The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-18 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 1845.

The flinise of Lords met at Five.
Lord BROITCHAM laid an order on the table to compel
Railway Companies to pay costs to parties aggrieved
who came before Parliament to establish their rights.

A short conversation arose which led to no result.
The Earl of CADOCAN moved for a Committee to
inquire, whether the assignment made by the Church
Building Companies to the Rector of St. Luke's of the
pew-rents was advisable, but
After a few words from the Bishop of LONDON, the
motion was negatived.
The Duke of RICHMOND moved that a Select Com-
mittee be appointed with a view to some legislative

enactment for enabling the possessors of entailed es-
tates to charge such estates with a certain sum, to be
limited, and to be expended in drainage for the improve-
ment of the same.

After a short conversation, the Committee was granted,
and the Duke of RICHMOND, the LORD CHANCELLOR, the
LORD PRIVY SEAL, the Duke of CLEVELAND, Lord
BROUGHAM, and several other Noblemen were nomi-
nated.

The Bills on the table were forwarded a stage, and the
House adjourned.
The House of Commons met at Four o'clock, and
after the transaction of private business, the ordering of
unopposed returns, and the presentation of petitions, the
greater number of which were against the Maynooth
Bill, the adjourned debate on that measure was re-
sumed by
Mr. CUMMING BRUCE, who opposed the Bill.
The House was subsequently addressed by Sir
George Grey, Mr. Rice, Mr. Trelawny, Lord Courte
nay, :Mr. W. Martin, Mr. Tuite, Mr. Carew, and Sir
James Graham, in support of the measure ; and by
Colonel Sibthorp, Mr. Blackstone, Mr. Plumptre, and
Mr. M'Lean, against it ; and, on the motion of Mr. S.
Crawford, the debate was again adjourned.
The House adjourned at Twelve o'clock.

The Maynooth question still occupies the attention of
the House. Few debates have been more interesting,
either as regards the importance of the principle at issue,
the eloquence of the speakers, or the very peculiar posi-
tion in which most Members are placed. This ques-
tion, like a political earthquake, has shaken the
very foundations of party, uprooting the careful
structures of the past, and destroying the combina-
tions and alliances of ages. Friends and brothers
find themselves suddenly separated by a yawning gulf,
while bitter foes cling together for support. The Tories
feel bound to assist the men themselves have chosen,
while the measures are diametrically opposed to their
desires—on the other hand the Whigs cannot refuse their
support to their own cherished principles though dis-
played in the acts of an enemy. Such a situation is
most embarrassing, indeed every one confesses his
perplexity; the only true course is to follow the dictates
of conscience, uninfluenced by friend or foe. We were
agreeably surprised to find the speeches of all parties
comparatively free from personal allusions and angry
recriminations ; the whole debate is characterised by
a tone of moderation hardly to be expected under
the circumstances. Unhappily this tolerant spirit
seems confined to the walls of St. Stephen's;
the erroneous views of the dark ages are re-
vived throughout the country in a way with which
the House cannot sympathise. The House of Commons
must perceive that their duty to their constituents is to
be performed by promoting their real interests, not by re-
presenting their prejudices. Many Members have boldly
declared their intention of resigning their seats in the
House rather than desert the post of duty, while some, like
Lord LINCOLN, have nobly withstood the persuasion
of family and friends, and resolved to act by their own
convictions in spite of; every obstacle. Such sentiments
do honour to themselves, and add another interest to a
debate already graced by every species of oratory.
We may here admire the calm, convincing arguments
of Mr. GLADSTONE, the eloquent declamation of the
Right Hon. Member for Edinburgh, the cutting sar-
casms of Mr. D'lsaaELl, or the unaffected piety of
the venerable " Father of the House." Mingled with
the wise experience of older politicians, the speeches of
the Hon. Members for Canterbury and Newark
excited universal attention. Adorned with all the elo-
quence of language, and " fresh with the brightness of
youth," they spoke to the heart, yet convinced the un-
derstanding. Lord J. MANNERS, as a stedfast son of
the Church of England, declared his intention of sup-
porting the Irish Church, not with the narrow aim of
making converts, but in the hope of hastening the
glorious day when the hearts of all should be
attuned with brotherly love, to worship their common
FATHER, concluding with a truly poetic description of
the blessings of a united empire. While the eloquent
Member fur Canterbury seemed, to use his own words
on a former occasion, "to come forward in the
spirit of a younger and freer age" to explode the
narrow views of too many politicians. Bringing
the experience of past history to enlighten the deeds
of the present, appealing not to established rules, but
to the principle of reason inherent in the
heart, his conclusions were unanswerable, his
arguments decisive. Amid the weary monotony
and never-ending repetitions which pervade so many
modern debates, there is a charm in natural eloquence,
in the unstudied expression of an ardent enthusiasm; but
in the speech in question there is something more than
eloquence—something higher than expression—there is
originality ofthought, the indication ofa mind eager in the
pursuit of truth, and able to comprehend it—above all
breathing the Christian spirit of toleration, which he has
so beautifully described in his recent work—" Ever think
good of others—Truth is not mine, but multiform,
and Benevolence is the discipline of Truth."
After such discourses we cannot doubt, if we
ever doubted, that the House of Commons will prove, by
their division, that they are superior alike to prejudice
and party, animated only by the welfare of their country.
Sir JAMES GRAHAM declared last night that " the mea-
sure of conciliation was not full," that this was " only a
step, though an important one, in a system of govern-
ment towards Ireland, which will be far more effectual
than state trials or imprisonments. The Tory system
has been tried too long. It has brought Ireland to the
brink of rebellion, and the Conservatives, as well as the
Whigs, find that till they place that country on the
same footing with Great Britain, and remove all real
grievances, there can neither be peace nor security.
This change of policy, we learn with unexpressible de-
light, was announced last night by one of the Ministers
of the Crown, and we accept it as the voice of the
Cabinet. " But allow me," said Sir J. GRAHAM, " to tell
the lion. and Learned Recorder for Dublin, that if he
thinks the day when Protestant ascendancy could be
maintained in Ireland is not yet passed, he is mistaken.
The day is passed, and I will not be one to attempt to
govern Ireland upon his principles." The Established
Church—the great incubus of that country—must
undergo a complete revision. Lord STANLEY has already
tried his hand at the work, but he is too bigoted to
his High Church principles to do justice to such
a crying evil. Time, however, which has effected
so many wonders, will also destroy this anomaly, and
we shall no longer hear of " a Church without a people,
and a people without a Church." The Home Secretary,
last night, also made ample amends for a most uncalled-
for and most injurious expression some years since, and
we have, therefore, great satisfaction in quoting his ex
pressions of contrite repentance. "The Member for
Belfast," said he, "in common with many other lion.
Gentlemen who hare addressed the House in the course
of this debate, has referred to a particular expres-
sion I used in my place in Parliament—not when in
opposition, but since I have assumed office. It was used
by me in 1842, during the discussion on the Arms' Bill,
lied certainly upon that occasion I did make use of the
expression which has been attributed to me, but really
I do not think it altogether fair that I should be taunted
now with having used it, seeing that it was sufficiently
explained in this House soon after it escaped my lips. The
expression I used was that concession towards Ireland
had already reached its utmost limits.' I have said that
the expression was explained. I will do more, I admit
that expression, and I regret having used it. I say more,
that where the feelings and interests of a nation are con-
cerned an intemperate or ungarded expression on the
part of a Minister is a serious offence. I say lam sorry
for having used it. I deeply regret it, and I can only
say that upon my conscience, and from the
bottom of my heart, my attachment to Ireland
was better than my word." If the Members of
the House should hesitate, under fear of their consti-
tuents, they will find their mistake—those very consti-
tuents will be the first to turn against them. Eng-
lishmen may be swayed for a moment by cunning repre-
sentations, but in their hearts they applaud every act of
principle and justice.

The absorbing interest of the debate on the Maynooth
Grant has probably operated: to withdraw, for a time,
the attention of the public from other topics of domestic
interest, to which it might be well that the most vigi-
lant attention should be incessantly directed. Among
these, the intended descent of the Premier on the small
note circulation of Scotland, the enormous extent of
scrip transactions, or in other words, gambling specula-
tions in shares of British and Foreign railway projects,
but more especially the latter ;—and the inter-
esting but fearful relation in which both these
matters stand to the condition and tendencies
of our monetary system, as this is controlled
by the Act of last session—are among the most
important.

Gambling speculations in shares are a species of
chronic malady to which the moral habit of JOHN
BULL
appears peculiarly susceptible. It is said that there is
a pleasure in madness which none but mad men know
JOHN BULL seems to have detected a gratification in the
process of being fleeced, which one should think victims
could never feel, were it not that the operation is abso-
lutely courted by them in every successive year, in every
month of each year, every week of each month, and
every day of each week. The historyof our money market,
not less than that of a certain class of our light
literature, is the history of bubbles. There is no end to

( the " Bubbles of the Day ;" but those in Middlesex and
Lancashire are of a much less salutary kind than those
which invigorate the constitution at Brannens or in
Nassau. Share bubbles, from the date of their first grand
burst in the shape of the South Sea project, in 1721, to
the scarcely less colossal aggregate of their periodical ex-
plosions of the present day, though this be formed ofan infi •
nite number of smaller globules, seem to be an irresistable
fascination for English gullibility. Neither the expe-
rience of the last century, nor its memorable renewal, so
recently as in 1825—neither the follies of 1837, nor the
rashness of 1838, which accepted the bonds of Pennsyl-
vania, or Maine, or Massachussetts, for bona fide secu-
rities, and dealt with American backwood railroads,
canal dock and bank shares, as if they were
obligations issued by honest men with honest in-
tentions, as well as means of discharging them ; are
supposed to have any application in 1845. Twenty
years ago Englishmen, after lavishing millions in irre-
trievable loans to newly-constituted States, in South
America and elsewhere, sunk a capital, in mining pro-
jects and speculations in Mexico, Brazils, &c., more than
equal to the purchase of the fee-simple of those mines,
had they been in full and productive working, even ac-
cording to the estimated returns, instead of their golden
returns and yield of silver, existing only in the romance
of highly-coloured prospectuses and headings of moon-
shine, but showy, share lists. The Royal Exchange at
London is a locality where the disasters and catastro-
phes of those fatal years will long be recalled without
the aid of any City Remembrancer. And yet so true is
the old adage which declares to
,be nobody's business
that which is everybody's, that for any practical pur-
poses of warning or restraint those memorable years are
of no more note than the red letter reminiscences of an
old almanack. To our judgment, however, there are
" signs of the times " now manifesting themselves which
cannot be mistaken. The convulsion of 1825 must
soon be felt again if men will abandon them-
selves to the same fever of delirious specula-
tion now which produced them then. From the
doors of the Board of Trade, at Whitehall, to the por-
tals of the Royal Exchange, and the Exchanges of
Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, and every
other manufacturing or commercial emporium in the
United Kingdom, the fluctuations, the hopes and fears,
the operations for rises and for falls, are communicated
with the rapidity and certainty of the instructions from
station to station, in our great railroads, by galvanic
telegraph. Endless dealings, of boundless extent, in the
" scrip" of new railway undertakings, have hitherto pro
seeded without any notable check, owing to the favour
in which these investments at present stand with the
public, and because the lines, not being yet in work,
have shown nothing in the shape of appalling contrast
between the anticipated and realised returns. But
when we find that the readiness with which share lists
of projected foreign lines can be filled up in Lcndon
alone even, and the promptitude with which the stipu-
lated deposits are paid up (to any direction or proprie-
tary, or any representative of them, accredited or not,
without any previous investigation into the responsibility
and character of the parties appearing on the list of
their directors, much less into the feasibility and merits
of the schemes themselves)—when we find that these
circumstances, far from putting a stop to this mania,
tend to encourage it, we cannot help directing attention
to the inevitable consequences of that re• action which
must come sooner or later. Between the abandonment
of some lines that never will be matured into the first or
rudimental stage of practical execution; the failure of
others immediately after obtaining it ; and the bank-
ruptcy of a third and larger class, commenced without
adequate consideration and knowledge, or scientific en-
gineering and ability ; or unsupported by the capricious
governments, or overwhelmed by the bad faith of the
private capitalists, whose promised sanction and support
have floated them into accep.ance and credit with the Bri-
tish public ; what will be, in all probability, the event of
the investments now so prodigally, recklessly, and
mischievously making by subjects of this country, in
half a hundred crude, visionary, or abortive railway
projects for Spain, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Italy, and
Sardinia ? Let us imagine, if we can, the desolation
and dismay that the panic of these out-posts of
our railway speculators, when any of them are
beaten in by partial or absolute failures, , and
extinctions, will roll back upon the main body of rail-
way undertakers here ! Like the defeated van of an
army, its retreat will demoralise the centre, and a total
discomfiture must ensue. Loss of capital to a specific
and vast extent, in worthless enterprises, will be fol-
lowed by its partial withdrawal from the most substantial
ones, and a general decay of confidence more expensive
and terrible in the ruin it will generate than the abso-
lute sacrifice of the money investments thrice told.
This convulsion in one large branch of our money ap-
propriations will have for its sequence a crisis pervading
every other, and shaking all banking and mercantile
stability throughout the land to its very centre. We
talk now, complacently, of the inexhaustible capacity
of capital:to reproduce itself ; but at least it is essential to
this character that it should have a representative. Now,
when in addition to the demands for gold, occasioned by
domestic share or dividend holders, bent on realising,at all
hazards, before they incur yet greater sacrifices by the
fall of their scrip or shares in the market, we have to
meet the drain of all the foreign lines for deposits, calls,
wages, See., WHERE will be their representative of capi-
tal ? Let Sir ROBERT PEEL, the Currency doctors, and
Echo—answer " where." A hundred millions to be
met—the securities to meet them depreciated 50 per
cent., and the standard currency in which even that de-
preciated valae is to be realised diminished 50 per cent.
by " a rush fur gold !" Will not such prespects as these
teach our railway gamesters to be abstinent in time ?
They have incurred liabilities gigantic enough already.
Every onward step is taken in madness, and must lead
to ruin.

Madrid journals of the 10th have been received. On
that day the budget of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
was adopted, when MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA took that
opportunity of stating that a treaty had been entered
into with Venezuela, and another with Chili was in pro-
gress. Re also stated that an agent was to be writ to
Fernando Po, and two others to Sierra Leone, and that
the frigate La Perla, and a smaller ship of war, are to
proceed to the River Plate, in order to protect the Spa-
nish subjects in that quarter.
BOURSE, APRIL 10.—Three per Cents., 35-1 at sixty
days ; Five per Cents., 25 11-16 cash, 26 3-16 at
sixty days ; Passive Debt, 8-Z- cash, 9 at sixty days ;
Exchange on London, 37k.

The French Chamber of Deputies is still engaged in
the discussion of the Savings' Banks Bill. Two amend-
ments had been proposed—one by M. DE LANGUNAIS,
to reduce the interest from four to three and a half per
cent., and the other by M. GARNIF.R PACES, fixing at
four per cent. the interest on sums not exceeding 1,500 E,
and three per cent. for larger deposits. The Minister of
Finance objected to both propositions, as they went too
far. A reduction was required, but not to such an ex-
tent. This proposition, he considered, calculated for
present circumstances, and in accordance also with the
policy pursued by England. In that country, it was even
more important than in France to favour the extension
of savings' banks, for it was altogether the part of the
Government to interest the working-classes in habits of
order, and in the defence of the principles of Conserva-
tism. Yet, notwithstanding the necessity which thus ex-
isted, so strong was the feeling in England of the inconve-
niences that might arise to the State from the development
of the institution, that the Government had not only
lowered the interest, but had fixed the amount of
annual deposit at a sum inferior to that proposed by the
amendment, as well as had established delays for re-
payment infinitely greater than what the Bill under dis-
cussion enacted. M. DE LAMARTINE thought it a strange
proposition of the Hon. Member (M. G. PACES) to re-
duce the interest on the property of the poorer classes
to 3 per cent. when, in the very same week, the Cham-
ber was about to vote 4i per cent. to the rich. That
was, in his opinion, an extraordinary anomaly and a
most unjust one. He considered that the poor ought to
be treated at least as well as the rich. Both amend-
ments were rejected. The Chamber of Peers adopted
without discussion the Bill for granting an extraordinary
sum of 1,235,315 f. for the completion of several public
buildings ; that for calling out 80,000 -men from
the class of 1845 ; the Bill demanding a sup-
plementary credit of 600,0001: for the payment
of the military pensions in 1845 ; and eleven local Bills.
On Wednesday the President read six ordonnances,
naming the six following gentlemen to the dignity of
Peers of France :—M. BERTINT Dr. VA UX, formerly a
Deputy; M. MARTELL, formerly a Deputy ; the Duke
DE TREVISO, member of the Council-General of the
Seine ; Count DE MoRNAY, Minister Plenipotentiary ;
Baron General ACHARD ; and M. VICTOR HUGO.
The accounts from Zurich are to the 13th inst. On
the 12th the Diet adopted the following resolution on
the question of the amnesty, against which the Deputy
for Lucerne protested :
li
isoa;merthanoenellaymttaeleviinuetzti
citizen,,
objecti Diet,
eexercise
eiisne wishingw proportionti ot takeh
for the re-establishment of tranquillity in the country, and to
ftaftererhathvein
prevent new troubles, and considering. that it will be the more
punishment, after gcihvielawaarth:-bich has cost thheri state
Igi lives s
9oofff
report
moderationaosrtta the
tious of the Committee, decrees hititigsre proposi-
tions
:-Ist. The high
state of Lucerne is earnestly requested,as
of December, 1844, and April, 1845
to
os regardst the events
and in the event of' condemnation to deathgran. an amnesty,
having been pro-
nounced, not to carry them into exe • cation. 2, The Federal