The Sun.
London, England, 1850-08-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1850.

Preparations have been made on a rather extensive
scale for the third Congress of the Peace Association,
to be holden this time in the imperial metropolis of
Germany. By a somewhat unfortunate arrangement,
however, the building selected as the rendezvous of
the advocates of arbitration is that very St. Paul's
Church which was the scene of the Federative Parlia-
ment, the Parliament of stormy discussions and no
results, the Parliament of illusions and disappoint-
ments. The circumstance is unpropitious. Howbeit
time alone can demonstrate whether the meeting
about to be held on three successive days,
the 22d, 23d, and 24th of the present August,
will prove as barren of all good effects as
the Assembly presided over by Von GAGERN. One
beneficial consequence at least may be counted upon
as inevitable, namely, that a large amount of super-
fluous eloquence, such as might otherwise have
been inconveniently em ploy ed a ill be expended
in this very harmless agitation. In this respect
the Congress should at any rate be welcomed
with all earnestness, seeing that it acts yearly as a
sort of rhetorical safety-valve, thereby relieving the
rest of the community from an intolerable abundance
of declamation. Happily some fantastic outlet of this
kind has always more or less, preserved the multitude
from the garrulity of those good citizens who are
afflicted with a tendency to oratorical displays.
Carried away by an enthusiasm of this description
they have perpetually, generation after generation,
from time immemorial, flung themselves into enter-
prises as entirely illusory and impracticable. Never
before, perhaps, has any scheme of this kind been so
supremely Quixotic as this one of international arbi-
tration, but projects cf some sort kindred in their na-
ture have always existed. Nevertheless, while the
members of the Peace Association have been com-
pelled perforce to content themselves with the subor-
dinate praise due to imitators, it has been reserved for
them to carry the notion of these demonstrations to the
very acme of extravagance. At a period when the
whole continent was convulsed from one extremity
to another, when revolutionary outbreaks were
causing the cities of Europe to bristle with
bayonets and to resound with the tocsin of insurrec-
tion-; when Mobs were beseiging Rings in their
palaces ; wheii the pi ire ,s were leading on their
troops to the bombardment of great capitals ; when
provinces were eso!ated by civil war, and whole
countries laid waste by invaion—then, as if by way
of satire on their o sin proceedings, the peace gentle-
men congregatid together to inaugurate the new era
when spearheads should be carved into sickles,
and swords beaten Into ploughshares ! Paris—whose
every street has, more or less, at some time or another
been baptised by bloodshed—was selected as the scene
of their convention, 'Faris, twice taken by the com•

biped armies of Europe, Paris, the seat of Terror-
ism in. September, and the arena of the san-
guinary' massacre of June ! Again, it was
London. which was chosen as the place of their
assemb'tage, and that within a comparatively
short period of that April in which it was
deems 3d necessary for the Government of Great
Britain to call out the military force for
the maintenance of public tranquillity, placing
bands of soldiers with drawn swords in many of the
courtyards of Westminster, and collecting troops
armed with muskets behind the sand bags on the roof
of the Bank of England ! Now it is Frankfort-on-
the-Maine which is to be the scene of these concilia-
tory deliberations, Frankfort, not many months
ago, riddled with discharges of musketry, and ringing
with the cries of dying and wounded combatants !
Either by a premeditated defiance of popular judg-
ment, or by a most unlucky casualty, the representa-
tives about to appear at the pacific Congress in the
imperial metropolis of Germany are men of
about the most bellicose reputation in their respec-
tive countries. From England, for example, goes
Mr. COBDEN, a gentleman who a year or so back
threatened to crumple up the Russian empire like a
piece of paper, who, moreover, most lustily proclaimed
his sympathy for the Hungarian race, then fighting
for their liberties, and who only a few weeks ago
hinted his intention of handing one of his correspon-
dents over to the custody of the metropolitan police
for having employed towards himself the lan-
guage of intimidation ! Then again from France
goes no less warlike a personage than M.
EMILE DE GIRARDIN, the firebrand redacteur of the
Presse, the crochetty instigator of his countrymen to
all sorts of extremities, the assailant of all pacific
forms of government, the duellist who with a pistol-
ball shot down the chivalrous and gifted ARMAND
CARREL, the editor of the .National newspaper, that
patriotic genius of whom the Honourable GEORGE
SYDNEY SMYT BE has exclaimed so nobly—
" A wrong to conviction he could not endure,
And he fought for his Love when he fought for the Poor!"
These are the peace representatives, forsooth, who
are to teach mankind the sinfulness of battle !
These are the purveyors of tranquillity, the buck-
sterers of forgiveness, the chafferers in beneficence,
who are hawking their dogmas of arbitration about
from nation to nation as if they were the privileged
precursors and pursuivants of some nondescript
Millennium! Bah ! they are without even the merit
of originality. In the very sentiment out of which
the whole movement has been originated they were
forestalled, long ago, by Mr. Wacsroan SQUE ER S,
when he observes to Mr. SNAWLEY that, in bring-
ing his sons to Do-the-boys Hall, " he comes to the
right shop for morality !" Enough, however, of this pre-
posterous scheme of arbitration, a scheme which we do
not hesitate to call preposterous, although we doubt not
its advocates will as indignantly repudiate the epithet
as did Sir ULIc MACKILLIGUT when so termed by one
of the young gallants in Humphry Clinker. Prepos-
terous in every sense the movement is, being none less
so than would have been a meeting held for the sup-
pression of earthquakes among the ruins of Lisbon, or
among the smoking ashes of Guadeloupe.

After the virtual suspension of the Bank Charter
Act of 1844 by the Ministerial letter, to which we
have recently directed the public attention, no alter-
native remained but the assembling of both Houses of
Parliament without a moment's unnecessary delay.
The Government had taken upon itself the responsi-
bility of recommending an infringement of the exist-
ing law of the land, and pledged itself " to propose

to Parliament, on its meeting, a Bill of indemnity."
Nothing but the extreme urgency of the case, the
absolute necessity of a remedy prompt, vigorous, and
decisive, to arrest the rapid progress of the disease,
which would speedily have destroyed public credit,
and involved all classes in one common ruin,
could possibly have justified such a course. Bad and
indefensible as it was, and condemned by all right-
minded men, it was still " the law"—an Act of the
three estates of the realm, deliberately carried, and
which must, therefore, be respected by the Executive
so long as it was suffered to encumber the national
statute-book. The great probability of such " a
crisis" as that which had just occurred had been
foreseen by those best qualified to form a correct
judgment as to the future operation of the intended
law, and a memorial had been addressed to the then
Premier, Emphatically warning him of the conse-
quences of passing the Bill without a power being
reserved enabling the Bank cf Eng land, with the
consent of the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and the Master of the Mint,
to extend their issue upon securities, beyond the
amount of 14,000,0001. This important cau-
tion, which was signed by every leading
banking firm in London, with one excep-
tion, contained the following paragraphs, which
proceeding from such a quarter should have awakened
the Legislature to the dangerous character of the
contemplated measure :
" It is with considerable surprise that we find that the
Bill now before the House of Commons does not contain
any provision fur an extension of the issue beyond
14,000,00 W. upon securities, excepting under the special
circumstances named in the fifth clause of the Bill now
before Parliament.

" We are apprehensive that the absolute limitation of
the issue to 14,000 0001., without any power of expansion
being reserved, whether that amount be in itself a
proper amount or not, will create a general feeling of
uneasiness throughout tbe country, and, by preventing
the satisfactory reception of the measure, will deprive
the scheme of the advantages it possesses, and interterea
with its success.

" We respectfully submit, that the effect of such an
absolute limitation will be to restrict the business of the
country, by leading to a general withdrawal of legitimate
accommodation, unless some power be reserved by the
Bill for extending the issues with the sanction of the
authorities above alluded to in cases of emergency, to
be made apparent to such authorities."

The salutary suggestions were, however, neglected,
or, rather, slighted and despised. The bewildered
legislators persevered in their mad career—the Bill
was passed without the important addition recom
mended by the London bankers. A fatal confidence
was reposed in the efficacy of the " self-acting regu-
lator of the currency," and the power of expansion
was deliberately rejected by Parliament, who deter-
mined that the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the
Exchequer should not have the authority which they
afterwards assumed. These unquestionable facts
greatly enhanced the Ministerial responsibility. It was
clear that it was not a casus omissus which had been ac-
cidentally neglected. The possibility of such "a crisis"
had been foreseen; a mode of remedying the anticipated
evil, whenever it might arise, was clearly and dis-
tinctly pointed out ; Parliament was asked to make
the necessary provision for the dreaded emergency,
but the reasonable request was peremptorily refused ;
and the very Ministers, who afterwards suspended the
Act, were themselves parties to that refusal. We do
not reproach them for that apparent inconsistency,
on the contrary, we think that they deserve consider-
able credit for adopting so vigorous and decisive a
course, so contrary to the laisser faire policy usually
observed.

This indispensable step, however, rendered essen-
tial the immediate convening of Parliament. A dis-
solution bad taken place during the preceding summer,
followed by a general election, and the new Parlia-
ment assembled for the first time in the latter end of
November. An extraordinary change had, however,
occurred in the Ministerial feelings during the in-
terval. Although the bold experiment had succeeded
au merveille, had even surpassed the most sanguine
expectations that had been formed, its authors were
already anxious to retrace their footsteps, and to
maintain the Act which they had condemned and
virtually annulled a few weeks previously. Before
even the question could be discussed in either House,
the letter of the 25th of October was withdrawn,
after a brief but salutary existence of four weeks,
the letter of withdrawal being dated the 23d November.
This was the first symptom of a desire on the part
of Ministers to free themselves from responsibility.
In that letter they put prominently forward the fact,
that there had been " no infringement of the law.
Tt is was undoubtedly the fact. But they had autho-
rised the Bank directors to violate the law, and
pledged themselves to bring in a Bill of indemnity,
and could take no credit to themselves because that
course was rendered unnecessary by the immediate
and almost magical result of the step they had taken,
which assured the public that the Bank had power to
advance notes to any amount, without limitation of
any kind ; that the 8,000,0001. of gold and silver
coin which had previously been locked up in
the coffers of the Bank were rendered fully avail-
able; and even if that were not sufficient,

that a suspension of cash payments would be resorted
to, if necessary. It was, therefore, to say the best of
it, rather unfair and uncandid on the part of Govern-
ment to set up the defence that there had been no ac-
tual "infringement of the law." •

But it speedily became painfully apparent
that that was the least of their backslidings. Sir
CHAILLES WOOD had determined, notwithstanding
the letter, to which he was an assenting and sub-
scribing party, to maintain the obnoxious law in
full force. This he could not accomplish directly ;it
required some of that " dodgery" for which the Whigs
have long been celebrated. His first object, therefore,
was to avoid the responsibility of dealing with the
question himself; his second to postpone the decision
thereon until the public excitement should be allayed,
so that the determination to maintain ull the restric-
tions imposed by the Act of 1844 inviolable might
be announced with impunity. Both these desiderata
would be, attained by referring the matter ton Select
Committee, who should fully investigate and report on
the subject. That course was adopted. On the 30th
November the Right Hon. Baronet moved for the ap-
pointment of a Select Committee "to inquire into
the causes of the recent commercial distress, and how
far it had been affected by the laws for regulating the
issue of bank-notes payable on demand," which oc-
casioned one of the most interesting discussions of
modern times. The Committee was ultimately ap-
pointed—we should rather say packed—and from the
hour of the nomination of its members all hope de-
parted from those who were looking anxiously for an
enlarged and comprehensive measure of monetary re-
form, so far at least as the labours of that Committee
were concerned.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
The Moniteur continues to publish telegraphic
dispatches descriptive of the progress of the
PRESIDENT. The following are the latest from Dijon :
‘..llijon, Aug. 14, Five P.M.
"THE PREFECT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE COTE-

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