The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-08 00:00:00

411101431 S :7:ZI2M

LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1850.

England has been rather felicitously designated
the Ark of the World : it might more appropriately
still have been termed the Ararat on which reposes
the Ark of our Constitution. For within this ma-
jestic and liberal Constitution the types of every
class and the representatives of every opinion may
find shelter in the midst of the deluge of Revolutions.
Under the protecting shield of our institutions they
may escape from the perils usually attendant upon
political adventurers. The agents of Communism
and of Absolutism, the advocates of democracy
and of oligarchy, the leaders of the gauche
and of the droit, of the Mountain and of
the Plain, of the Red and of the White,
may all flock to our shores in the periods of emer-
gency, confident of finding displayed towards them-
selves an impartial and undiscriminating hospitality.
They have done so—as may be recognised any day by
the loungers in Brompton and along the shady side of
Piccadilly. While such is the indisputable glory
and prerogative of England-74he glory of independ-
ence and the prerogative of affordingsicl to the un-
fortunate and a home to the outlaws of continental
Europe—there exists, also, among the mountainous
regions of that great continent an inter-
mediate place of refuge, the maintenance of the in-
violability of which is a matter in the highest pos-
sible degree desirable. Yet such is- the audacity
inspired to the reactionists throughout the, different
European states and principalities by the recent suc-
cesses over their antagonists—successes achieved less
even by brute-force than by treachery—tihat the ab-
solute Governments are at this moment meditating a
flagrant interference with the rights of independence
and the advantages of neutrality, hitherto: in the un-
disputed possession of Switzerland. For 4 the revela-
tion of this sinister &sigh we are not 'exclusively
indebted to the son-in-law of the Due Da BROGLIE,
M. le Comte D'Haussonvx4n, but to the rumours
bruited about in most political circles during a very
considerable and protracted interval. Madmen that
they are, these aristocratic administrators.are solici-
tous to close against political refugees thoscrhospitable
cantons of the Helvetic Confederation ~jrhich have
until now enabled so many thousands ..to escape
from the unnecessary horrors of the dungeon
or the scaffold, from the dagger. of the
assassin or the blade of the guillotine-41e reflect-
ing that the day may very rapidly arrive,#' hen they
will themselves yearn for a similar retreat:sn'tnisfor-
tune. It is ever thus with the successfull! when the
pride of an overweening confidence dercises its
despotic and paramount influence over their judgment.
Possibly, however, the circumstany of the
great electoral assemblage of the .t..?;-men of
Berne, holden on the 25th OtiMo at
Munzingen, may prove effectual in r restraining
the ardour of these intended violators of ,Sniss in-
dependence, for upon that occasion, an occasion
which will doubtless be regarded as memorable by
future annalists, there were collected together a con-
siderable majority of the moderates, or they may even
be termed the conservatives of the Confederation,
6,000 of the Radical electors being collected together
in the meadow of the Bear, and exactly double
that number, namely 12,0001 conservatives,
in the meadow of the Lion, at Munzingen. In
consequence of the prospective change in the policy of
the Federal Government afforded by this unexpected
predominance of the moderates at Berne, now the
seat of the Central Administration, the Cabinets of
Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburgh may pause, in a
wholesome and judicious doubt, as to whether their
scheme of interposition should be developed or aban-
doned. That scheme arises from the terror
inspired among the Absolutists by the pre-
sence of so many powerful and celebrated
demagogues in a country which, from its
peculiar geographical position, may facilitate their
entrance at the very first opportunity, according as
circumstances may direct, either into France, Italy, or
Germany. Out of a pretence that such a posture of
affairs as the one just adverted to must be regarded
as inimical to the interests and the peace of the
European populations, the Absolutist Cabinets of
the Continent are endeavouring to ' extort a
guarantee for their future immunity from
punishment. They wish here, as others elsewhere,
"out of the nettle danger to pluck the flower safety,"
paying no heed to those.portentous events which, al-
though occurring in previous centuries, should warn
them like tremendous precedents from the future
perils otherwise inevitable: 'Whether OCHSREBEIN
and his associates were justified or not in provoking
an internecine war among the Cantons fur the pur-
pose of more effectually crushing the Sonderbund,
whether the means adopted by the Radicals
with a view to infuse more of their political principles
into the Vorort, were laudable or the reverse,
whether, in short, the " head and front of their
offending," namely, the forcible suppression of mo-
nastic institutions in Argau, were a proceeding en-
tftle'd to commendation' or condemnation, are ques-
tions now wholly apart from the settlement of another
inquiry forced.upon the attention of the vast majority of
European diplomatists, the question, namely, whether
S wiss independence is to be perpetuated intact, or
whether a violent interposition on the part of the
Absolute Governments of the COntinent is to dissipate
the dream of Helvetic nationality ? When a matter
like this is opened to the diScussion of arms we are
satisfied that the most democratic of all the cantons,

such as Tessin and Zurich, the Grisons, Berne,
Vaud, and Geneva will co-operate even with the
previous sections of the Catholic and Conservative
League called the Sonderbund, Lucerne, Schwitz,
and Unterwalden, IJri, Zug, Fribourg, and the
Valais—resolved at all hazards to defend with a
strong arm, and a proud heart, and an undaunted
resolution, the ancient rights and inalienable glory of
Switzerland.

There is, perhaps, no subject on which the great
body of the people are so uniinformed and careless as
that which' is of the deepest and most vital import-
ance to their real happiness and prosperity. Speak
on almost any question Of general interest in a mixed
company, and ,you will, find the great majority of lis-
teners perfectly competent to take part in the discus,
sion, and well acquainted with the chief features of
the existing system, its comparative advantages and
disadvantages, the objections that may be urged
against it, and the arguments that mai be brought
forward in its support. But introduce the subject of our
monetary code—of the unwise and impolitic currency
laws that lead to such extraordinary fluctuations
in j
the value of money, and produce periodically
mercial crisis, forcing the country through the
" established cycle," which, according to Lord OVER.
STONE, consists of " quiescence, improvement, grow-
ing confidence, pro.sperity, .excitement, overtrading,
convulsion, pressure, stagnation, distress,• and ending
again in quiescence," and all remain sihint. Some
Will candidly confess that they "do not understand
the subject," that it is so abstruse and ditheult as to
be totally beyond their comprehension, and
CAA _they leave it to wiser heads to settle ; while
others, with an affectation of greater intelligence,
will declafe that they prefer " gold " to " worthless
rags," and perhaps may murmur something about
4i assi nate," " invariable convertibility," or some of
the other bugbears with which the bullionists have
been accustomed to delude the people into a tacit
acquiescence with their quackeries and fallacies. Most
persons admit the propriety of Parliamentary reform
—they
extension
goo of the franchise—but they do not see that an
concede the imperative necessity 9f an exten-
sion
fall
man able and willing
and remunerative. employment" to every
of the circulating' medium, which would
to work, throughout
the entire country, is required. They will