The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-08 00:00:00

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lONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1844.

It is a praise always to be conceded to our
brethren of Scotland,.that their opinions on all great
questions of domestic „policy and interest are eminently
entitled to respect and consideration. The sober,
and usually accurate, judgment at which they arrive,
when such matters become the subjects of general
discussion, seems to be the result of a certain intuitive
sagacity—sharpened ani expanded by the sound
elementary education so largely diffused among them.
It is seldom that we have, had to note exceptions to
. this rule. When they do occur, therefore, they are
the more startling, by their contrast with the ordinary
course of those recorded views which have challenged
our observation. Now, one of these exceptions, we
must fairly own, we identify with the general de-
meanour of the Scottish public throughout the whole
of the proceedings and debates that ensued, in Eng-
land, on the introduction by Sir ROBERT PEEL, last
session, of the Bank Charter Renewal Bill. Whilst
it was still uncertain whether—or rather, whilst it
was still assumed that—the Premier did propose to
extend the application of his ill-conditioned measure
to Scotland, the hid spirit of Sir Mungo Malgrow-
ther was raised, and walked abroad again. All the
North was up in arms against the apprehended de-
.scent of the wrong-headed First Lord of the Trea-
• Bury on a system, under which all Scotland had
prospered, from its first establishment, just a century
and a half ago, down to 1844, in the extension of its
agriculture and its commerce, and the steadily increas-
ing opulence and enterprise of its people. Sir ROBERT
—if his words were intended to carry their ordinary
acceptation—had, most undoubtedly, in one of those
• didactic pra-lectiones with which he favoured the
House of Commons before bringing in his Bill, inti-
mated his intention to apply it to the Northern as well
as the Southern division of Great Britain. But the
riEw ) t.wlloo f' manager" soon found, from very unmistakeable
-indications of gathering displeasure, that he must not
attempt the twofold experiment; that the discreeter,
- if not tha more generous and open—part, would br,
- to 3ecure, one victim at time, an.l b y allowing the

other to look on unscathed, for a season, he better
seduee him into a delusive belief of his own security
from a similar fate. Sir ROBERT, therefore, Lt first
jr.suitically replied to a brief and distinct quest n—
that it was not, at present, intended to apply the ope-
ration "of the Bill to Scotland and its Banks." The
bait was seized. The opposition of the Scotch
cooled down to a passive indifference to the fate of
the English banks, and this indifference enured, even
after the Premier, having " dispatched the business"
of the latter, announced, with some degree of un-
guarded triumph, " that, in the ensuing session, he
would move Parliament to enact a similar treatment
for Scotland." With these circumstances fresh in
our memory, we cannot concur with the Morning Post
in holding that, " in their attention to all matters con-
nected with the currency of their country, the Scotch
set an example to the English which the latter would
do well to follow." And when our Contemporary
affirms that if the public, here, were as much alive as
the Scotch are " to the interests of the country as in-
fluenced by the currency, they might have escaped
the fatal consequences which are likely to arise from
the operation of the recent Bank Charter Act," we
beg to remind him, that, to the selfish and erroneous
holding back, which we have described, of the Scotch
banking interest, must be mainly ascribed the issue of
that fruitless, but prompt struggle, which the English
banking interest sustained against the pretensions of
the Bill in question.
It is a more pleasing duty, now, to notice a step in
a better direction, taken by a county meeting, on this
new Bank Act, which was held at Edinburgh on
Tuesday last. At that meeting (where, by the bye,
Sir GEORGE CLERK was present, and, for aught that
appears, not dissenting) certain resolutions, condemna-
tory of any interference with the existing banking
system in Scotland, were brought forward by Sir
GIBSON CRAIG, Bart. (father of the Hon. Member of
that name who sits for Edinburgh). These resolu-
tions we publish in another column. A very brief
summary of their more salient points will awaken in
our readers the same conviction which the resolutions
have excited in us—that the mind of Scotland is once
more keenly awake to the dangers to be apprehended
from that most rash and uncalled-for tampering with
the representative capital of the kingdom, which they
so emphatically denounce. No. 1 declares that the
Scottish system, which has been carried on ever since
1695, with the addition of 1/. notes since 1704, has
met with the cordial support of all classes, especially
the agricultural and commercial community of Scot-
land. No. 2 affirms, that no adequate reason has been
assigned for the projected interference with a system
which has worked thus advantageously for all parties.
No. 3 illustrates the perfect stability and security of
the banks, at present in operation in Scotland with
their paid-up capital of, in the aggregate, 12,000,0001.,
and their circulation, little exceeding 2,800,0001. No.
4 raises a strong argument to prove that, with this
very moderate circulation as compared with paid-up
capital, gold, which is scarcely known in the circula-
tion of the country, is not required either by the
habits of the people, or to supplement the peculiar
mode which obtains among them of operating on cash
accounts ; a mode which has actually diminished the
currency, coincidently with the numerical increase of
Scottish banks. No. 5 shows that the bank-note cir-
culation of Scotland is much less than that of Eng-
land, whether in proportion to the population or the
general business of the country ; and No. 6, that the
Scottish circulation " has no direct dependence on
foreign exchanges, but varies with the demands of trade,
or with the regular recurrence of terms and great cattle
markets." (Would to GOD ! that Sir ROBERT PEEL
could have digested plain practical good sense like
this, instead of experimenting on the analogous case
of the English circulation, with the crotchetty nos-
trums of the bullionists, and of his own financial pe-
dantry I) No. 7 sets forth some local reasons of
peculiar force why the change from a paper to a
bullion circulation in Scotland would be attended
with infinite vexation to the people, besides being
utterly unnecessary. No. $ suggests the utter failure
of general accommodation which would ensue, in
Scotland, on the withdrawal of bank-notes below Si.;
seeing that paper of the lower denominations forms
nearly three-fifths of the whole circulation of Scot-
land ; and it demonstrates, on the other hand, the in-
calculable benefit which the existing system has pro-
duced, by developing all the great resources of that
country. No. 9 ably concludes these pleas for the
continued maintenance of that system, by the remark
that it has stood the tests of the rebellions of 1715
and 1745, of the crisis produced by the French Re-
volution, of the panic in England of 1825, of the great
failures among us in 1837, and the critical period of
1839-40. We are delighted to perceive that the re-
presentatives of the whole " county interest," as it is
called, of Scotland, are instructed to give their vigor-
ous support, in Parliament, to representations and
remonstrances of this kind against the extension of
the Bill of last session to Scotland. Should these be
successful, it will of course be telt that what is thus
bad for Scotland, cannot be good for England and
IVales, or for Ireland; and so we may hope for the
repeal of the Premier's most obnoxious legislation of
1844 on banking.

The Herald of yesterday affects to be facetious
—but is dull by mistake—on the subject of the late
great meeting at the Manchester Athenaeum. Mr,
D'isnlnnes speech, in particular, diverts our Con-
temporary exceedingly, and he asks with amusing
naiveté—" Of what importance on earth is it to the
rest of the empire to know that this gentleman went
down to Manchester, to tell the people there the his-
tory of what they themselves had done—a history
with which they were, of course, much better ac-
quainted than he could possibly be ?" This, it must
be confessed, is smart ; or rather it would be smart,
were it either just, pertinent, or pointed. But the
inherent defects of nature are not to be counteracted
by even the most strenuous labour, and therefore,
despite our Contemporary's evident determination to
put a witty question, he has put—what he could not
help—simply a dull and a nonsensical one. From the
manner in which he shapes his interrogatory, the
reader would infer, as a matter of course, that Mr.
DISRAELI went down to Manchester for no other
purpose than to enlighten the inhabitants of that great
manufacturing capital on the subject of their own
particular branch of commerce; to give them a his-
tory of the rise and progress of the cotton trade ; and
of the wonderful improvements they had effected in
the power-loom and the spinning-jenny. But, un-
luckily for the Herald, the Hon. Member for Shrews-
bury went down to Manchester for no such idle pur-
pose. He is not the man to carry coals to New-
castle. He went down—not unsolicited, by the bye,
but at the express invitation of some of the leading
men of the Athenaeum—to give expression to senti-
ments of the utmost consequence to a commercial com-
munity—sentiments lofty, generous, and bracing in
their tone, and such as it does an English audience good
to listen to—sentiments breathing a fervid emotion,
extensive in their application, catholic in their ten-
dency, and calculated to foster a sense of self-respect
and ncble emulation among men, whose minds are
but too apt to become warped and dwarfed, and covered
over with a hard, dry crust of selfishness from the
engrossing nature of the worldly and business-like
pursuits in which they are engaged. The beautiful,
heartfelt truths enunciated by the Member for Shrews-
bury and his accomplished young friend, Mr. SMYTHE,
at Manchester, will not—however it may suit our
Contemporary's views to sneer at them—be soon for-
gotten by the admiring thousands who listened to them,
but will sink deep into their hearts, and bring forth
fruit in due season. "Mr. D'lsannu," continues the
Herald, "enunciated some rare maxims, and one of
these was, that it is the duty of every citizen in a free
community to be acquainted with the opinions he has
formed. We hope this is a duty which Young
England has not failed to perform, for if their
opinions as we presume their phantasies are
designated—can be reduced to a comprehensible
system, the sooner some one of the fraternity
remembering the fate of the theories of the late
.Reverend and ingenious EDWARD IRVING, pro-
mikates their politics in a known tongue, the more
advantageous will it be to their prosperity." So far
as we can perceive, there is nothing cloudy nor
incomprehensitle in the opinions advocated by that
band of ardent, generous, and thoroughly English
spirits who call themselves—say, rather, who are
called by others—" Young England." They are not
visionaries—they are not fanatics—on the contrary,
they are to all intents and purposes men of
the world, but in whom worldly knowledge
has not yet chilled nor destroyed the better
impulses of nature. Their party is a far more

numerous one than is generally supposed, and em-
braces any individuals who—good easy souls l—have
nut the remotest notion that they hold any thir.g
in common with them. Whoever advocates the legi-
timate rights of the poor, and desires to see fair play
between them and their superiors, he is Young Eng-
land. Whoever wishes to see an end put to that de-
basing party strife which has so long warped the
minds of some of the ablest statesmen of the day, and
by preventing them from co-operating with each
other, has retarded the great cause of public improve.
ment, he is Young England. Whoever wishes to
bring the different grades of the social community
more in harmony with each other than they
have ever yet been, he is Young England.
Whoever loathes—as we do—from his inmost soul
the hollow, sickening cant of political expediency,
and prefers to hold fast by political principle, with-
out which there can be no true greatness either
among men or among nations, he is Young England.
Finally, whoever desires to see popular education
based on a tolerant and enlightened foundation, so
that the false shall never more be mistaken for the
true—the shadow for the substance—the word for the
thing—he is Young England. In a word, Young
England is nothing more than an appeal to what may
be yet left of justice, honour, generosity, self-reliance,
and healthy, catholic feeling in the English character.

By the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer,
the Lady Mary Wood, we have received intelligence
from Gibraltar to September 28; Cadiz, 29 ; Lisbon,
October 1; and Oporto, 2. The Cortes assembled at
Lisbon on the 30th of September. In the Chamber cf
Deputies the Minister of the Interior read a report of
the use the Government hail made of its discretionary
po ers. The Chamber appointed two Committees,
one of which to give its opinion upon the use made
thereof by the Government, and the other to take
into consideration the subject of a bill of indemnity.
The Duke of PALMELLA presided in the Chamber of
Peers, when nearly similar proceedings took place,
with some slight opposition on the part of Count
LAVRODIO. The session, it is believed, will be very
short. The tobacco, soap, and gunpowder contracts,
had been let for 1.521 contos, on the condition of a loan
to Government of one million sterling at 5 per cent.

Madrid papers of the 29th have been received, but
they bring no news. It is understood that the
speech of the QUEEN, at the opening of the Cortes,
will contain an outline of the changes in the Consti-
tution, which the Government have in view. The
preparatory meeting was fixed for the 2d inst.
MADRID BOURSE, SEPT. 28.—Five per Cents., 20i
for cash ; Three per Cents., 28i for cash.

The Paris papers announce that the KING and
QUEEN, Madame ADELAIDE and the Duke of MONT-
PENSIER arrived at Eu on Thursday night, at eleven
o'clock. The visit of his MAJESTY to England is
strongly opposed by the Opposition journals, for no
other reason that can be imagined but pure hatred
of this country. LOUIS PHILIPPE wishes to live
at peace with all the European States, because he
believes it for the good of his people, as well as con-
ducive to the stability of his dynasty. The Repub-
licans and Legitimatists wish for war, because they
vainly suppose that the darling object of each would
be the result. The Siecle, a journal hostile to Eng-
land, thus blames the KING for returning the com-
pliment of a visit, like a gallant Frenchman, to Queen
VICTORIA :—" It is on Monday next, that his Majesty
Louis Puieiren is to quit the French soil and sail
for England. It appears that this unpopular as well
as ill-timed journey has experienced even in the
bosom of the Royal Family a resistance before which
any Minister but M. GUIZOT would have hesitated.
It is even said that the KING'S physicians, whose
opinions had been asked, would not advise that
it should be undertaken. In fine, and as if the
Ministers wished to concur in demonstrating the gra-
vity of this determination, it is proposed to delegate
during the absence of the KING the exercise of the
Sovereign authority to the Duke DE NEMOURS, who is
to be appointed Lieutenant-General of the kingdom.
A journey which requires such precaution ceases to
be a party of pleasure, and becomes an affair of State.
The excursions of Queen VICTORIA are of no conse-
quence. She is a young woman who seeks amuse-
ment with a species of passion, and whose caprice
leads her wherever a new sight is promised her, either
at the Isle of Wight, the Chateau d'Eu, or even in '
the fogs of the Highlands. But a KING of 70 years
of age should not run after adventures; and when it
is seen that the Ministers who are conducting Louis
PHILIPPE to Windsor require of him a species of
political testament before he embarks on board the
steam-boat, it is naturally asked whether the trifling
satisfaction of receiving some bravoes in England can
compensate and justify the embarrassments to
which the Government has the appearance of expos-
ing him. The KING'S journey is giving serious
uneasiness to a number of the Conservative party. We
require no better proof than the silence observed by
the Journal des Debats. As to the Opposition, with-
out being insensible to the pre-occupation which ap-
pears to pervade the majority, it reserves its soli-
citude principally for the political side of the question.
It' it do not approve of the journey, it is because it
considers the state of the relations between the
Governments of France and England, and thej ust
susceptibility which is produced in France by every
appearance of anxiety on the part of the French with
respect to the English Government."
The affair of Otaheite has been again revived in all
its bitterness by the letters of the Times corre-
spondent, describing the battle between the French
and the natives. Even the Constitutionnel, a journal
generally conducted with temper and discretion,
looses all self-command on the subject. "We are
reduced," it • says, "to have recourse to the journals
of London for the details of the last events at Ota-
heite, and certainly it is not the truth which we find
in the correspondence of the Times, but lies and
abuse. We copy these odious letters, which make
their appearance most apropos, in the midst of
the visit of the KING of the FRENCH to Windsor.
But let it be well understood. the people who
have written to the Times have seen nothing,
and know nothing of what has taken place;
they are guided by such furious passions ; their
reason and judgment are so mastered by hatred to
France, that their view is necessarily troubled. They
do not narrate facts; they outrage. These English,
these Christians, who, in a conflict between France
and a people of savages, feel sympathy only for the
Otaheiteans, and transform our soldiers into canni-
bals, give us, by their language, the measure of their
sentiments of humanity and religion. It is true that
they owe this last testimony to these poor islanders,
who have been in all this affair but the docile instru-
ments of their fury. If we pause on the letters of
the Times, it is particulary to remind the Ministry of
the sad consequences of the inconceivable conduct
which it has adopted. The Minister of Marine must
have in his possession all the reports of Commandant
BRUAT on the late events at Otaheite. lie has pub-
lished nothing except a garbled note, which is con-
tradicted even in its short details by the few private
letters which hare reached France. Why has this
incomplete information been given to the public ?
Why has not the report concerning the affair of
April 18 been inserted in the official journals ? Where
is the State reason which did not allow to be done for
Otaheite what is done every day for Algeria ? No-
thing excuses the silence that has been observed. If
the Ministry had not done itself this inexplicable in-
jury, the English journals would blush to publish the
insolent versions of the missionaries."
The National is equally violent :

" In default of news which the Minister does not give,
we read in the English journal (the Times) letters
written by Churchmen, for Churchmen perform a prin-
cipal part in the affairs of England. We have already
the Consul Pritchard apothecary and accoucheur to her
Otaheitean Majesty. We have had the chaplain of the
Warspite, who endeavoured to conceal under his clerical
mantle the base letters of some English officers. At
present we have other reverend gentlemen, who take
the trouble of announcing to the world that Divine Pro-
vidence has vouchsafed to bless the arms of the Ota-
heiteans, and, to deliver up to them a considerable
number of French to be sacrificed. We had rather be-
lieve that the recitals of those pious divines are at least
much exaggerated, and that, notwithstanding the evident
assistance afforded by the English, the Otaheiteans have
not done our countrymen as much injury as has been
asserted. But it is certain that the English missionaries
act against us in Otaheite the same part which Abd-d-
Hader does in Africa, and it will not be their fault if
there be not a St. Bartholomew perpetrated against the
French at Otaheite.
The Journal des Debats and the Globe, Ministerial
papers, deny the statements contained in the letters.
The former says :—" In the absence of fuller infor-
mation, we give the correspondence, making every