidence ; yet from political pre•.
judice, or ignorance, or something worse, the first
man in Ireland—the greatest benefactor of his coun-
try—has been shut up within the four walls of a
prison like a felon, and at the age of sixty-eight is
subjected to a severe and disgraceful punishment
before the law has had its full course. An appeal is
to be made to another tribunal—an appeal, too,
which, from every possible calculation, will be
successful ; yet in these times, in an age
more distinguished for humanity than any
other to be• found in the range of history,
the law of the infernal regions is still the law of the
land. It is the law of PLUTO, " Castigat auditque
dolos." Suppose he had been convicted of high trea-
son, and condemned to death, could not the SOVE-
REIGN have respited the sentence until full inquiry
had been made whether it was just or unjust? This
is an every day occurrence, even while we have no
courts of appeal for capital offences. Yet, in this
instance, where there is a court of appeal, and the
judgment of ithe lower court may be reversed, the
' punishment is inflicted, whilst the victim is suffering
for a crime of which he may be declared by the highest
authority entirely innocent. We have never approved
of the monster meetings assembled by Mr. O'CON-
NELL, but, in a sprit of justice, we have been
inclined to view them as we would view the acts of a
man driven to desperation, when he found there was
no other means of protection, and took the law into
his own hands. This is the case of Mr. O'CONNELL.
He had tried every legitimate means to obtain redress
for the insufferable grievances of his country, he had
brought forward motions, he had resisted motions
in Parliament, but all in vain ; the Tory and Orange
party were too powerful ; none of his countrymen,
though they form a third of the United Empire,
were admitted into office ; they were treated as
aliens in blood, and religion, and politics ; the
clergy of the people were described as surpliced
ruffians; and the whole nation was regarded as a
conquered tribe. He was hunted to death, and
he turned upon his pursuers. Is this a crime ?
Is a man not to be forgiven for exceeding the bounds
of the law, when he finds that law will not protect
him ? He may be imprudent, but he is not morally
guilty.. This is the decision to which his country-
men have come, and not the mob, the offscourings of
the people only, but the first men of the land, and the
leading barristers in the Four Courts. The Govern-
ment have obtained a victory, but have they rendered
Ireland more secure ? They have excited a spirit
which will rankle in the heart of every repealer, and
make the Catholics cry for vengeance on their op-
pressors.

The high price of coals in the metropolis, the great
selling mart of this indispensable description of fuel,
has long been a signal but an unredressed grievance
upon the London consumer. Various plans have
been devised, from time to time, for facilitating the
moorings of the colliers within the port, and the deli-
very of their cargoes; but, hitherto, with little or no
effect upon that system of combination which has
operated to keep cargoes out of the market when the
prices have been low, and to pour them in when
prices have been high, with a degree of surprising
consistency and constancy. The connexion between
cause and effect was never more palpable than in the
certainty with which the number of cargoes discharged
de6lined with the lower, and multiplied with the tigher,
quotations. In our paper of Wednesday we reported
the proceedings which had taken place at the Mansion-
house, on a complaint brought before the Lord Mayor,
by a seaman, against the captain of a Hartlepool col-
lier. It appeared that the man had signed an agree-
ment with the owners to work the vessel from Hartle-
pool to London and hack for 41., but that he had no
notion, in doing so, of being detained "over the three
market days allowed by Act of Parliament to each
collier for discharging and clearing out." The brig
had been already twenty market days in the river
and himself, and others in the same condition, who
had wives and children in the port from whence they
had sailed, knew that, these unfortunate connexions
must either be starving, or thrown on the union poor-
houses for relief, owing to the inadequacy of the
wages earned to so protracted and unlooked for a
term of detention in the Thames. The Lord Mayor
seems to have been quite alive to the cruelty of the
case as affecting the seamen engaged under this kind
of liability, and to the injustice which the practice of
colliers remaining "in sections," with cargoes unsold,
long after the expiration of the three market days al-
lowed by the Act, entailed upon the public by enhanc
ing the price. Prom subsequent communications be-
tween the Lord Mayor and Mr. ROWLAND, harbour-
master of the port of London, facts transpired that surely
lay a strong case for the interference of his Lordship,
as Conservator of the Thames Navigation, indepen-
dently of a case for his magisterial intervention, to
defeat the oppressive operation of a spirit of reckless
monopoly on the part of coal-owners and tLL pgettts,
From a return given in by the harbour'-msssiter, ex-, ,

tending from the Ist to the 28th - ins n "of the
number of coal-laden vessels arrived at CriVesend;

the number detained in sections"; the number of car-
goes sold in the market, and the prices at which they
were sold," we perceive that the total number of col-
Hers arrived, in all that period, was 353 ; that, from
the Ist to the 7th inst., there arrived of this number
116, and there were sold only 66 cargoes ; the largest
number of colliers detained in sections being on the
Ist, when there were 280, and the smallest on the
4th, when there were 228. From the Bth to the 17th
inclusive there were 139 arrivals, and 156 cargoes
sold; the smallest number in the sections being 219,
the largest 271. From the 18th to the 28th inclusive
there were 98 arrivals, 109 cargoes sold; the smallest
number in sections 107, the largest 204. In the
twenty-eight days, therefore, 353 colliers had arrived,
whereof 331 had sold their cargoes in the market,
leaving. 22 which Lad not sold to be added to the
number detained, on the same account, in the "sec-
tions." The number detained, on an average of the
whole twenty-eight days (280 having been the maxi-
mum return and 107 the minimum), was 198. The
prices at which the best coals were sold, varied, be-
tween the Ist and the 24th, only from 225. to 235. 6d.;
but this note is added to the harbour-master's return,

" 27th May, or the last market day, three colliers ar-
rived, 100 sail detained in sections, 32 ships' cargoes
sold, and the price of the best coals varying from 24 to
25 shillings, or about 345. per ton to the consumer."
Mr. Alderman HUMPHERY sensibly remarked that
it was astonishing how a systematic violation of an
Act of Parliament, which had the effect of running
up the price of coals Bs. or 10s. per ton to the consu-
mer, should have been endured so long by the public,
which raised such an outcry at a proposed additional
duty of 4d. per ton on this commodity. This duty,
be it observed, is, at any rate, for specified public pur-
poses. The enhanced price of Bs. or 10s. beyond the
natural price which coals, at their present supply,
would command, goes exclusively into the pockets of
the combining coal-owners and their agents, at the
expense of the London consumer; and to enable them
to accomplish this cheat, the navigation of the river
is rendered incommodious and dangerous, and the
general convenience of shipping trading with the port
of London materially encroached upon by those huge
sections of monopoly-price colliers. We are very glad
to observe the Lord Mayor holding this language on
the subject :
" He should meet them with a plan calculated to defeat
their exertions. There were three market days allowed,
and every ship which refused to sell within the specified
time, namely, the duration of the three market days,
should be compelled to move out of the sections, and
below Gravesend altogether, out of the mayoralty juris-
diction."

" The colliers shall not make a warehouse of the

Thames. It is quite absurd to suppose that they would
remain forty and fifty days in the river without meaning
to remunerate themselves for the delay by drawing upon
the public. It is my instruction to you, Captain Row.
land, to intimate to the captains of all colliers which come
into London,-that if they refuse to sell within the three
market daysthey must remove out of the bounds of my
jurisdiction altogether."

We verily believe that no city of Europe, in refer-
ence to the vast and various ,commerce of its port, and

especially its coasting trade, derives so little local or
immediate advantages from its position as London.
The sarie vigilance which we trust henceforth to see
directed to the supply of coal, might greatly multiply,
cheapen, and facilitate the comfort and enjoyment of
its two millions of inhabitants, in respect of other
articles of necessity, convenience, or luxury, from