The Sun.
London, England, 1845-04-28 00:00:00

int

LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1845.

Sir ROBERT PEEL'S plans for the Irish and Scotch
banks are now before the public, and we have no doubt
will give general satisfaction. They are extremely
moderate—much more so than either the Irish or
Scotch anticipated ; and though some objection may
be raised against particular points of minor im-
portance, the general scheme is one which
does the Right Honourable Baronet much credit.
He has left the small notes untouched—he
requires certain securities against over-issues, to which
there can be no demur on the part of honest bankers,
and, as in banks established in England, the names of
the partners are to be published at stated pe-
riods. Sir ROBERT PEEL has, in this instance,
as in his government of Ireland, adopted a system for-
merly unknown to Tory rulers—the system of concilia-
tion ; and he will thereby not only acquire more in-
fluence, but effect his purpose better than by sheer force
and tyrant majorities.

The debate of Tuesday night in the House of Lords
on the Railway Clauses Consolidation Bill elicited some
remarkable speeches from Lord BROUGHAM, the Earl of
DALHOUSIE, Lord ASHBURTON, and the Duke of BEAU-
FORT. As all these speeches, with the exception of the
Noble Earl's, as President of the Board of Trade, di
rectly confirmed or corroborated the views we have ven-
tured to announce from time to time since the first es-
tablishment of the Railway Committee of that Board, of
its defective constitution and over-multiplied functions,
and most unsatisfactory action, we have naturally pe-
rused them with much attention and care. That the
three several amendments moved by Lord BROUGHAM
(with a view to meet the exigencies of such cases as he
brought under the review of Noble Lords, in order to

illustrate the hardships and evils to which private pro-
perty and arrangements are arbitrarily subjected under
the present powers of Railway Acts)—that these should
have been successively negatived, is a fact that does not
necessarily infer that they merited no better fate. In
these days of organised official majorities, we have seen
stranger anomalies than the defeat of amendment
moved upon Government measures by the silent elo-
quence of numbers, irrespective altogether of the force
of the objections embodied in them to such measures.
The third reading of the Bill we have alluded to having
now passed the Lords, we are justified in assuming that
a body of laws, affecting a vast investment of British
capital in a peculiar and comparatively novel branch of
trading enterprise, which was already defective and op-
pressive in a high degree, has now become infinitely
more noxious than before. A few facts, alleged on the
one hand, and admitted on the other, may illustrate this
proposition. The 32d clause of the Railway Acts Con-
solidation Bill itself gave powers to railway companies
which not unnaturally excited the strongest expressions
of astonishment and deprecation from the Noble and
Learned Lord. This clause went to give, and, inasmuch
as it has passed, actually does give, power
to any railway company, at any time before the period
limited and assigned for the completion of the railway,
to enter, at any time they please, without previous ten-
der, or payment, or deposit, on any lands within their
prescribed limits, not being more than 200 yards on
either side of the line of railway—with the usual ex-
ceptions only in favour of gentlemen's avenues, of gar-
den grounds, &c., whilst, in the absence of any other
specified limits, they may occupy in like manner, ad-
jacent lines approaching not nearer than 500 yards.
This right of occupation, of 400 yards in all, a band of
nearly a quarter mile, concurrently with the strip of the
railroad line itself, throughout the length and breadth
of the country in every direction, is surely an enormous
concession to railway proprietaries, based upon the com-
pulsory acquiescence of all other parties, who may be
unfortunately interested in the land—not in the line.
But the recital of the uses to which the right of occupa-
tion may be turned against the property, comforts, and
convenience of the latter, exhibits one of the most
startling and extensive provisions that ever were intro-
duced into Bills affecting private rights. The com-
pany may, with a view to completion or repair of

he railway, or any accommodation works connected

therewith that might be found to require it,
proceed under this clause, by taking earth or soil, by
side cuttings, and depositing soil therefrom, obtaining
materials for such railway and works on roads in con-
nexion therewith, by making deposits for manufacture
of bricks, taking clay, stone, or sand, by erecting work-
shops and buildings of a temporary nature. Under such
powers as these, all right of action for nuisance, annoy-
ance, actual damage (as by extirpation of grass crop, for
example, under heaps of ballast or gravel), waste, sze.,
would be effectually barred and extinguished. The
glories of Pcrshore might be lost to the traveller, after
the intrusion of a railway through the neighbouring
valley, for long years pending the completion of the
line ; and the occupant be driven forth from one of the
most picturesque of estates by brick-kilns, ballast pits,
steam engines, and ballast waggon trams. But more
positive mischiefs would ensue under given conditions of
circumstances, as in the case of a valuable farm in Essex
of 400 acres only, through which it has been in contem-
plation to strike no less than seven different projected
lines. Two out of the seven once commenced would
absorb the whole farm in the widest margin of 200 lines
on each side. _ _ _

_But, passing over these hardships, we cannot hold the
new Railway Board harmless under the imputation
of having encouraged and still exciting that frenzy of
gambling speculation, the ultimate (and perhaps proxi-
mate) results of which are to be looked forward to with
so much of well-founded alarm and regret. It is a poor
case that Lord DALHOUSIE makes on this subject, that
under the former system—that is prior to the creation of
this Board—there were whole fortunes made and lost
day after day, according to the proceedings of the Com-
mittee and their probable bearing on the chances of the
final success or rejection of the Bill. Neither will his
Lordship reckon many proselytes, we imagine, among
the public to his own m,tion that the suspicious " revela-
ti..ns" which had got abroad of the decisions come to by
the Board on the South-Eastern and other schemes of
railway had been, on the part of those connected with
the Board, " satisfactorily explained." The charges,
we should have thought, had been "specific" enough.
The suspicions they gave rise to have been less defined
i and ntelligible—very naturally, in the absence of all in-
' formation to guide them. But as for such explanations
as have been given in or out of Parliament,
we must still think they have been eminently unfortu-
nate in removing from one man's mind the conviction
that information of the Board's intentions has been
systematically and very frequently conveyed, in a clan-
destine manner, to third parties, who have served their
own interested purposes, by means of such information,
at the expense of the public, and to the manifest injury
of the legitimate parties to the projects sanctioned by
such Bills. The reports alluded to by the Duke of
BEAUFORT 11.3 injurious to the conduct, if not the
character of the Board, do undoubtedly obtain in all

directions. They may be true, or they may be false ;
but that they should have obtained so wide a diffusion
is a fact, in itself, strongly indicative of an extremely
defective constitution or working of this anomalous
Beard. The reports from it, hitherto laid before Par-
lament, assuredly are so far below the ordinary average
of official documents, that they supply no case, no
justification for the one, and suggest no apology for the
other.

The last published returns by the Board of Admiralty
of the total number, description, force, &c., of all the
vessels of war now building in her MAJESTY'S dock-
yards, we have not perused without strong feelings of
surprise, and some of disappointment. The force of
these impressions can be but little subdued or altered
by the assurance which the returns convey, that these
vessels are building "on the most approved and scientific
principles." Approved by the Lords of the Admiralty,
and by the Surveyor-General of the Navy they may be,
but how far the principles of their construction would
meet with the approbation of those practical and sc;en-
tific authorities in naval architecture, who have
recently demonstrated the capital errors incor-
porated into Sir WILLIAM SYMONDS'S ships ; and
who have shown at how vast a cost of public
money her defective craft have been first built, and after-
wards cut down, altered, even widened, lengthened,
shortened, or broken up,—is quite another question.
The revelations of Sir CHARLES NAPIER and the state-
ments of Captain Rous, upon these subjects, have in-
fused into us a degree of scepticism about Admiralty
testimonials to the properties of men-of-war and steamer
shipping, which makes us, probably, unreasonable. But
though we find a summary or recapitulation of near 600
ships of war, of from 6 to 120 guns each, all
of them announced to be in a very considerable state of
forwardness, we tremble at some of the details. The
example of our last maritime war—that with America
in 1812—of which the successes we achieved towards
its conclusion- to some extent compensated for, though
they could not effice, the disastrous reverses our naval
force had experienced in the earlier periods of the
struggle—this example seems lost on the Admiralty.
It is notorious to all the world that the incapacity and
obstinacy of the Admiralty of that time were the imme-
diate causes of these disgraces. They sent out to
encounter the enormous and heavy-metalled frigates of
the United States' navy, British ships-of-war of very
fir inferior size, metal, sailing qualities, and manning.
Our brave officers and gallant crews were fearfully over-
matched on all the occasions to which we allude. The
inexcusable carelessness and official mismanagement
which seemed to take especial care in mismatching our
small men-of-war against superior odds, wherever those
odds were to be encountered—whieh dispatched, for ex-
ample, one of our small 36-gun frigates to engage a fine
American one, on the then new construction, being, per-
haps, nominally of 40, but carrying 50 guns of over-
whelming calibre as compared with ours, or assiduously
laboured to cause disgust and annoyance' to officers in
command, by fabricating new, or enforcing obsolete old
regulations, calculated to discourage, instead of to che-
rish, a spirit of generous and disinterested emulation
among them. It was. under the very unpopular secre-
taryship of Mr. CROKER (if we recollect rightly), that
the reverses we reluctantly allude to occurred,
and we have heard of the simultaneous severity with
which all the powder expended beyond the regulation
allowance was charged to every officer by whose order
it had been so consumed. The late gallant Captain
BROKE, who captured the Chesapeake, after a most de-
termined but rapid action, perceived all the consequences
that must ensue where this rule, when enforced with
such absurd strictness, must pruduce on the gunnery of
the crews, whose officers—disinclined to make them-
selves liable to large deductions from their pay—forbore
to exercise them both at small arms and great guns.
Pay was an object of comparative indifference to him ;
and every day, in almost all weathers, he exercised his
men till he brought their gunnery to a pitch of precision
and coolness never since surpassed. Every shot of the
Shannon told, in that memorable breach of the Chesa-
peake's sides, which determined the conflict in the short
space of twenty minutes.

Now, from these Admiralty returns, we infer that
" my Lords" are like the effete race of the Bourbon. 4, of
whom TALLEYRAND said " that they had forgotten no-
thing, and had learned nothing." They seem still
wedded to that ancient and most favourite crotchet of
building 12, 16, 18, and 20 gun craft in abundance,
which only take the sea in nine cases out of ten, in times
of peace, to be blown over; in times of war, to be captured
by the enemy. It is impossible, as we have before had oc-
casion to observe, to speak of the exigencies of our navy,and
the course which a wise policy would dictate as proper to
be adopted with respect to them, without assuming the
possibility, we by no means say the probability, of a war
at no distant day with the same Power which so much
exalted its maritime reputation in that war of 1812.
Instead of applying all that they could spare from the
Parliamentary votes for the service of the present year,
to the immediate cure of those organic defects in the
war-steamers already built, and the improvement of those
in course of construction, by removing machinery and en-
gines as much as possible out of the reach of shot—by
fitting screw-propellers and Archimidean screws, and
better adapting the decks for the working of the
powerful 68 and 86-pounders, swivel, and other
guns •; by at once supplying the deficiencies
which they have admitted to exist in some
of the most recently built men-of- war of the
first, second, and third rates; and by adopting the ad-
mitted excellencies of models, whose superiority over Sir
W. SYMONDS'S they have also acknowledged; . what are
the Admiralty doing? Frittering away, as it seems to
us, the public money, and perilling the national reputa-
tion, by persevering in a course of building vessels that
must be almost utterly useless in any future struggle
which the steam arm of great navies will assuredly have
to decide, in conjunction, not with ships either too large
or too small fur mere cruising service, but of a force and
of dimensions equal to the demands of naval warfare,
under such circumstances as those in which it must in
future be carried on.

The Madrid Gazette of the 18th contains a circular
issued by the Finance Minister, for a return of all the
unsold convents, in order that the Government might
convert them into barracks, Government offices, prisons,
kc., or provide for their preservation as historical monu-
ments, and such as should not be required are to be sold
for the benefit of the Treasury. The Cortes will be
prorogued by the QUEEN in person on the 10th of May,
and on the 14th the Court will leave Madrid for Barce-
lona. It is announced that, after leaving Barcelona. the
QUEEN will proceed to the baths of St. Agueda, in
Guipuzcoa, and a general belief prevails that a meeting
between her and Louis PHILIPPE will take place in the
course of the summer.

The Three per Cents. closed at 35i at 60 days ; the
Five per Cents. at 25 9-16 at 60 days ; the Coupons at
28 for the 26th of May ; and the Debt without interest
at 81 at 60 days.

The French Chamber of Deputies have passed the
Bill for the Conversion of the Five per Cent. Stock by
a very large majority-116; there being for the measure
202, and against it 86. This shows the strong opinion
of the Chamber on the subject, when it is known that
the Court, the Chamber of Peers, and a large proportion
of the population are opposed to the plan. The Journal
des Debat3, who is against the Conversion, looks to the
House of Peers as a counterpoise against the Deputies,
and trusts that they will throw out the Bill. It is
not at all probable, however, that a Chamber which has
so little to do with financial affairs, would put a negative
upon a decision of the other, which votes the supplies.
"The stockholders," says that journal, "are despoiled,
but the will of one Chamber by itself is not sovereign.
M. DE TRACY proposed to exempt from the application
of the Bill all the stockholders whose stock did not ex-
ceed 500 francs. In former discussions this clause
was always received with the greatest interest. Can
it be conceived that, in fact, under pretext of
economy, 80,000 individuals can be thus despoiled.
when most often they only possess this little revenue ?
But the Chamber appeared animated with so objection-
able a spirit that M. DE Triacv could not obtain even
common attention, and the amendment was lost. There
was only one question which seemed to meet with any
favour, and that was the clause which tended to spare
the caisse of the invalides of the navy, the Legion of
Honour, and the benevolent institutions legally autho-
rised. The committee proposed to exclude all indiscri-
minately, but the Chamber recoiled from the enormity
which it was called on to consecrate. It decided, on the
proposition of the Minister of Finance, that the princi-
ple of the Bill should be here applied as elsewhere, bit
that a special credit should be granted to the
Legion of Honour, the caisse des inralides,
of the navy, and the hospitals, to make up
the sum which the reduction should deprive
them of. The Chamber would not consent to extend
the benefit of this clause to benevolent institutions."

The Opposition journals, hcwever, take a different
view of the question. The Constitutionnel says the Bill
will produce a saving of thirteen millions of francs
yearly, and that, be it remembered, without pressing
hard upon the fundholders. At a time when the inte-
rest of capital is constantly declining, ten years' security
against further reduction gives a premium on the Four
and-a-Half per Cent. Stock. The National expresses
regret that the reduction is not lower, as, no doubt, the
Chamber of Peers will consent to the Bill. The follow-