The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-28 00:00:00

AI Li rain t Aint4

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1844,

Accounts from the north of Scotland state that on
Tuesday last the firing of cannon was distinctly
heard on the hills to the north of Blair Athol, which
was said to be a royal salute in honour of the arrival
of the Duke of CAMBRIDGE at Black Mount, a shoot-
ing-lodge belonging to the Marquis of BEBADAL-
BANE, near Glencoe, a pass notorious in history. The
Queen of ENGLAND is residing at the foot of Schehal-
lion, in a district famed for the devotion of its inha-
bitants to the house of STUART ; and the clansmen of
ATHOL, who in the last century risked their lives and
property in opposing the BRUNSWICK family, are
now the guardians of royalty, and the most
ardent supporters of the present dynasty. These are
remarkable features of the present times. It is true
the &maim are extinct, there are no competitors to
the throne, and the loyal Highlanders have no other
idol than the House of Brunswick, yet it is impos-
sible not to remark the change which has taken place
since the commencement of the reign of GEORGE 111.,
when his most gracious MAJESTY might equally have
trusted to the fidelity of his northern subjects. Ile
never took a voyage to Scotland, or Ireland, or even
to Hanover, the birth-place of his family. He
remained ensconced in Windsor Castle or Kew
Palace, to be worshipped by cockneys and occa-
sional strangers; he imposed the same rule on
his children, and not one of the Royal Family, except
by stealth, passed the frontier of England. Now one
of his sons, the only surviving son in England, has
set out on his travels at the goodly age of seventy,
and is shooting grouse and red deer in the mountains
and valleys that had so often resounded with the war-
cry of the enemies of his family. Even the odious
name of CUMBERLAND would meet with respect from
these kind-hearted and loyal people. We attribute
this remarkable change to the good taste and judg-
ment of her MAJESTY. GEORGE the FOURTH, it is
true, visited Ireland and Scotland, but he went
thither with his usual pomp ; he did not mix with
the inhabitants—lie went to be worshipped.
The QUEEN goes as a simple individual among her
subjects, she converses as familiarly with the lowest
as the highest, she exhibits herself to her people as
their friend, she abandons all that foolish etiquette so
fatal to royalty, and so much regretted by a Liberal
Contemporary, but is she the less a QUEEN in the I
eyes of the Scottish nation ? Should a doubt arise,
or an occasion occur, in which their loyalty could be
tested, these friendly visits to the northern part of
her kingdom would rouse every man in her defence
We hope the day will yet come, and speedily, when'
she can pay the same compliment to the sister
island, and endear her family to a nation equally
loyal and generous. Only one obstacle stands in the
way of this peaceful achievement—the wicked policy
of the Tory party. They will rule Ireland as a con-
quered country ; they will maintain a Church with-
out a people ; they will exclude Irishmen from all
places of trust and emolument, and hand over the
government of seven millions to a few Orangemen
whom the Irish justly regard as foreigners. What
reconciled the restless and turbulent Scotch will re-
concile the Irish—equal laws, an equal administra-
tion of justice, a due regard to the religion of the
nation, and a generous confidence in the honour and
loyalty of the people. We should then be an united
nation, and the Queen of ENGLAND would be wel-
comed with more enthusiasm at Killarney, and even
Derrynane Abbey, than she is now at Blair Athol.

The remonstrances of the press, the frequent sig-
nificant allusions to the subject in the House of
Commons last session, and still more, perhaps, the
midnight vagaries of Swing, have at length, we per-
ceive, had the effect of inducing the great land-
holders to turn their attention to the destitute con-
dition of the labouring classes, with a view, of
course, to see what is to be done in the way of
remedy. At all the late Agricultural Meetings—and
within the last few weeks they have been of frequent
occurrence—nothing is more remarkable than the
earnestness, to all appearance, with which the
different speakers impress on their audience
the necessity of endeavouring to provide adequate
employment for the labourer, and to ameliorate the
various hardships of his lot by every possible means
at their command. It is now beginning to be gene-
rally discovered by those who are placed in authority
over him, that the peasant is not such a mere clod of
earth as he was so long supposed to be ; but that he
has feelings and affections to quite as great an
extent as his betters, and that it is high time
that the kindlier impulses of his nature should
be drawn forth by acts of courtesy and good-
will, instead of being repressed by a system of
haughty reserve and isolation being maintained
towards him by those whose station, and even whose
interests, Should induce them to act differently. At
the Lichfield Agricultural Association, the Chairman,
Colonel Aissois, observed that "the condition of the
farm-labourers was a matter which required the most
serious consideration, botkof the landowner and occu-
pier of the soil. It was, perhaps, the most difficult
question they had to meet at the present day. They
knew it was impossible at all times, in all places, and
under all circumstances, that regular employment
should be found for them; but where that employ-
ment was known to be precarious and insufficient,
it was the more incumbent on the landowner
and the occupier of the soil to do everything in their
power to better their condition," At the Suffolk

Agricultural Meeting, the following was the language
which was used by another Chairman, Sir Ea:ovuaro
KBREISOX :-" The condition of the labourers 'was a
subject worthy of the most serious consideration.
It was the interest of the landowner Isnd not
less so of the farmer, to endeavour to :render
the labourer comfortable, without which it was idle
to suppose that he would be either contented or
peaceable." Similar language was held zr,t the
Herta Agricultural Meeting ; indeed at this meet-
ing one of the speakers grew quite sentimaental
while descanting on the indifference, not 14.) say
neglect, with which the labouring classes had for years
been treated, and predicted that if a different COM rse of
conduct were not henceforth pursued towards them
by their superiors, the consequences might bcs most
disastrous to the welfare of the community. 'These
new views of the Squirearchy, as regards the 'ea bour-
ing portion of the population, constitute very encou-
raging signs of the times, so far as they go; bactt it is
one thing to preach and another to practice ; and it
is not enough that the great agriculturists indulge
in expressions of good-will and sympathy torwards
their helpless and impoverished peasantry; theT must
act as well as talk—in a word, they must show their
faith by their works. As their opportunities of
doing good are great, so should their inclination be
in proportion. A heavy accumulating deb& has
for years and years been owing by them to) the
labouring classes, and they should not lose a moment
in making the endeavour to liquidate it to
the last farthing, or at any rate, if this bu for
the present impossible, to pay it off by regular
instalments. By these means only will they be
enabled to put an effectual atop to the midnight con-
flagrations of Swing, whose freaks, like theme of
Captain Rock in Ireland, are the natural consequence's
of the long neglect with which the peasantry in both
countries have been treated by their superiors.. The
allotment system, of which Sir E.Kismusort spoke at the
Suffolk Agricultural Meeting, is one of great pro-
mise, and bids fair to benefit the labouring classes in
no ordinary degree ; but remedial measures, of a
much more comprehensive character than this must
be had recourse to, ere our great landowners can be
said to have adequately fulfilled their duties. as the
legitimate guardians and benefactors of their respec-
tive peasantry.

The Dutch papers, from which we yesterdv gave
extracts, contain some very remarkable statements
connected with the financial statistics of the Govern-
ment of Holland. It appears that the blin:isterial
plan for reducing the interest en a vast propoz tioa of
the public debt of that country is working smut with
,ignal efficiency and ;success. Within three months
)nly, from the promulgation of the law au thorising
this scheme of conversion, one-half of the whole
Amount of plate debt hypothecated for th'ils opera-
tion, has beeniletirdliieenverted ;tl ibterest thereon
being lowereillithijOir to five per/lent. C onsider-
ing the vastittaille the debt's...,' owes., and the
smallness a'htf'l,;k: is does much exceed
5,000,0001. st:lllll6,:tpeA ucn)-r-• T4abject achieved
becomes of se.timch t ce to. her. The
relief she has:t‘u .sg, fa her •- s so. much the
more immedulto and/ !oyanci-gilliSg. For Hol-
land, sufficiently releaiel frVrhthe 4mmels of that
disproportionate annual charge fnterest on her
public debt which she has hitherto had to meet, there
%re commercial prospects of the most encouraging
nature. In such an event, the private capital still
listributed among her highly industrious community
would be soon called into energetic and extensive dif-
fusion. The very many advantages arising from the
.ncidents of her geographical position, her ancient
ind still subsisting commercial relations in the East
and West Indies and on the Spanish Main; and her
ocality in the high road of European traffic, as an
intermediate emporium at all times for interchangeable
commodities, of which she was, heretofore, the general
carrier ; these may, in the course of events., within a
ew years raise her again into an attitude of first-rate
eminence among mercantile nations. She has ap-
proved herself, at all times, an active, able., vigilant,
ind jealous rival, whenever she has met competitors in
her path. And though she has been immeasurably
listanced and beaten in the race for maritime and
commercial superiority by the genius, the fortune,
Ind the inflexible progress of Great Britain, it may
oe a salutary recollection for us to cherish, that during
he latter period of that memorable rivalry for the
dominion of the seas, and of the empire of trade, we,
ourselves, had not the same formidable rivals in other
States to divert our undivided attention from the
growth of Dutch greatness that we now have. The
eederation of the United States of America was not
yet in existence. The States of the German Union
had not been associated in such an Anti-English
League as that which is now presented by the
Zollverein. Saxony, and Prussia, and Belgium, had
not appeared in the markets of the world as mann-
'acturing countries. The cotton and other fabrics of
Switzerland and of France were unknown as sus-
taining any competition with our own.. Russia,
which, on many accounts, as well as from the force
of ties of family connexion, it may now be assumed
would eagerly support the efforts of Holland to
make good her pretensions, as against the influence of
England, to re-occupy the once proud elevation from
which she has long since descended, was then a
fourth or fifth-rate Power, so far as commercial in-
fluence or marine was concerned. France had not
then established a species of monopoly in the profit-
able gum trade, and other branches of commerce, on
the western shores of Africa and elsewhere. How
distant soever the probability may, prima facie,
appear of Holland's reviving any considerable share
of her former maritime and commercial greatness,
these, then, it will .be allowed, are considerations
tending to bring that probability nearer to our
contemplation the more dispassionately they are
looked at.
The moral which this somewhat startling financial
ability of Holland suggests to our own minds is,
that it well behoves the Government of Sir ROBrirr
PEEL, by timely concessions to the principles of free
trade and financial economy, to improve upon the
example set by Holland, as the only means open to
us for retaining, in permanency, that paramountship
which we at present enjoy, against the challenge of
all competitors. Holland, with her circumscribed
population, and area, can have retrieved the scale of
her public credit to the extent of conducting so vas
an operation as we speak of, in diminishing the in.
terest of her debt, only by a rigorous and exact ad.
ministration of her annual revenue. She accom.

plishes this remarkable measure in the thirtieth year
of an European peace, not by the dangerous and
most unjust expedient of a tax on that property and
income which any far-seeing statesman will endea-

your, always, to preserve intact as to such im

posts, until there arises the invincible exigency of a
war ; but she—Holland—achieves her purpose by a
business-like, unsleeping, systematic supervision of

her revenue. There are no huge " Custom-house
frauds " perpetrated at Amsterdam or in Rotterdam,

whose colossal amount, in one year, renders it neces

sary (as we have seen the case to be in this country
ever since 1842) to supplement a deficient revenue
by new and odious taxes, to an extent commensurate
with the defalcations of that department in which the
frauds in question have been committed. There are
no stupendous forgeries successfully practised on
that precise bureau in which it is the especial duty
of our Minister of Finance to provide the securities,
and test the machinery of such provision, against the
spoliation of the national treasure. The 40,0001.
forgery the other day of Dutch National Bank paper
is scarcely to be noted as an exception to this remark,
when our Exchequer forgeries, alone, have amounted,
in BEAUMONT'S single case, to more than 400,0001.
Add to this 400,0001. the yet utterly unaQcertained
robberies daily effected by conspiracy, bribery, and
perjury on our revenue of Customs, and you have
an aggregate which shows that, were those branches

of the public service in which such stupenduous losses

have been incurred, better organised and more vigi-
lantly superintended, there would he no reason—and

consequently no excuse—for the abomination of Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S property-tax. The Premier would

find his Customs and his Excise increasing at a ratio
that would soon balance, at the least, the expenditure
by the income of each year ; and this equation, owing
to the enormous increase of trade consequent on the
remoial of his pernicious property-tax " screw,"
would be speedily enlarged to a surplus revenue
which would enable his Chancellor of the Exchequer
to carry on his reductions of last year, on the Three-

and-a-Half per Cents., to a proportion of our national
debt, liable to a similar conversion, that should be, in
proportion, equivalent to that on which the Dutch