The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDNY EVENING,

liberties of my people against all aggression and encroach-
ment."

It appears to us that these answers are perfectly satis-
factory ; the first quoted paragraph is evidently an ex-
I pression ofa determination to purge the Church as by law
established of those spies and traitors who, while they
deny her MAJESTY'S supremacy, seek to destroy the
" pure and spiritual worship of the Protestant faith,"
because it is " the surest safeguard" of religious
liberty ; and the second expresses her MAJESTY'S de-
termination to defend the independence of her people
against all the attempted aggressions of Ultra-
montanism. The answer to the London addresses
must, however, be read by the answers to the ad-
dresses from the Universities, which were presented
to her MAJESTY immediately afterwards, and here
we are rejoiced to find that in her answer to the
Oxford address her MAJESTY in distinct and unmis-
takable terms vindicated her undoubted right to
spiritual supremacy over the Church of England as
by law established, and took up the gauntlet so in-
solently, so arrogantly, we are almost inclined to say,
so traitorously thrown down by Bishop PIIILLPOTTS,
Mr. BENNETT, Archdeacon WILBERFORCE, and
divers other Tractarians, who having taken the oath
of supremacy now find it convenient to fence with
it. The following are the words of her MAJESTY :
Is has ever been, and will continue to be, my en-
deavour to promote the efficiency and maintain the
purity of our Reformed Church, the supreme government
of w!lich, under God, is by law confided to me, and it is
highly gratifying to me to be assured of your faithful
adherence to its principles, doctrine, and discipline."
We have here, therefore, a distinct claim of spiritual
supremacy, and a distinct assertion that this spiritual
supremacy is conferred by law, both of which posi-
tions are distinctly denied by the Tractarian traitors,
who claim for themselves, as priests, a superiority not
only above the SOVEREIGN, not only above the law,
but above the Scriptures themselves. Now, to
our minds, nothing can be more satisfactory
than this temperate yet firm expression on the
part of her MAJESTY of her fixed determination to
maintain her own rights and those of her people, as
established by law, against all who blasphemously
arrogate to themselves a pretended right divine above
all laws. And in this oppwhion to the wicked at-
tempts of those who abjure their weer functions
es ministers tf the Gospel, in order to usurp authority
as priests, and thus bring us agein under the yoke ofa
sacerdotal chopotism, Nr.i shall have the assistance of
almost all the educated portion of the Roman Ca-
tholic laity, and the gold wishes, we believe, of no
inconsiderable portion of the Roman Catholic secular
clergy. It; is as unfair to confound the educated
(al ways excepting the Jesuit led) portion of the Ro-
man Catholic laity with the arrogant and in-
sidious Ultramontanists, from whom the recent Papal
bull is,ued, as it would be to confound the great body
of Protestants with the Tractarian traitors, who, like
Cie Ultrainontanists, are engaged in a foul con-
spiracy to restore, at the point of the sword,
if need be, the dark and dreary days of sacer-
dotal dtespoiinn. It is the interest of the Ro-
man Catholic laity, even more than it is the
interest of the Protestants, that the Ultrarnontanist
Proganda should be effntually cheek,A, and this it

can be without depriving any one of our lk)man
Catholic fellow-subjects of one single privilege
which he at present enjoy;, and as a proof that the
edilcated Roman Catholics would themselves wish
such check to be applied, in order to be emancipated
from the pri_stly tyranny with which they are
threatened, vcs appeal to the admirable letters of Lord
BEAUMONT and of the Duke of NORFOLK.

Although we would by no means divert public at-
tention from the more immediately practicable and
profitable scheme of railroad extension from Portland
to Halifax, we nevertheless preserve in the general
remembrance the more vast and more important pro-
fret of a grand trunk line of communication to be
ultimately opened between the capital of Nova Scotia
and the Gulf of Georgia. Our sympathies in the latter
undertaking are so much the greater in proportion to
mere apparent usefulness. While the branch
railway connecting Halifax with the United States
would tend to facilitate the traffic between the old
and the new world across the Atlantic, the trunk
railway connecting Halifax with the western shores
of North America, immediately opposite Vancouver's
bland, woull opm up the way to more desirable ad-
vantages than th, se derivable from merely improved
ef,mmunications—it would secure the reclamation of
enermous tracts of waste land, and would tend to the
development of a new and glorious scheme of colo-
nization. Through its instrumentality, moreover, a
wide and available field would be opened for the em-
ployment of convict labour, at first in the construc-
tion of the proposed railroad, and at length in the
cultivation of the contiguous territory. From
these few sentences may be conjectured the gigantic
character of the enterprise upon which we have now
very frequently expatiated, and the variety of inte-
rests it is calculated to subserve, while benefiting the
new world, to the obvious advantage of the eastern
and western extremities of the old. Hitherto in our
running commentaries on the proposed achievement
we have enlarged more particularly on the good con-
sequences certain to accrue from the moment of its
completion in reference to the increased facilities it
will afford in the way of frequent and rapid inter-
communication. Once finished, and the two great
oceans will be bound together with a continuous belt
of iron, :the trunk line extending eastwards by
Halifax to the Atlantic, and westwards by Quadra to
the Pacific. A new and uninterrupted route will be
opened towards the mother country (England) from
the vast proportion of her enormous and scattered
possessions—from her American territories them-
selves, from her islands in the eastern and southern
archipelagoes, from her stations in the Chinese Em-
pire, from her own empire in Ilindostan, from Cey-
lon, from New Zealand and Australia. The excel-
lent results of all which would inevitably be in no
way restricted to commerce, bat extended within the
limits of the political horizon, at once binding more
closely and permanently together the whole of her
Britannic MAJESTY'S dominions, and tending more
directly and manifestly to the advancement ecf the
cause of civilization.
Added to all which foregoing considerations, there
are the benefits certain to be derived from the employ-
ment of all the hidden resources of our North Ame-
rican territories. Those territories have hitherto
remained in a manner unexplored and uncultivated.
The countless products of a valuable and nutritious
character which, with proper care, might be garnered
up for the satisfaction of the wants of millions, are
there allowed to grow, to ripen, and to seed, according
to the laws of creation, decaying again into the earth
from which they have sprung, and transforming thou-
sands of square miles of the richest soil into a wil-
derness of fruitage and efflorescence. While there are
amongst ourselves so much penury, and such a very
grievous want of employment, it is truly deplorable
indeed to reflect upon the abounding stores of provi-
sions here running to waste, and upon the unre-
stricted field for occupation awaiting the introduc-
tion of labourers armed with the spade and the
hammer, the adse and the plough, the saw and the
pickaxe. Tracing the line mapped out for the pro-
jected railway, the eye wanders with a look of elated
speculation upon the virgin treasures inviting the ap-
proach of such an enterprise. After crossing Nova
Scotia, and skirting the province of New Brunswick
in its departure from Halifax, the railway would
branch from the St. Lawrence in one direction to
Toronto, and in another along the main route be-
tween Temiscoming and Abbitibbe, north of lakes
Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior, be-
tween Red River and Swan River, between the Black
Foots and Saskatchewan, on by O'Kanagon and Fort
Langley to its terminus on the borders of the Gulf of
Georgia. Throughout the whole of this vast road-
way the animal, vegetable, and mineral productions
of the country—productions of almost countless di-
versity—would be placed within the reach of the
explorers ; and their acquisition would be rendered
attainable according to the system contrived by the
Canadian Lend and Railway Association. The asso-
ciation here referred to—formed very recently in con-
sequence of the growing appreciation of the scheme
upon which we ourselves had previously so very often
expatiated—proposes to accompany the line of rail-
! way across cur North American possessions, with
a plan by which land allotments would be
made at an avenge ranging between 25, 50,
and 100 saes—,illotrat nts the cultivation of
which may speedily transform what is now a mere
waste into a garden, extending from the Pacific to the
atlantic. The " Report and Outline" of the plan