The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY,EVENING, MARCH 22, 1844.

abled them to make good various payments to which
they were liable. Concurrently with these difficulties,
the price of sheep, cattle, and butter, had fallen much
below the average of preceding years, though, at the
same time (as it is said), all rates, tithes, and taxes, had
increased, the rent of land still remaining, generally,
undiminished. The Welsh farmers are, at all times, a
frugal, cautious race; but by the pressure of the circum-
stances we have described, they were rendered more
than usually anxious to release themselves from even the
smallest payments."
The multiplication of turnpike gates, the employ-
ment of "professional toll collectors," and the sub-
stitution of a rigorous exaction of the dues, in place
of the lax and somewhat considerate management
under which the tolls had formerly been taken, occa-
sioned that wide-spread dissatisfaction and disgust, and
that determination to tear up the gates, which first
exploded in the destruction of the New Whitland
Trust Gates " on the confines of the counties of Pem-
broke and Carmarthen" in the year 1839. Mr.
BAUGH ALLEN, the magistrate, a very intelligent
witness, and whose evidence appears to go deeply into
the real causes of the discontent, thus alludes to this
first scene of the remarkable drama which was after-
wards to be played with more diversified machinery
in other parts of South Wales. Some parties from
England having intimated that if certain new gates
were erected on roads where there was a considerable
traffic in culm and coal, they might be induced to
farm the tolls at a higher rate than that previously
attained ; and the tolls having been let, accordingly,
to a Mr. Burials, an extensive toll-contractor ; four
new gates were erected. Thereupon, the country
people assembled in the midst of summer, at about six
o'clock in the afternoon, and those gates were pulled
down amidst all sorts of noise and disturbance and
great jollity, and were destroyed without the inter-
ference of anybody." I
.do not think (says Mr. W.
EVANS, the clerk of this trust) they were a week
standing." After enumerating similar destructions
of turnpike-gates in other districts of Wales, the Re-
port gives us this significant intimation of the shame=
ful carelessness with which " Turnpike Bill " legisla-
tion is sometimes managed in Parliament :
" There are twelve different trusts in the con* of
Carmarthen. In each of these trusts the amount of the
toll to be taken at each gate is limited by Act of Parlia-
ment, but there is no limit as to the frequency of the gates.
We know no reason why the trustees should not, if they
thought fit, in virtue of the large and lavish powers
committed to them, establish a gatc, and demand a toll,
at intervals of 100 yards each throughout the county of
Carmarthen. In the creation of each of these trusts,
Parliament has paid no apparent regard to the existence
of any other trust, and though the trustees have been
somewhat unwilling to establish too frequent tolls with-
in the limits of their respective districts, they have had
no scruple in placing a gate or bar at the confines of
their own trust, however near it might be to the gate of
an adjoining one."
So in Carmarthenshire, the Kidwelly and Three
Commotts Trusts, and some others, "interlace each
other in a sort of net-work ; and the frequency of
payments which has been so violently complained of
and resisted, has chiefly arisen from that circum-
stance." (p. 4.) How much it is to be regretted that
that vicinity is not blessed with the neighbouring
presence of Royal Establishments. The privilege of
Royal equipages to pass to and fro, without liability
to toll, would prove to the greedy. renters of such
" trusts " as these, a source of perpetual sulkiness and
ill humour which we can picture to ourselves but
cannot describe. The luxury of pouncing down on
the half-starved team, dilapidated cart, slight load,
and drawling, reluctant waggoner of a wretched
Welsh farmer, in all the conscious authority of a
" Local Act," and with the awful table of tolls legibly
painted on the side of the toll-house to appeal to—
the impotent despair of being compelled to allow, a
dozen times in a day, perhaps, a bowling carriage-
team of four in hand, with two or three.carriages of
the suite, equally well horsed, and Royal coachmen,
sleek and smiling as the bouquets in their button-
holes, to drive througil these sacred " bars " in cool
defiance of clerks of the peace, surveyors of the
roads, and chairman of trusts; the agonizing desire
of TANTALUS for a draught of cold water
must be a mere slight feverish excitement
compared with the hopeless intensity of a
Welsh toll-collector, to clutch the " road dues"
which, if needy small farmers must pay, he finds
that exempted Royalty will not. We have no room
to enter into other particulars and details connected
with the subjects of the various sections in which
this Report is arranged, and as to which the Co'm-
missioners in general terms recommend the landed
proprietors, and other parties interested, to adopt
without loss of time the necessary remedial measures,
in a spirit of conciliation and good will towards the
people. Their rapidly increasing separation from
the Church of England, in the districts which have
been the scenes of greatest disturbance, is a fact em

phatically pressed upon her MAJESTY'S attention at

the conclusion of the Commissioners' Report. Lest
the multiplication of turnpike trusts, however,
should be merged in the enumeration of other
grievances of a more striking character—as, the in-
crease of county-rate, and of tithe, and - the large
diversion of great tithes into lay hands, in the
greater portion of South Wales—we subjoin a
few instances, the mere enunciation of -which
must be allowed, we think, to go far to-
wards supplying a case of justification for those
who—violently and illegally, it is true—put down
nuisances, but nuisances not the more tolerable be-

cause of their being sanctioned by enactments which
had been suffered to creep, unmarked, into those
furtive statutes, significantly enough denominated
" Private Bills" :

On the " Three Commotts Trust," extending over
50 miles of road, there were 21 gates or bars ; average,
one gate for every 2 miles and 1-Bth.

On the Kidweily Trust, 74 miles of road, 30 gates;
average, one gate for every 2 miles and 1-sth.
On the Llangadock Trust, 41 miles of road, 13
gates ; average, one gate for every 3 miles and 90
yards.

On the Llandovery and Llampeter Trust, 40 miles
of road, 13 gates; average, one gate for every 3 miles,
wanting 40 yards.

We could readily multiply examples of this kind
from the volume before us; but surely these are suf-
ficient to establish the intolerable nature of the
nuisance to which we have alluded, as it has affected
the poor and agricultural communities of South
Wales.

Madrid papers of the 14th have been received, but
they furnish no fresh intelligence, or any later
accounts from Carthagena, than those published
yesterday.

The Three per Cents. were done at 32 11-16 for
cash, and at 33i at 60 days; and the Five per Cents,
at 23 5-16 at 60 days.

The division in the French Chamber of Deputies
on the Secret Service Money Bill, which took place
on Tuesday, is much more favourable to the Ministry
than was anticipated. Towards the close of the
debate M. DE LASTETRIB moved an amendment to
reduce the grant to 950,000 f, which was put to the
vote and immediately rejected. The main question
was then put that the sum of 1,000,000 f. be voted for
the Secret Service, when, on a scrutiny being taken,
there- were—

For the grant
Against it

• ment was particularly manifested by a kind of crusade
against the University. If the clergy thought fit to
object to anything connected with that establishment,
why did they not express their opinion moderately
and charitably ? Firmness and -genius ought to be ex-
pected from the mouth of a Bossuet ; charity should
be expressed in the language habitual to Fenelon ; and
plain good sense should always be seen whenever a priest de-
livered his opinion.—(Approbation.) It was the unexampled
violence of the priesthood that he condemned, and it was
en it that he called the judgment of the public. The
Archbishop of Lyons, occupyingone of the first sees of France,
and calling himself Primate, had adopted in this contest
a measure known to them all; he had thought fit to adopt
the extraordinary means formerly employed as a threat
against men and even kings, but never against chil-
dren.—(Hear, hear.) What could be more improper
than the collective complaint of the Bishops ? The right
of petition might be exercised collectively, but never
by public functionaries, and there were cases where the
elevation of a man's position greatly aggravated the dan-
ger which was likely to accrue from his acts, and where any
• improper conduct was doubly reprehensible. He would add,
that the publication of the Bishop's protest was not only con-
trary to the Concordat of year X., but even to the canons of
the Church. Another very serious proof of the spirit which
actuated the clergy might be seen in the conduct of the
Bishop of Chalons towards the Abbe Combalot. That eccle-
siastic had been condemned for a libellous publication, and
the Bishop, already himself under the weight of a censure
from the higher authorities, thought fit to write him a letter,
condoling with him on his condemnation, and praising
M. Combalot's conduct in giving a noble example of resist
ance to the conduct of the University—the declared enemy
of the principles of the Church I. All that was wanting
to make this farce complete, was to find M. Combalot
writing back to the Bishop to congratulate him on the con-
demnation pronounced against him by the Council of State.
He (3 appealed to the- country, and demanded if
such conduct
ondiluPin)
ctwas to be tolerated. He declared that the
Bishop bad committed a most grave offence, and he main-
tained that he ought to be punished for it most severely.—
(Hear.) He would ask the Chamber whether it approved of
such acts on the part of the Bishops--whether there was any.
one in France who could believe that the servants of a con-
stitutional GovernMent could be in a humour to allow them-
selves thus to be braved in the name of a religion which
prescribed obedience to the constituted authorities ?—(Ap-
probation.) The clergy must well know that they had no
longer a peculiar ,privilege, and that if priests committed
offences they might, like other citizens, be prosecuted before
the ordinary tribunals of the country. When, however,
no crime had been committed, where there were only repre-
hensible acts to take notice of, it was for the functionary
invested.with the surveillance of the clergy to take cogni-
zance of it. Discipline was necessary in all hierarchies.
What; would be said of a military, body, if they
were .tó. concert together to praise a soldier who had just been
cerisuied Tor some fault in an order of the day—(Move-
mint).-7-or of an advocate who should congratulate a brother
banister for having incurred the censure of the -council of
their Order? The law furnished arms for the repression of
faults, and, were they even without arms, were 'there not.
legislators :to. furnish them? He did not reproach the Govern-
.ment for the conduct they had hitherto pursued, for they had
not acted with impatience ; but, for the time to come, let
them- pay the utmost attention, for, with a body such as the
clergy, the 'goVenuneet must never be in the wrong. Let
the clergy be made aware that they lived under a constitu-
tional Government—under one of those Governments who
would not tolerate the practice of confessors. - The clergy
bad been always protected, and more so since 1830 than under
the Restoration and the Empire. Let them obtain and pre-
serve the respect and consideration to which they were enti-
tled, but he, at the same time, conjured the Government to
be inexorable towards their eccentricities.—(Acclamations.)"