The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-17 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 17, 1868.

toy his political views to the speech he lately de-
livered to the electors of Richmond. The hon. gentleman
then promised to support every measure for the improve.
ment of those elements of the civil law which needed
improvement, and also improvements in the army and navy
—in short, to all improvements which he understood to be
improvements he would give his honest and earnest
support. It had been said that he had virtually through
his conduct on the Irish Church gone over to the
Conservatives. How had it happened, then, that he
had just been rejected by Oxford! As to the Ballot,
which by some seemed to be regarded as a political
shibboleth by which Liberalism had to be tested, he
voted with Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Mill in opposing its
ntroduction. His reasons were too high a respect for the
working classes themselves, that as votes were openly
riven in the House of Commons in uniformity with the
sentiment that public power ought to be exercised under
► sense of public responsibility, any elector who has the
same power of government as the members of the Legis-
ature should vote openly as they do. Ninety-nine out of
;very hundred men would say how they voted. The Ballot
was not consistent with absolute secrecy in voting. After
dection by ballot the election could not be reviewed.

At Tamworth the electors heard Sir ROBERT and Mr.
TORN PEEL, and Sir HENRY BULwER. The latter, after
:ailing upon the electors who had invited him to stand for
he borough to give him their supportat the poll, said that
se was not going to make any new professions of political
'aith. When formerly in Parliament he had given a
:onscientious support to Liberal measures, and, though his
mtward appearance might have changed since that time,
lis political sentiments had remained unaltered. Expe-
ience bad but increased the strength of those opinions,
'or the more he had seen of despotism in various parts of
he world, the more he had been:shocked by its withering
nfluence ; and the more he had witnessed the extension of
?opular rights the more he had found that confidence
•eposed in the great bulk of the people was not misplaced.
Mr. VILLILBS returned thanks to the electors of Wolver-
lampten for his unopposed return. He said it was a
great crisis, in which the interests of the people were
nvolved. He said this most distinctly, after
eery much consideration, and after a review of what
lad happened during a political career extending
)ver many years. He never in his life had known
a, moment more important to the interests of the people
;han that in which they were then living. They
sad got the franchise. It had been extended to them at
ast, and he believed they were entitled to it. He never
mew the people ask for that which did not conduce to
the interests of the empire. The people had got the power
sow, and they were not going to be such fools as not to
Ise it. They must be fools indeed who thought the
)eople would not use it. The Tories might not
save been wise in giving it to the people, but
he people had got it, and he for one said " Go on."
r.t was gratifying to see the interest which the working
:lasses took in the conduct of the different constituencies.
They had for their leader a singularly eminent
nan—a man in whom they believed, for he was
lonest, and they knew he was able. Mr. Glad-
'tone had adopted the colours of the people.
tic had nailed them to the mast, and he would
sever strike his colours. He (Mr. Villers) knew
11r. Gladstone was acting with Mr. Bright, whom
se thought they could trust. The people knew
hat they were right in trusting Mr. Gladstone—they
mew they were right in trusting such colleagues as Mr.
aright. They knew what Mr. Gladstone had promised—
,bat he would reduce taxation, that he would extend edu-
:ation to all classes, and that he would establish religious
,quality in Ireland ; while he did nothing—and this was
nost prominent in all his speeches—that could in any
cay affect the Protestant faith,

DIRECTORS AND PROMOTERS 1N
PARLIAMENT.

( From the Anglo-American Times.)

Not professing to partisanship as regards Ame-
rican politics, we cannot be supposed to be influ-
enced by politics as regards England, to which, in
truth, we devote little attention. But we earnestly
desire, for the honour of the father and model of
all Legislative Assemblies, that the people may
not returla to Parliament one man whose name has
been sullied in connection with the late poisonous
crop of swindles, from the deadly night shade of
which the nation does now, and will for many a long
year, suffer. Can English people rejoice that he
whom they selected to represent a great metropoli-
tan constituency should be the one at whom the
magistrate of a Brussels Police Court launched his
heaviest censure, confirme I and endorsed by a
Bench of Belgian Judges ? Can they like their
eccentricities in money matters to be the subject of
scoffs and sneers in a Criminal Court of the very
city they had spent half a million to drain and
beautify ; while the name of another member of
Parliament was freely used, whose peculiar style of
financing has ruined thousands, though it has raised
him from obscurity to affluence? Sir M. PETo has
happily retired. Mr. ALBERT GRANT does not aspire
to a re-election ; Mr. RICHARD STUART LANE will
not get one, indeed he would be better employed
in explaining the affairs of the Merchants' Com-
pany. Since that extraordinary scene in the Lord
Mayor's court, nothing more has been heard
by the public as to those damaging charges so
suspiciously hushed. Directors who feel things
must be explained in connection with the queer
games some short time ago played, would, if they
took our advice, levant at once, and seek a
more genial clime and a more grateful obscurity
than the harsh winter and disagreeable notoriety
which most certainly await them here. Perhaps
never before did men gain more at greater cost to
others, and less cost to themselves ; still thousands
upon thousands of families cannot be plunged into
poverty by nefarious transactions without a day
of reckoning at last arriving ; and that day has
now come. Last Monday Mr. PHILIP VANDERBYL,
M.P. (the Daily Telegraph spells his name VAN-
DERVILLE) was examined in the Rolls Court on a
petition for winding up the Lundy Granite Com-
pany. This gentleman is a partner in a re-
spectable city firm, which in 1865 formed
one of the three constituting the London
Merchants Company, on the breaking down of
which, Messrs. LANE, HANKEY, and Co. founded
the Merchants' Company, that precious concern
about which we lately heard something in the Lord
Mayor's Court. We must not be supposed for a
moment to confound the two, for nothing could
have been more fair and honourable than the action
of the London Merchants' direction, as luckily for
the shareholders who had early taken fright, at least
one of the firms was of high honour and standing. Mr.
VANDERBYL'S evidence is worth glancing at, though
not cross-examined, as this will yet be treasure to the
historian ; for some gentlemen, while rapidly making
fortunes over their lunch in the back parlours of
their handsomely furnished offices whereon the
magic word Limited was written, were not aware
that they were also making a chapter of English
history S 3 discreditable as to redden the face
centuries hence of their descendants. One of their
pleasing delusions is founded on the old saying of
" there being no use in crying over spilt milk," that
the shareholders in general will accept their
ruin without further inquiry when they know
that all is irretrievably lost now they arc
rapidly realizing the fact of the reverse being the
case, as the shareholders hitherto were restrained
by the deception the Directors fostered, that any
row would only finish off the remnant ; but on the
knowledge that even the remnant is gone, they
turn savagely to ask—where? Mr. VANDERBYL
gives an idea how a good deal of money belonging
to the shareholders of the National Bank went, of
which he was a Director. He was also a Director
of the Bank of Hindustan, China, and Japan, of
which at the time of stoppage the National Bank
were creditors for over a million. He believed that
some of the Directors were Directors of the Inter-
national Company, and of JOSEPH SUCHE and Co.
(Limited) ; the latter were on intimate relations
with some of the Directors of the National Bank.
He had everywhere heard it rumoured that the
Directors of the National Bank had received large
sums for the promotion of companies. Sir JOSEPH
M'KENNA, the managing Director, had he had
heard, made a hundred thousand pounds, of which
£40,000 was from the Peruvian R tilway Com-
pany, now being wound up. He believed that
M'KENNA had the control of the allotment
of the Peruvian Company, that the market
was rigged, and that the Stock Exchange justly
animadverted on the case. The Bank was like-
wise
tearn connected
promotion of the National
Steam
Company and M'KENNA, with
Navigation
with the
Mr. HARVEY LEWIS, also M.P., and Mr. HEN-
SHAW, were promoters of (that precious concern)
the Marseilles Land Company. They were also
connected with the promotion of the International
Contract Company (a most disastrous thing.)
APKENNA and another of the directors are con-
nected with the promotion of CHARLES LAFITTE
and Co. The National Bank, he had heard, found
the money for taking up the shares ; but, though a
director, receiving four or five hundred per annum
from the Bank, he could not say. We may here
explain that an attempt was made not long before
the final panic which smashed up these swindles
to form the celebrated banking firm of LAFITTE into
an English Joint Stock Company (Limited), and a
disastrous failure termed the Ottoman Financial
Association was to be incorporated, so that the in-
tricacies might never be followed out between the
directors with the money and the shareholders. How-
ever, the scheme to which the National Bank lent
themselves failed, and any one may now le irn, on
inquiry, at least what the value is of the Ottoman
Financial Association shares. Mr. POWER, the
Secretary of the National Bank, had 900 shares in
the Peruvian Railway Company, Mr. VANDERBYL
believed, but he did not think any money was ad-
vanced by the bank to take up shares of that com-
pany. The shareholders of the National Bank had
raised a great outcry on the conduct of the direc-
tors with regard to these companies, and Mr. VAN-
DERBYL stated that the managing director received
for his work a salary of £4,200 per annum. We
have no desire to reflect on the evidence given by
this member of the late Parliament regarding his
connection with the Lundy Granite Company, nor
do we know what the state of that company is; but
it cannot wholly be passel unnoticed. Mr. VAN-
DERBYLT signed the memorandum of association,
and assisted in its promotion at the request of
M'KENNA. He denied, however, any knowledge
of operations to raise the price of the shares ; he
never tried to work them up to a premium, nor
contemplated such a thing, nor had he heard
of a broker applying for a large number.
One of those awkward facts in a court of
law, a forgotten letter, was here produced, and if
the report in the Telegraph is to be believed, Mr.
VANDERBYL then swung suddenly round. He had
no recollection of it, but he had no doubt lie did
try to work the shares up to a premium ; he took
everything for granted M'KENNA told him, and
very probably wrote the letter at his dictation. He
did not call working shares up to 3 or 4 prenaium, with-
out bona fide purchases, rigging the market, and ho
thought it very likely that it was Mr. Fox,
broker to the National Bank, or his London corre-
spondent, who applied for 5,000 shares. He could
not tell, but it was very possible Mr. Fox got £5OO
from the company for that transaction, and when
shown an entry in the pass-book of the National,
" Fox £500," he believed that to be the payment in
question. We merely find this recorded in the
columns of the 7'elegraph, and we know nothing of
the Lundy Granite Company ; but the evidence
given by this director of the National Bank is too
remarkable to be passed wholly without notice.
In the first place, the National Bank is among
the greatest of banking institutions ; in the
next place, these companies with which a few of its
Directors were associated were among the most
disastrous failures in London. Some of them were
even worse than mere failures. In this lies the de-
struction of all confidence, fur we have in this a
great banking institution and leaders among the
mercantile community connected with such affairs—

that very connection being the decoy-duck to the
outside public who are ruined in masses while the
promoters thrive.
In another place another examination was being
conducted, as remarkable in its way, to which here
we have only space briefly to allude. The B tnk
of Bombay held in that Presidency something of the
position the Bank of England holds in London. So
intimate was the connection of Government with
it that the shareholders believed it to be responsible
that the paid-up capital should be refunded to them in
the event of the bank's failure. Some officers of the
Government were Directors ex officio, yet this bank,
notwithstanding the exertions of the Government
to keep it afloat, smashed after the bursting of the
great Bombay Bubble. That the new-fanglel finan-
cial and reclamation schemes should fail would sur-
prise no one, for the Anglo-Saxon race have a singular
aptitude for turning an unexpected tide of prosperity
into inflation and consequent collapse. But that this
old Government Bank, weighty with a heavy ori-
ginal capital, as well as the accumulation of
years of sound business, should fly off among
such kites, petrified alike the people of Bombay
and England, who naturally were curious to learn
the cause. Now, the telling of this story, though
not a matter on which Roychund Premchund and
the like will break their hearts, is like wringing the
life-blood out of some of those who benefited by it,
or were connected with it. A member of the
Madras Civil Service was thus examined, and con-
veniently forgot many circumstances, as did the
member of Parliament until an awkward letter was
produced, which took all the wind out of his sails,
and he was like a ship caught aback. We repeat
our earnest hope that the people will not return
any man to Parliament connected with these ques-
tionable transactions, which, however they may re-
concile to their own conscience, cannot but be inju-
rious to a Legislature, that has already suffered
enough from such connection.

THE PARTIES OP THE FUTURE IN THE

UNITED S 7 AYES.

Notwithstanding that the fight for power and for
the spoils was so earnest in the United States neither
party represented well defined and fixed principles,
although each did represent a different policy. Upon
what principle is the Republican party founded, or, its
Democratic rival? The former, in the African ernan
cipation has gained the object for which it strove;
the latter, in opposing negro suffrage, has swung
round against the very platform upon which it was
built up. Setting aside the Congressional policy of
Reconstruction as decided—for what other than
office, is the strife of parties ? There are momentous
questions to be settled, such as Protection versus
Free Trade, Greenback Redemption and Taxa-
tion of Interest versus a liberal and honourable
interpretation of the contract, Civil Service Re-
form, versus the scramble for office as at present ;
yet there is not one upon which the parties are
squarely divided. In England it is asserted that the
Republicans advocate Liberalism as opposed to the
Democrats who advocate Conservatism, and as
a general rule the Liberal papers throw themselves
strongly into the Republican ranks, while such as the
Standard advocate the Democratic cause little less
violently than Toryism in England. But although
the American parties may, and perhaps must, even-
tually assume some such form as that given to them
in England, as yet, they have not ; and we, who
desire to write nothing but the unvarnished truth,
free from party bias, see no reason why what is not,
should, without challenge, be assserted as true.
Viewing broa Ily the whole position, we see a Pre-
sident elected, who is, of all Americans, the least
"pronounced" in his political opinions. if there
be a man in the Republic who is not a politician
that man is GRANT, and, as such he is in striking
contrast with his predecessors for many years. Do
the Republicans advocate an honest payment of the
Debt? if so, how is it they elected to Congress
Bumga, who declared most strongly for, and is the
leader of, Greenback Redemption? THADDEUS STE-
VENS, had he been alive, would certainly have been
re-elected, when the chief advocates against the
bondholders would have been found in those whose
influence weighe 1 Most, in the Republican ranks.
The election of BUFLER is to) significant a fact to
be overlooked in Europe, certainly at least by us,
whose business it is to note all the signs of the
times ; and with this election before us it cannot be
said that the parties are squarely divided, the one
for and the other against repudiation. The Ame-
rican Conservatives are thought, on this side the
Atlantic, to be the advocates of Free Trade ; and,
singularly enough, considering that Conservatives
elsewhere are its oppnuents. The head of the
Free Trade movement, Senator GRIMES, is, however,
a Republican, and when writing last year in lowa to
the Burlington Hawkeye, he thus expressed himself
—" So far as I know, the Republican party has never
taken any position on the subject of a tariff,
and so far as I believe four-fifths of the members of
that party in this State are in full accord with Mr.
WILSON, Mr. ALLISON, Mr. KASSON, Governor
KIRKWOOD, and myself, and with a majority
of the members of Congress from the North-
Western States, on the subject of an increase
of the present tariff." The Tribune " main-
tains the right of every Republican to be a
Protectionist or Free-Trader as he shall see fit ; no
man is less a Republican for any opinion he may
cherish on questions of political economy ; let each
Republican and each Democrat be a Protectionist
orFree-Trader, for license or prohibition, as his own
judgment shall dictate." As regards the third sub-
ject, the Reform of the Civil Service, there is not
an American of common patriotism who does not
pronounce strongly for it wholly independent of
politics, unless he be professionally a politician,
with his bread and butter at stake. The truth is
that, putting aside Negro Suffrage and Reconstruc-
tion as settled, neither party rests on a broad, well-
defined base, and the only other cry which could be
got up by the " outs" was that the " ins" were ex-
travagant, fleeced the people, and gobbled up all
the loaves and fishes. On the question of Recon-
struction the nation divided almost evenly, that
is, supposing every one throughout the South had
been quite freeto vote, the blacks not frightened from
the polls, nor any of the whites disfranchised. When
we get the full returns, we will find that although
GRANT carried 25 out of the 34 States permitted
to send electors, his majority remaining, if the
voters in the United States had all paired off, would
not have been large. The material then for two
good parties exists, the questions also exist ; what
is required is a separation on broad principles to be
applied to those questions as well as to certain others
foreshadowed by Mr. SEYMOUR, which will assuredly
rise into importance, and in some measure assimi-
late parties. in America to those of the United
Kingdom. He grounded his remarks on the undue
influence given to the large centres of population at
the expense of the agricultural districts, wherein we
see the germs of the fight between the manufac-
turers and the agriculturists, in which the interests
of the one will be mainly backed in the Western and
of the other in the Eastern States. England must
not mistake the position each will assume on one
important point, for in America it will be the re-
verse of what occurred during the struggle in Eng-
land; the agriculturists here were the Protection-
ists, the manufacturers being the Free-Traders, the
one deriving their power from the rural districts,
the other from the cities—whereas, the reverse will
be the case in America. The interests of the East
and West will clash on other questions besides the
unequal distribution of the national currency, but
on none so forcibly as on the tariff. At this moment
no man can predict how the parties will divide, and
we believe, although the New England States and
the Western States were unanimous in their elec-
tion of the Republican ticket, yet the interests of
the Atlantic States will be found to support the one
party, while the influence of the great prairie States
and the agricultural South will back the other party.
There can be no compromise on this subject in the
parties of the future, as heretofore; split they must,
be they Democrat or be. they Republican ; and when
the new machinery begins to work, the new ques-
tions will COM_lletiee fermenting, and Congress will
quickly begin to change. Suppose, for instance,
that the Hon. DAVID WELLS is selected by GRANT
as Secretary of the Treasury, an advocate of Free
Trade (for it cannot be denied that Mr. WELLS is
now in his heart a Free-Trader), will hold the post

in which he can make such an influence most felt.
Immediately the Protectionists would take fright,
and on such questions they permit no compro-
mise, no discussion. A split would, we believe,
instantly take place, and Republicans and De-
mocrats would range side by side. Indeed, now
that the great questions which held together the
Republican party, and the other, are decided by the
late elections, both it and its opponent are away
from their anchorage and adrift. They must
" let go" other anchors on ground with room to
swing, where they can take deeper and firmer boll.
The very essence of a free government is a constitu-
tional opposition, and no party ought ever to be
permitted by the people to gain an overwhelming
power, for they then degenerate into a d,?spotism,
such for instance as did the Whig families of Eng-
land, who long exercised a corrupt control over
Great Britain under the pretence of being Liberty's
guardian.

The coming history of the United States will be
of an interest little less exciting than that just
passed, for we must shortly see the dissolution and
the re-formation of the two great parties which have
for so many years ruled in the United States.—
Anglo-American Times.