The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-01 00:00:00

rruinj Ant.

LONDON, FRIDAY. AUGUST 1, 1845.

The Lords met at Four o'clock.
The royal assent was given, by Commission, to seve-
ral Bills.

The Earl of BESBOROUGU drew the attention of their
Lordships to the evidenee which had been given before
the Committee appointed to inquire into the petition al-
leging fraud against the promoters of the Dublin and
Galway Railway Bill, with a view to promoting a prose-
cution against one of the witnesses for perjury.
Lords CAMPBELL and COTTENHAM thought there
would be great difficulty in conducting the prosecution
to a satisfactory termination.
Lord MONTEAGLE and the LORD CHANCELLOR thought
the House ought to proceed against the individual, and
eventually, on the suggestion of the Earl of BESBORO UGH,
the matter was referred to a Select Committee.

The Merchant Seamen's Bill was committed pro forma.
In answer to a question from Lord BEAUMONT, the
East of ABERDEEN went into a lengthened statement
relative to the affairs of Greece. He admitted that the
present state of Greece was anything but tranquil and
orderly, but still the excesses said to have been com-
mitted on the frontiers had been grossly exag-
gerated. He gave such advice to M. COLLETTI
as he thought prudent and useful, and he did not at
present feel called upon to interfere further. It was un-
true that the Greek Government had encouraged in-
cursions across the Turkish frontier, and the supposi-
tion that a bankrupt State like Greece anticipated going
to war with Turkey, was most absurd. It was also
untrue to say that the English interests had declined in
Greece. There were English, French, and Russian
parties in that country—the great misfortune was, that
there was no Greek party.
The Coal Trade of London Bill was read a second

After a short discussion, in which the Marquis of
LONDONDERRY, the Earl of DALHOUSIE, and the Marquis
of WESTIeINSTER took part,
The Lunatics Bill was read a third time and passed.
The other Bills on the table were advanced a stage,
and the House adjourned.

The Commons met at Four.
A new writ was moved for for Kirkcudbright, in the
room of Mr. MURRAY, deceased.
Mr. TUFNELL gave notice that Lord JOHN RUSSELL
would move for a return of the Bills which had passed
during the present Session.

The reports of the Committee on Ways and Means,
and of the Committee of Supply, were respectively
brought up.
On the order of the day being read for bringing up
the report ou the Brazil Slave -Trade Treaty Bill,
Mr. M. GIBSON said he considered the measure calcu-
lated to excite hostility and resentment against this
country, and he wished to know whether any remon-
strances had been addressed by the Brazilian Govern-
ment to the British Government on the subject, and if
so, whether they would be communicated to the House.

Sir R. PEEL assured the Honourable Gentleman there
was nothing in the present treaty at variance with inter-
national law. It merely recognised a principle already
incorporated in previous treaties and acted on by other
nations.

After a few remarks from Mr. Huvr and Captain
PECRELL, the report was brought up and the Bill ordered
to be read a third time this day.
• -

After several other measures had passed thiough
their respective stages, the CHANCELLOR of the Ex-
CHEQUER moved that an Address be presented to the
Crown, requesting the grant of 20,000/. in aid of the
sufferers by the late fires in Quebec. The motion was
agreed to, without opposition, and shortly afterwards
the House adjourned.

Some men, it is said, have greatness thrust upon them;
and of this class we presume that the present Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer—we have had, ere now, to
make the same remark of a Comptroller of the Exche-
quer—is one of the most astonishing individuals. He
fills—and not for the first time in his life—that exalted
and responsible office which has, ever since the Revolu-
tion, been assumed to indicate the highest class of official
ability, financial knowledge, and general statesmanship.
His robe is a mantle which has clothed, in succession,
the shoulders of men who have rendered their names an
illustrious bequest to posterity. Without distinction of
party, it has ever been one of the most honourable ele-
vations that an English gentleman could attain to in the
service of his country. To exemplify this fact would be
to name almost every great political leader who has
appeared in Parliament during that interval. Nor is
this sort of general rule marred by such occasional
exceptions as have been afterwards pitch-forked into the
House of Lords—in times past, and in our own espe-
cially—by titles which it might seem invidious here to
recapitulate. Whether or not Mr. GouLnunst is des-
tined to increase the number of these anomalies we do
not purpose now to inquire. But we wish to show how
unworthy sentiments may be avowed in the House of
Commons, by so high an officer of the Crown, with
perfect impunity in the year 1845.
Mr. FIELDEN brought under the notice of the
QUEEN'S Ministers and of the House the vexatious,
uojust, and arbitrary usage which he had received under
the operation of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Income-tax Act.
The house in which he was himself a partner, FIELDEN,
Brothers, had been assessed for profits at the capricious
valuation of exactly 12,0001. a-year—not, for aught that
appears to the contrary, that the assumption might not
have been made with just as much probability, that
these profits were 8,2001, or 9,1501., or 10,6701., or
11,7601., or 12,0001. a year. But the local " Commis-
sioners," or " Assessors," or by whatever other name
the people are called who do the dirty work of the Paul-
Pry machinery created under this odious and inquisito-
rial statute, preferred to take the amount of 12,0001. in
the first instance—as a round number, we suppose. Mr.
FIELDEN and his partners protested and appealed against
this assessment of income, and offered to produce their
books to the Commissioners, and proceeded to show that
for the year over which the assessments demanded ex-
tended, they, so far from realising profits, had,'in fact,
sustained large losses on the balance of the year's trans-
actions. Another notice was served, accompanied with
an intimation, in the usual imperative style, that it must
be paid forthwith. Again the Messrs. FIELDEN remon-
strated ; and what was the reply ? That they were im-
mediately served with notice of assessment, increased in
the proportion of exactly 100 per cent. ; that is to say,
on an assumed income of 24,0001. per annum. Very
arbitrary—very insolent, beyond all question—in the
officers, whoever they were, who presumed to try so un-
authorised and impertinent an experiment on the easi-
ness or the purse-strings of the Messrs. FIELDEN.
Doubtless there was the same excuse for this, as for the
original assessment—that 24,0001. was " a round
number." But there was even less defence to be
made for this second assessment ; and we do trust
that the Messrs. FIELDEN will not relax their ex-
ertions till they discover, and pursue to punish-
ment (if any punishment have been reserved by
our constitutional Premier for such an offence, al-
though we suspect the common law would not be slow to
deal with it as a conspiracy to defraud), the authors of
this gratuitous impertinence. Dice most of those
over-zealous and offensive subaltern authorities who are
called " Jacks in office," they grew alarmed the instant
they discovered that these gentlemen were in earnest in
their resolution to resist this unheard-of and most dis-
graceful at tempt at extortion, and when Exchequer pro-
cesses were issued against the firm, they were issued for
the assessment, not on the 24,0001., but, strange to say,
for the original one on the 12,0001. Can any fact more
clearly demonstrate than this the arbitrary, despotic
system, on which the commissioners and surveyors fabri-
cate their assessments of income derived from profits on
trade ? And yet it is to these people that Sir ROBERT
PEEL has the serene assurance to refer the tax-payers
for redress, forsooth, who may feel themselves aggrieved
by over assessments ! It is almost as bad as constituting
a Board of Officials for the assessment and levy of a tax ;
paying them by a per tentage on the aggregate product
of that tax realised through their devices and exertions ;

and then intimating to the over-charged tax-payer that
he will always be secure of redress at the hands of the
same disinterested functionaries. The Exchequer pro-
cesses were enforced against the Messrs. FIELDEN, they
still refused, on the principle of " no profits realised,"
to pay ; and chattels and goods, their property, were
taken and sold in execution by the QUEEN'S officers, to
the amount of the claim of the Crown. This is, shortly,
the grievance of which Mr. FIELDEN complained in the
House of Commons. In replying to his speech, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was betrayed into an ob•
servation which we trust will not be lightly forgotten by
the British public. The difficulty in which Mr. Fin.-
DEN found himself, quoth Mr. GOULEURN, " would not
have arisen, if the Hon. Gentleman had shown a lzttk less
of that British virtue which had led him to resist, with
more than ordinary firmness, what he considered an im-
proper intrusion into his private affairs."
This " sneer," as Mr. HAWES well called it, at " Bri-

tish virtue," was uttered with singularly bad taste in
reference to Mr. FIELDEN, than whom a man of higher
probity in private life, or of purer purpose in his public
career, is not to be feund within the walls of the House
of Commons. The architect of his own fortune, and
himself the centre and mover of an enormous amount of
industrial labour, in the very district which has wit-
nessed his gradual advance from the position of a simple
artisan to the head of one of those enormous private
establishments which are the wonder of their age and
country, Mr. FIELDEN has long acquired, and enjoys,
unchallenged, an enviable reputation for his kindness,
his charity, his liberality, and enterprise. To have " re-
sisted," as he has done, the assessment of the Income-
tax Commissioner, on the principle incorporated in words,
though not, it should seem, in spirit, into the very Act
of Parliament under which that assessment was made
out, and to have risked and suffered, too, so costly a
sacrifice of property as he has endured in contesting a
demand which, either in its original or its subsequent
shape—as charged on an income of 12,000 t, or one of
24,0001.—must have been iniquitous and illegal—was,
indeed, a reach of " British virtue " such as an over-
pensioned official might challenge, in a tone of disparage-
ment the more sarcastic from the consciousness, perhaps;
of inability to imitate it. But is this "British virtue'
expounded by him who reflects upon it even, as having
been elicited by " what the party considered an im-
proper intrusion into his private affairs "—is this con-
stitutional principle to be twitted and mocked at, in
that House of Commons which is to this day conse-
crated by the memory of that HAMPDEN whose resist-
ance to the payment of an illegal exaction for ship-money
was the first step taken in the great work of consolidating
the rights and liberties of Englishmen, in respect of the

limitations of their liability to taxation, on their present
broad and constitutional bases ? Let us hope that this
ill-timed sneer will arouse, even at this late hour, the
Commons to a sense of their duty to their constituency—
that it may teach them how little they can be justified
in trusting to the pledges or the promises of a Govern-
ment particularly with regard to the duration of
so odious but productive an impost—one of whose chief
officers can thus venture to ridicule a principle of action,
which our fathers not only recognised, but were prepared
at all times to venerate as " British virtue." We do not
p-rmit ourselves to imagine for a moment that Mr.
FIELDEN will be cajoled by the hollow and meanless
civilities of Sir ROBERT PEEL (who probably perceived
the slip which his " managing man" bad made) into the
abandonment of that claim for redress which he is as-
suredly able to establish in this case ; or forego the satis-
faction of discovering on what principle his assessment
was raised from one upon 12,0001. to an assessment on
24,0004 ; and again dropped from 24,000/. to 12,0001. ?

Madrid papers to the 23d have come to hand.

The Castellano and the Herald°, which have hitherto op-
posed the QUEEN'S journey to the Basque provinces, say,
that "as the physicians have declared the baths of Santa
Agueda to be indispensable to the recovery of her MAJESTY'S
health," they shall no longer oppose her ♦isit. The inference
to be drawn from this is, that NARVAEZ and hiscolleagues
have given way to the influence of CHErsTniA, and that the
Ministers will consent to the visit.

The Heraldo again affirms that the Duke and Duchess DE
NEMOURS will cross the Pyrenees and have an interview with
the Royal Family of Spain. A lithographed portrait of the
Infante Don ExurquE, which had just been exhibited at a
bookseller's window, in the Calle de Carretas, was attracting
the attention of all Madrid.

MADRID BOURSE. —Three per Cents., 28i for cash; 281
for account. Five per Cents. no quotations.

We have received the Paris papers of Tuesday, the third
of the " three glorious days," and, as might have been ex-
pected, they all comment at considerable length on the fruits
of that revolution.

The Moniteur contains an ordonnance intrusting to M.
DUCIIATEL, the Minister of the Interior, the department of
Foreign Affairs during the absence of M. GUIZOT, who is
gone to his estate of Val Richen, in Normandy.
Tuesday having been entirely devoted to rejoicings, the
Bourse did not open.
The Gazette de Bale, which first propagated the statement
of the apprehension and escape of the murderer of M. LEU,
acknowledges that it had been misled, and declares that the
matter is still involved in mystery.
The Helvetie, of the 26th inst., says :—" The regime of
1793 is in full vigour at Lucerne. The death of M. LEU has
furnished a fresh occasion for acting harshly against the ad-
versaries of the Jesuits. Three inns, one of them kept by a
person named TROLLEUR, a native of Soleure, have been
closed by the police, and their owners thrown into prison.
M. TROLLEUR received orders to quit the city within eight
hours. Two commercial travellers have also been arrested
without any cause. The city is already full ,of soldiers, and
four more companies have just been called in. The tribunal
has condemned 117 more adversaries of the Jesuits to ten
months' imprisonment, which brings up the total number to
384."

The Duchess of KENT left Vienna on the 21st of July.
Nothing was done in the Funds at TORTONI'S.
The following are the quotations for the new lines :
MAitsxiLLEs, JULY 25.—Marseilles and Avignon, 990 f.
Boulogne, 625 f. ; Orleans and Bordeaux, 675 f. ; Vierzon, 750

INDIA AND CHINA.

(From the Times.)

By the arrival of the Iberia at Malta, we have received in-
telligence from Bombay to the 20th of June, from Calcutta,
to the 9th, Madras to the 11th, and from China to the 6th
of May.
We regret to state that cholera has been very prevalent in
Bombay and Poonah, and that it has raged in Lahore to a
fearful extent.

The letters from Lahore repeat the announcement con-
tained in our last dispatches of the appointment of the Sirdar
Jnwahir Singh to be the Prime Minister, and the retirement
of Ghoolab Singh to his fortress of Jumoo.
Prince Peshora Singh is stated to be in rebellion against
the authorities at Lahore.
The attack on Peshawar has been abandoned by Dost
Mahomed and his son.

The Governor-General remained in Calcutta, but it was
expected he would proceed in October to the north-west
provinces to reduce the Sikhs to order.

From China we learn that a riot had taken place at
Victoria ; it had -been suppressed without much difficulty.
The British troops had been withdrawn from Kolungsoo, in
accordance with the terms of our.treaty on the 23d of March,
and the Chinese took possession.

An English merchant having built a vessel of seventy tons,
gave the command of it to a Chinese named Fowqua, to
enable him to levy a species of black mail on the native smug-
gling boats engaged In the opium trade. Suspicions were
excited. Fowqua was seized, tortured, and denounced a
hundred persons as being implicated in the transaction.
The mate and gunner of the Ariel, having on board upwards
of 100,000 dollars, conspired to seize her, but were ultimately
defeated. The mate was killed, and the gunner wounded.

COMMERCIAL REPORT.
(From the Overland Englishman.)
No material change has been observable in our markets during
the past week, for, although it is probable they may be affected by
the news received by the Bentinck steamer, which came in on
the 6th instant, sufficient time has not as yet elapsed for this to be
manifested.
We are now in receipt of London dates to the 24th of April,
and perhaps the most important commercial intelligence received
is the result of the April indigo sale, which is very far from satisfac.
tory, nor can we learn any sufficient reason for the inactivity stated
to have prevailed throughout it. The accounts of the ruling
of almost all other articles of export from hence are also even
less favourable than those received by the previous opportu.
miry, the only exception of any importadce being sugar, the
market for which is stated to have somewhat recovered from
the unprecedentedly depressed state it was in shortly after the re-
duction in the duties. Notwithstanding, however, the little pros-
pect held out of shipments proving remunerative, we cannot say
we look forward to any material falling off in the demand here, at
all events until stocks are considerably enhanced.
Imports have not, as yet, shown any decided symptoms of im.
provement, and it is impossible to form any idea as to how long
this miserable state of inactivity will last, as the ruling of exchange
and the enhanced rate of duties will prevent importers from moving
the market by accepting lower rates, and we have, therefore, only
to look to the reduction of stocks in the upcountry marts for an
increased demand.

The Government notification quoted in our last had its eNect on
the ruling of exchange, which at one time declined to Is. lOicl.;
this, however, was not long maintained, and we have now again
to quote Is. Ild, to Is. ll*d. per rupee as the rate for first chop
bills, but at this good paper has been In more request than for
some time past. _

Tonnage continues abundant, put it is difficult to effect ship-
ments at more than half-a-crown under the rates ruling on the 2d.
We have but little to add to or change in the report we gave of
the crop on the.2d instant; some parties in Jessore and Rajeshaye
have been complaining of having had rather too much rain of late,
but we do not think the total out-turn will be much affected
thereby.

The weather continues fine, with the exception of a few squall;
which have been experienced in Calcutta during the past week
and the rivers are still low.

Some concerns on the banks of the Bhaugurutty and in Moor-
shedabad, Rajeshaye, and Bhaugudpore will be at full work before
the end of this month.
In some parts of Tirhoot fine rain was experienced on the
22d and 26th ult., which enabled them to resow the lands which
had failed, and should the rains hold on we are in hopes these
sowings will not profe too late.
In many concerns in the eastern districts they have already se_
cured their low lands, and have, in some instances housed a quarter