The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE POLIO JOURNALS.

The Times deprecates the idea 'of our getting up anti- '
Fenian demonstrations, as proposed by the Metropolitan
;Working Men's Conservative Association. Such move-
ments are not required in this country. Of course it can
be easily understood that the indignation against
Fenianism which has been excited among the working class
by the Clerkenwell Explosion has in some cases, by an
ar,,.sy transition, taken the form of hostility to Irishmen.
Of course our workmen ought to remember that all Irish-
men are not Fenians, and that, whatever may be the reck-
lessness of the race, there can be only a very small
proportion of them ready to blow up gasworks or
mann streetsful of people. But it is difficult even for
detectives to know a Fenian when they see him ; how
then are working men to distinguish the intend-
ing murderer from the sympathiser, or the sym-
pathiser from him who is innocent of any evil
design ? Unfortunately, too, Irishmen have long
tongues. and are apt to say a great deal more than
they mean. When a man has been abusing the
British Government for years, and predicting the glorious
advent of freedom for his " oppressed country," with
many allusions to Irish armies and the " Stars and
Stripes," his companions may be excused for believing
him a conspirator, though we who know Irishmen can
well understand that he is perfectly harmless. The fact
is that the Irish population generally is deeply suspected
by the English, and the threats of outrages in which
English working men would be the chief sufferers have
irritated the latter extremely. If they are kept much
longer in continual apprehension by these rumours, we
may expect a strong animosity to be engendered, which
any new atrocity would perhaps rouse into immediate
action. As it is, we are informed that in some districts
one of the chief tasks of the police is to protect the Irish
workmen and labourers against their incensed neigh-
bours. In Staffordshire they are looked upon with
a distrust deepening into hostility; in South Wales
it would take very little to raise the native miners
against them, and in London the most easy and
cosmopolitan of our town populations would never endure
a repetition of the Clerkenwell exploit. For these reasons
it would rather deprecate any course which would seem to
place the English in conflict with the Irish, and increase
the jealousy which present circumstances are arousing.
Englishman of any class needs to give a pledge of his
loyalty, for nobody suspects 'him ; if he wish to assist in
keeping the peace, he can be sworn in as a special con-
stable. This is the most solemn as well as the most con-
stitutional and practical of demonstrations. Anti-Fenian
or, as they might become, anti-Irish meetings throughout
the country would tend to increase an agitation which it
is desirable to allay, and they might possibly, in some
case, produce an untoward event. With every respect for
the good intentions of our Conservative friends, we would
advise them to abandon their project, and be content to
know that their loyalty is taken for granted.
The Post thinks it quite time that the money-lending
trades should be put under penalties. It offers great
temptations to youths. It is too much to expect from
any boy, ignorant of the world and its ways, that he shall
resist pleasure in its most attractive form. Not only is he
asked by scores of advertisements and confidential letter..
to borrow money in sums which he has never before
possessed, but every device is exhausted to excite his
hopes and lull to sleep his prudence. No term is fixed for

repayment if he is a troy whose expectations are known to
be good. Ile may set his guardians at defiance before he
has left school, and discount a considerable part of his for-
tune at cent. per cent. This is not all. A system of touting
exists which is inexpressibly shocking. Some of these
ogres keep touts at Eton and other of the great
public schools. Money-lenders' touts may be numbered
by the dozen at the universities and military clubs. They
are even sent out to the chaplains and German professors,

who often finish the education of young men of fortune.
These touts receive a fixed percentage on every transac-
tion, and many of them make a base but plentiful living
by decoying their companions. There has been more than
enough of this kind of thing, and it is quite time that it
should end. All persons who are entitled to borrow money
for any proper object may obtain it from twenty different
sources at a fair price, and from capitalists who are eager
to lend it. If, therefore, a money-lender thinks proper to
invest his means in so discreditable a speculation as an
attempt to defraud children too inexperienced to cope
with him, he should be left alone in every case to get out
of the trouble in which he may become thereby involved
without help from anybody.
We are reminded by the Herald that a telegram from
Men of December 20 tells us that the head of the 2nd
brigade w%.5 expected there next day. The Scinde Horse
and the 4th brigade from Bengal were counted upon to
arrive about the end of the month or early in January.
Transports carrying the field telegraph staff, ordnance
stores, and commissarir.t, were passing Aden daily cn route
:or Annesley Bay. Tier Majesty's ship Star was en2;a:,ed
ln buoying and lighting the Abyssinian coast. No scion.
thic appliance, no ingenious invention of modern Cnies,
will be wanting in the complete furnishing of an enter-
prise which is without a parallel in modern times.
Some time back, when an enthusiastic gentleman
suggested mildly the advisability of doing some-
thing to procure the liberation of the captives, he
was met by the scoffing question whether we were to got
to Abyssinia in a balloon. A port without a landing-
place, a plain without water, a pass that is all but impas-
sable, a country without roads, a people without a ruler—
these are obstacles enough to shake the resolve of the
most dauntless. Not for any chimera, any dream of con-
quest, any slight pique or occasion of quarrel, should we
have undertaken an expedition in the teeth of such diffi-
culties, or launched so many brave men into a situation so
surmounted wan peril. It is because we know our cause
to be a good one, pure from all taint of selfishness or lust
of gain ; because we feel that we have been driven to this
enterprise by considerations of a character which we
cannot gainsay, that we feel so confident of succeeding in
it, now that we have once fairly put our shoulders to the
wheel and have our hearts in the work.

The Saturday Review does not hesitate to plainly tell us
that the recently published revenue returns speak of a
depression of industry increasing up to the end of the year.
The return is the worst that has been seen for many years,
not even excepting the period of the cotton faraine, but it
is so mainly because we have been accustomed for so long
a period to uninterrupted progress that the slightest check
fills us with surprise and disappointment. After all, the
actual loss on the year is scarcely appreciable—less than
per cent. of the entire revenue ; and thus far the ascer-
tained result is merely this, that we have lost one year of
our usual progress, and stand now pretty much wLcrc we
we were on the Ist of January, 1867, with the one impor-
tant exception that the interval which separates us from
the cause of the mischief is three times as great as it then
was. Moreover, it is to be remembered that the previous
return with which the comparison of the present is made
was one of an extraordinary kind. Notwithstanding the
panic, the revenue of 1866 shewed an improvement of
nearly £2,500,000, or about one-third more than the normal
increase. According to the usual estimates of the natural
growth of the revenue, two years ought to add
£3,500,000 to the national income in the absence of any
alteration in taxation. Of the last two years, one has
contributed nothing in the shape of increase, while the
other has given £1,000,000 less than the amount fairly to
be expected from the two together. This, therefore, is the
more exact measure of our loss. The ordinary increment
for eight months would amount to more than a million ;
so that if we group the whole period since the beginning of
1866 together, what we have to regret is a cessation of
improvement during some months, and that is all, unless
the stagnation should continue for some part of the coming
year. On consideration it may be thought that this is not
a heavier penalty than the nation deserved for all the fol-
lies that culminated in the panic of 18;6 ; nor is it one
that may not be borne with patience, and perhaps re-
couped by the first year of wholesome commercial
activity. Still, it is not a small thing for a country like
England to stand still in developing her productive
power for two-thirds of a year ; and it is only to be
regretted that this and many other results of excessive
speculation are never remembered except at times when
excessive speculation is impossible. The tardiness with
which the influences set at work by a commercial crisis
produce their natural effect still further diminishes
the impressiveness of the lesson. Until very recently the
country was quite jubilant at the strange elasticity of the
revenue in the year when Overend, Gurney, and Co.
closed their doors, quite forgetting that the retribution
might still be impending, as we now know that it was.
Nor is there anything surprising in this. Many of our
taxes are based upon profits and dealings at least a year
prior to the date of collection, and if a series of revenue
returns were carefully analysed for the purpose, it would
probably be found that they measure, as a rule, rather the
prosperity of the previous than of the current year. If
this is so, we can scarcely expect a very early rebound.
The depression of trade has not yet been recovered, and
the national income in 1868 will probably suffer from the
stagnation of 1867, just as that of the present year has
suffered from the calanit'es of 1866. It is unlucky that
tile exceptional expense of the Abyssinian expedition
should have fallen upon so unlucky a time, and we may
think ourselves fortunate if the additional penny of
income tax should prove to be the last of the demands
which the Chancellor of the Exchequer may have to make
on this account. Mr. Disraeli will, no doubt, have the
tact to see that these are not times for ambitious budgets,
and that the only sound financial policy of the Government
is one of careful economy and sober expectation.