The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-24 00:00:00

SHIP NEWS.

LIVERPOOL, DEC, 23.—Wind S.W.—The West Point,
for New York, has put bsck with loss of maiuynrd, sails,
&c., and vessel much streinei, having encountered a
hurricane on Dec. 12, in lat. 51, long. 31. The Equa-
, tor, from Liverpool, at Queenstown, for Boston, with foss
of sails, and rudder damaged, &I. The Hortense, from
Port-au-Prince, at Falmouth, for Liverpool, with damage.
The ()Mavis, from London to Panama, was lost Nov. 4
on the Elena Point; crew saved. Arrd., Arthur, from
New Orleans; Amethyst, from Patras; Voyager, from
Cadiz; Gannet steamer, from Rotterdam; Lord Gough,
from Miramichi. Cleared outwards, Virgiania, for New
Orleans; Harriet Augusta, for New Orleans; Jacoba
Westervelt, for New York; Baobab, for Malta; Cathe-
rina, for Antwerp; Henderiks Margaretha, for Lisbon;
Aliden, for Lisbon; Fernandez, for Lisbon; Syttende
Alai, for Sables d'Jlonne; Mediterranean, for Bonny;
Nu.vo Rosario, fir Bilboa; Lanercosr, fur Valparaiso.
Sld., Espoir, for (Mend; Flora, for Palermo; St. Jo-
hannes, for Alexandria; Phoenix, for Havanr ah.
QUEENSTOWN, DEC. 21.—A wreck with royal mast,
and yards across, t2O fet above water, was teen Dec.
17, off Lundy, by the Alarchiunoss of Bute, arrived here.
DONEGAL, DEC. I9.—The Regina, from Troon to
Alexandria, anchored last night inside of the Duwan
Rock; part of cargo (coals) thrown 'overboard.
RAMSAY (ISLE OF 21. ax), DEc. 21.—The Johns schoo-
ner, of Preston, carried away her topmast, Dec. Is,
became unmanageable, and drove on shore; after di,.
charging part of her cargo (pig iron), she was got off
Dcc. 19, has undergone repairs, and will sail to-night
for Preston.

BuEsr, DEC. 19.—The Concepzione, from Lipari to
Falmouth, which put into this roadstead, D2c. 17, with
damage, came into the harbour yesterday, leaking, loss
of rails, sails split, &e , having been on her Team-ends,
and must discharge.
STOCKLIL.L3I, DEC. 13.—The Gustave Adolf, from
Carlscrona, was stranded on Deland, Nov. 21; crew
saved.

THISTED, DEC. 12.—Sundry wreckage—a large mast,
rigging, and sails, api.arently bel'ingiug to a Dutch kuff,
drifted on shore off Madbbol on the 10th November (10th
Ike Ember?). Part of a boat, marked "H. Brinck," and
three name-boarjs, marked "Yongo Mesta." a certificate
of tonnage issued in London, May 9, 1849, for the
Yong° Mesta, cf 11,1fzy1, H. C. Brinck master, have also
come on shore in this neighbourhood.
ELSINEUR, DEC. 15.—St. Patrick, Memel t 9 Lyons,
has put in here to-day leaky.
W IGTOWN, DEc. 18.—A boat, of about 13 feet keel,
with "Ellen, of Liverpool," on her stern, was picked up
last week in the bay of Luc-.

_
CONSTANTINOPLE, DEC. 7.—Royal Willi2m schooner,
from Cardiff to Galatz, was totally lost at the mouth of
the St. George's branch of the Da-mbe, Nov. 20; all
hands saved.

CADIZ, DEC. 14.—Curnforth, of Sunderland, from
Naples to Cork or Falraouth, put in here esterday
evening, with ICS 3 of mainmast, during a heavy pie from
the eastward.

HALIFAX (Nova SCOTIA), DEC. 12.—Alexander, of
Milford, from Cairo, timber laden, was fallen in with on
the 23d of November, off the Island of S►. Pierre, water-
logged. Henrietta, of Arundel (Norway), Quebec to
London, put into Sydney, C. 8., 24th November, with
loss of sails, bulwark!, and stanchions. Sarah, Jamaica
to Quebec, was lost on the Magdalen Islands on the
20th November. A large sh:p, laden with timber and
flour, name not known, is reported to have gone on
shore at Bay St. Lawrence during a gale on the 22d
November. Southampton, of Yarmouth, N. S., from
Montreal to this port, went on shorn on the south-cant
point of Devil's hland, at the entrance of this harbour
during a snow. storm on the night of the 7th December.
QUEBEC, DEC. G.—The weather has been very fine
for the last few days, and the last square-rigged vesse',
William Wilberforce, sailed hence on the Ist Decernbar
far Milford, with a fine W. wind.
ST. Jones's. NEWFOUNDLAND, DEC. 4.—Wasp, or and
from Prince Edward's Island, to this port, was totally
lort in the night of the 28th Nov., during a thick fog,
to th© S. of Petty Harbaur ; one man saved.
CHARLOTTE TOWN (PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND),
Nov. 27.—A severe gale at N.E., with snow, was ex-
perienced here in the night of the 21st and morning of
the 22(1 Nov., which has done considerable da-nage to
vessels belonging to this island. Union, of and bound
to Ha'ifax, N. S , from Quebec, was lest on the north
side of this island during the gale, and is advertised
for sale, together with her cargo; one man perished.
Perseverance, of and from Miramichi, to List rpoul, was
!etslly wrecked also, and two of her crew perished.
Clausina, new barqu., is on shore in the harbour, has
been surveyed, and it is doubtful if she can be got off.
Gipsy, new brig, dragged her anchors and went on shore
near the Clausina, but is expected to be got eff.
HAVANNAH, DEC. 2.—Brazilian, from Galveston to
this port, was wrecked on the Colorado Reefs, near
Rahia Honda, Nov. 13; part of materials saved. (N.B.
French ship reported to have been seen on shore on the
Colorado Reefs by the Crescent City steamer, is sup-
posed to have been the above.)
GUAYAQUIL, Nov. 13.—Oottivia, of London, from

DAILY NEWS.—The North-Western Railway
Company, which gives employment at first•ch ss
Vt'lig(.B to many thousands of workpeople, and which
is honourably characterised by the attention Khich it
pays to the religious, morel, and educational wants of
its servants and their families, is again threatened
with a strike of a portion of its engine drivers. It may
before twenty-four hours elapse be again plagued by
a strike, if the malcontents have the bad courage to
carry their dishonest announcement out; for to vio-
late a contract as these men intended (as the docu-
ment given in yesterday's Daily News showed they
did intend) is dishonest. Now, of strikes generally
it is to be observed that they almost invariably occur
in highly-paid departments of labour. The colliers of
Durham.and Northumberland are probably the best
paid unskilled labourers in the kingdom ; and they
have for years been notorious for striking on the most
frivolous and senseless pretences ;
,to the serious
injury of their employers, to the deplorable
increase of crime, and not to the benefit of
their " order." S 3 with ship carpenters, so with
glass manufacturers, co with Sheffield, cutlers ;
all well-paid labourers, all confederated in
unions, are tyrannised over by disorderly workmen,
who trade on and live by the general credulity, and
interfere improperly with the good order of employ-
ment. So now, too, with engine drivers; they are
probably the very best paid workpeople in the king-
dom ; and they are, it is clear, getting into similar
bad habits. This is very much to be regretted ; for
engine drivers are, from their skill, their industry,
their general good conduct, and the danger of their
trade, well worth to their companies every penny
they earn ; and that company does not really study
its own interest or that of its proprietary, which
seeks to reduce their wages • for, besides irregularity
and accidents; there would' assuredly be. a larger
amount of wear and tear of engines consequent on
any such reduction. Firat•rate drivers are really
invaluable, and cheaper by a third, at least, than
inferior men ; so, if their general character were
improved, the probability is that their wages
would rise, and yet their employing companies
save money by the increase of wages, which
would be more than repaid by augmented economy.
The public has, therefore, a great interest in well-
paid engine drivers ; and so also have railway share-
holders. Yet these men appear to labour under the
impression that there is a deeply laid scheme amongst
railway directorates to reduce their wages. From
all that we can learn this impression is the merest
delusion. it is not, in the first place, the interest
of directors to do so. But if it were, they have
not the rate of wages altogether at their command.
Wages, like bread and butter, are regulated by
supply and demand ; and the supply of engine
drivers lasing below the demand ; the directorates are
much more at the mercy of the drivers than the
drivers at theirs; particularly in reference to first-
class drivers. And this the men seem to know very
well ; for no sooner have they any grievance, how-
ever small, however unreal or imaginary, than, know-
ing their places cannot easily be supplied, they strike.
Well, such being the growing characteristic of this
trade, the North-Western Company endeavours to
protect itself against the sudden recurrence of such
interruptions to its and the country's business, by
insisting that the drivers shall give it three months'
notice before quitting their employment, always, how-
ever, permitting them still to leave at the expiration
of a fortnight, should the inducement to go be better
employment elsewhere, and not the suspension of
work. Any fairer stipulation than this it really
seems'impossible to devise; it is at once protection of
the men's, the company's, and the country's interests.
Under its operation a goood driver can enter upon
higher wages, if he can find them, at the expire-
rion of fourteen days after they are found ; and
by its provision the company will have three months
to defend itself from the consequences of a com-
bination amongst tyrannical wo:kmere On wages
it has only one bearing : if wag, s from a
supply of additional hands tall, it protects the work-
man in his high wages for three months; if they rise,
it enables him to receive in other employ ment the full
benefit of the rise in a fortnight. And yet there are,
it seems, engine-drivers on the North-' estern so

dull and dead to their own pecuniary concerns that
they ree, or affect to see, in this beneficial arrange-
ment a secret and subtle attack on the rate of wages
which they now have. And their reason is, that, in
another part of their rules, they are bound to obey
prospective as well as retrospective rules and regula-
tions issued by the directors. Bat such prospective
rules are obviously regulations for conduct and man-
agement of the line, its work, and servants ; not for
the alteration of wages already fixed and agreed on.
If, however, these men, against the advice of the dri-
vers on the Southern, who two years ago bad some
experience of a strilo, do leave or have dishonestly
left their work, without giving the fortnight's notice
they are by their existing contracts bound to give,
two things are certain—first, that they cught to be
punished for such a flagrant violation of contract with
the utmost rigour of the law; secondly, that no other
railway company ought to take any one of them into
its employment. Fur men who, on the ground of
such an imaginary, contingent, and fictitious griev-
ance, attempt to suspend the intercourse between

two parts of the kingdom ought to be made a signal
example of. In all the records of strikes there is
nothing so unreasonable as the position these men
have assumed, and from it they must be routed. Such
combinations and strikes must depress instead of
raising wages permanently. For awhile the short
supply of engine-drivers may give them a slight ad-
vantage • but that advantage, thus used tyrannically,
will induce the masters to rear up end educate a
larger supply of competent men than the demand for
them requires. And where will high wages be then?
Gone—never to return.
ADVERTISER. —lt behoves the Protestants of
England to be on their guard. The peril is not past.
The aspect of affairs is sombre in the igtreme. The
mission of Mr. Shiel from the Whig Cabinet to the
Roman Pontiff, is a very inauspicious circumstance.
We fear it is of evil augury to those principles on
which the Reformation was based. " Never did
Cardinal bring good to England." Never did any
one proceeding on a mission from the Briti=h Go-
vernment to the Pope of Rome, bring good to the
Protestantism of this country. Lord Minto's mission
was an untoward affair. The friendly advances
which that Noble Lord, the father-in-law of the

Premier, made to the Roman Pontiff, .spozking in the
name of the Government of Queen Victoria, had much

more to do with that audacity which displayed itself in
the recent Papal aggressions, than most people imagine.
The very fact of making conciliatory advances to Pius

:he Ninth seems to have turned -his head never at

any time remarkable for its coolness. It was a grand
error to send Lord Minto on any such errand as that
on which he was displtched to Rome. The result

has proved that it was so. Ir. was kltogether a most
humiliating affair for this country. The Pope waxed
morn and more haughty and arrogant, with every new
act of courtesy shown to him by the representative of
the British Crown. He could not control his pride
and presumption, on receiving attentions from the
accredited representative of the Court of St. James's.
Instead of making us the expected concessions, in
return, he only, as we have stated, became more arro-
gant and aud3cions in his demands. What causes us

deep tnortification, and us with amazement, is,
that after the signal failure of the Minto
mission, and the discredit which that failure

brought upon the British name, the idea
should fur a moment have entered the mind of the

Premier, to send another party on a similar errand.
It is not fur ui to pra•diet the result cf the mission of
Mr. Sheil. Pussibly, it miv meet ‘A ith seeming sue-

cess. But that success, even supposing it were to be
complete, must prove humiliating to every nalla who
glories in the Protestant and Et.g16.11 nacre. The

fact i 3 not to be gainsaid, that the GoverotnEnt of

Queen Victoria, the G-overnment ui the greatt.st
country in existence, exhibits it elf to the world in

the character of a suppliant at the feet of the Pope.
Mr. Shell, disguise it as the friends of Ministers may,
is commissioned, when he reaches the Vatican, to soli-
cit, as an act f comlescerliion on the part of the
Roman Pontiff, that he would withdraw his memo-
rable Bull of September last, and th?reby allay the
apprehensions of the Protestant su),jtcts of her Ma-
jesty. Lord John Russell had no right to make any
advances whatever to the Roman Pontiff. in so doing,
he has at once compromised the dignity of his Sove-
reign, and the character of his country. No wonder
though the Vatican became intolerably vain, when the
Government of Great Britain, in the case of Lord
klinto's embassy, appeared in the humiliating attitude