The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-25 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1844.

In the House of Commons, the Marquis of BLAND
FORD took his seat for Woodstock.

Mr. HUME gave notice of a motion for abolishing
the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Mr. MILNES gave notice that, on Friday next, he
would ask Sir R. PEEL whether the new front of
the British Museum had been definitively agreed on,
with a view of moving for a Select Committee to
consider the plan.
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE gave notice of a motion for
Thursday fortnight, to appoint a Select Committee
to ascertain what Members had been returned to Par-
liament by Peers or other persons.
The great affair of the evening—the charge against
Mr. FERRAND—was then brought forward by Sir
JAMES.. GRAHAM, who moved that the two passages in
tbnreo Times
newspaper, in which Mr. FERRAND
ught charges against himself and Mr. HoGG,
should be read by the Clerk at the table. The pas-
sages were read by the Clerk, when Sir ROBERT
PEEL, after
on
gto three precedents, moved that
the House,Friday next, take the matters of com-
plaint into consideration, and that Mr. FERRAND be
ordered to attend hi his place, in order to state whe-
ther the passages are correct, and also if he thinks fit
to bring proof of the charges.

Lorci -JOHN RUSSELL entirely concurred in the
course proposed by Six ROBERT FEU.

Mr. FRENCH objected to the motion. The pas-
sages read did not bear out the charge that Sir JAMES
GRAHAM tampered with Mr. HOGG ; and, besides, it
was a dangerous precedent that a Minister of the
Crown, backed by a majority, should take upon him-
self to put down a man who ventured to bring a
charge against him.
Mr. T. DUNCOMBE thought the publisher of the
paper was the offending party. Now, however, he
thought the most proper course would be, to refer the
matter to a Committee, and if Mr. FERRAND failed
to substantiate his charges, then it would be for the
House to exercise its undoubted authority.
Mr. DISRAELI acquitted Mr. HoGG of all blame,
disapproved of the language used by Mr. FERRAND,
but thought he had received a great moral lesson, and
it would be better to let the matter drop.

After speeches from Lord JOHN MANNERS, who
moved the previous question, Mr. SMYTHE, and Mr.
ROEBUCK, displaying some new political features, and
also some personal allusions, Lord Howicx depre-
cated the course proposed. It would, in his opinion,
be better to pass over the affair in silent contempt,
and follow the example set by the House when the
Member for Knaresborough made a similar un-
founded charge against Mr. COBDEN.
After some remarks from other Members, Lord
JOHN MANNERS withdrew his amendment, and the
original motion was agreed to.
The County Coroners Bill went through Commit-
tee ; and, while Mr. FRENCH was making a motion
respecting the Dublin jury lists, the House was
counted out, at a Quarter to Eight.

The usual weekly meeting of the Anti-Corn-law
League was held last night at Covent-Garden
Theatre. Though these meetings have been of
regular occurrence since the commencement of the
session, yet there is not the slightest symptom of any
falling-off in public interest ; the house still continues
to be crowded—which is more than can be said of
St. Stephen's ; and the attention paid by the audience
to the proceedings is still as vigilant and earnest
as ever. Mr. EWART, who was one of the
principal speakers of the evening, made several
apt remarks on the subject of the great progress
which free trade had made in the minds of the people,
and, alluding incidentally to:negro slavery, observed :
"If they were to have the iron fetters shaken from
the hands of the slaves, the nation said, let us also
have the commercial fetters shaken from our hands.
The negroes were freed, but the people of this coun-
try still continued bound, and unless they imperatively
demanded the abolition of these restrictions, they would
continue to be so, till nothing short of the compulsion
of necessity should drive the Legislature to redeem its
pledge." The emancipation of the negroes, not-
withstanding the prodigious cost at which it was
effected, was unquestionably a generous, politic,
high-minded act worthy of a mighty nation like
England; but the emancipation of trade from the
shackles with which it is at present encumbered, is
an act at least equally politic, equally necessary,
equally called for by humanity. For who would be
the gainers by such emancipation ? All classes to a
certain extent; but more especially the poor—the
oppressed—the despised operatives, on whom the
present restrictive system falls with terrible seve-
rity, crippling their energie3, narrowing their
field of labour, throwing a cloud over the
present, blottng out hope from the future, and
sowing, almost as a matter of necessity, the seeds
of between themselves and their employers, by
placing each in a false position with the other. It is
but a tame, halting, one-sided humanity that re-
dresses the wrongs of the blacks, while it can endure
to perpetuate the slavery—for what is the present
factory system, so far as the women and chil-
dren are concerned, but slavery ?—of the whites.
Referring to the vacillating policy of Ministers,
Mr. EWART went on to say :—" Government were
sometimes by their friends and foes charged with
being free-traders. He gave them full credit for
what they did. He could only wish they were more
open in carrying into practice their theory of free-
trade. One Minister had just made the declaration
he had already quoted ; and others said that the prin-
ciples of free-trade were the principles of common
sense. Another was supposed to write in favour of
the Government principles of free-trade. If such
were the principles entertained by the Ministers,
why did they not act on them ?" This is a question
that has often been asked, and answered in an infinite
variety of ways, according to the views of those who

it. -
replied to Our own opinion, which we have ex-
pressed more than once, is that Ministers have aban-
doned an old-fashioned notion of principle, and
adopted expediency as their sheet-anchor. On this
alone they act, and will continue to act, so long as
they remain in office. Lofty and comprehensive
views are clearly caviare to them ; they consult
only their majority, which is to them a sort
of political barometer. And yet, strange to say, not-
withstanding the- vaunted majority, rarely has there
been of late times so utterly inefficient a Ministry.
It seems nearly powerless for good, and not over-
influential even for evil. Quarter after quarter it post-
pones, struggles, equivocates with, and abandons, while
the country looks on astonished at the phenomenon of
a Government scarcely able to make a single decisive
movement, with a majority of ninety at its back !

It is to be hoped that Mr. CHARLES BULLER, or
some other Member of the House of Commons, who
has devoted an adequate portion of his own time and
his powers of investigation to the study of our colo-
nial relations and policy, will speedily bring before
Parliament a series of definite and practical propositions
for the extension and consolidation of the one, and
the exposition of the other. Of all the political res-
ponsibilities attaching to that foremost rank which
Great Britain occupies among the nations composing
the dominant Governments of Europe, those which
regard her parent and protectress position toward her
immense colonial possessions and settlements in Asia
and America, in Africa, New Holland, and the Southern
Ocean, are among the most enormous and the most
sacred. Beyond doubt, of all the systems of depart-
mental administration which ever aspired to the de-
signation of a scheme of "policy," that upon which
our " empire beyond sea" has been conducted, from
the accession of the house of BRUNSWICK to the pre-
sent time, has been the most undigested, ill combined,
conflicting, wasteful, and ignorant. We write this
advisedly. Nor is it any answer to the charge—any
disproof of the accusation we bring against a scheme
of management so destitute of principle, so innocent
of consistency, so capricious, disjointed, and uncertain
as our Colonial Government has been and still is—to
point to the rapid growth of this or that colony—to
indicate here, the astonishing increase of trade—to in-
sist there, on the prodigious extension of revenue.
That young colonies should wax vigorous and opulent
despite the erroneous treatment they may receive at the
hands of the distant mother country—that the remotest
offshoots of the Imperial State should flourish and
make progress in the remotest regions of another
hemisphere,—these are anomalies which only show
that, under • favourable conditions of circumstances,
the development of their power and resources may
advance steadily and surely, although neglect, misma-
nagement, or incapacity at home may have done their
best to impede their march and restrain their inhe-
rent energies. But that colonies or settlements, with
an ample commerce and permanent sources of public
income, neither few in number nor meagre in their
amount, should be unable to meet the burden of
their own expenditure, or to maintain unimpaired
domestic peace and tranquillity within their own
boundaries ;—these are facts which inevitably pre-
suppose vices of home administration, the corruption
or incapacity of local legislatures, or the misconduct,
excessive staff, or excessive pay of the Colonial ,
Exe-
cutive.

A contemplation of the enormous sums which
Consolidated are
annually charged on the revenues of the United King-
dom (whether on the Fund, or on
certain duties on colonial and other produce), to
make good the balances in excess of expenditure over
important
colonial in some of our richest and most
colonial possessions ; and of the large votes annually
passed by the British Parliament (in one class of the-
Miscellaneous Estimates) on account of Colonial
Services ;—this will suffice to justify the language
we have applied to the general results of our Colonial
Government. We do not propose here to point out
the most eligible course of proceeding for the attain-
ment of an object so extensively beneficial in its
bearings as a general revision of the existing system
of that Government, and its administration. But we
could not propound, either to the Learned Member
for Liskeard, or any gentlemkn of the same class of

qualifications, an undertaking more worthy of his
research and sagacity, his industry, his legal know-
ledge, and that sound good sense which is the pri-
mary element of all statesmanship. The revision of
many commercial statutes—now operating as absolute
interdicts on the commerce of some colonies, or
elaborately depriving others of commodities and
supplies which they most need, and of which it was
obviously our true wisdom to facilitate their acqui-
sition ; the more extended encouragement to be given
by specific remissions of existing duties and imposts
on native produce ; and the opening up more liberal
and extensive markets in the ports and harbours of
our colonies for the commerce of the world, by
retaining no protecting duties in favour of the
mother country not absolutely essential, or not
beyond the point to which they may be proved
essential to the protection of British manufactures,
merchandise, &c., against the competing merchandise
and manufactures of the same kind, imported under
foreign flags ;—these would be some of the more im-
portant details in any such scheme of colonial revision
as wet would call for. The assimilation of local laws,
customs and usages, currency and money, to the
greatest extent which may be expedient or practicable,
would form another, though more gradual, operation
in the range of such a plan. But such a plan—ably
carried out to the full extent to which it would
necessarily expand—would embrace, concurrently
with the amelioration and enlargement of our trade,
guarantees of the very highest importance as to
political and territorial interests. IVe should cease to
hear of the absolute non-application or the partial
diversion of duties levied—in some instances during
almost a century past—for the reparation of forts
and the improvement of harbours, which duties have
too often been, after strict collection in the West
Indies, shamefully and illegally applied to very
different purposes in England. In this way a system
of revision and reform honestly discussed, ably or-
ganised, and impartially and fearlessly carried into
execution would ensure, both to the colonies and the
Mother country, in peace, all the advantages and the
wealth derivable from a greatly extended commerce ;
in war, all the benefit and protection of forts, batteries,
and harbours in an effective condition for defence and
occupation. There is no question but that whoever
shall undertake such a task as we have sketched out
for him, must propose to himself certain distinct, well
considered principles of economic as well as imperial
policy,from which he must not be lightly moved by an-
tagonistic claims of East and West India, Windward and
Leeward Islands, Jamaica, and Mauritius interests.
Giving due consideration to all, he must not be seduced
into exclusive preferences for any; and for any tempo-
rary which he may draw upon himself from par •
titular quarters, he will be abundantly compensated
by the reflection of having laboured to procure for the
entire empire the incalculable advantage which must
flow from the calling into more unobstructed action
its immense, and hitherto much mismanaged, colonial
resources, by a system combining something like
harmony of working with unity and compatibility of
design in its principles.
To the want of such a general scheme of colonial
policy are attributable the anomalous condition of
New Zealand ; the insecurity of a part of our Cape
territory ; the decline of Australian prosperity in
many of our New Holland settlements ; the aggres-
sive encroachments of the Dutch upon our commerce
in the Indian Archipelago; the hazardous position o
our interests in the Oregon ; a vast proportion of
our Canadian difficulties ; and the loss of our most
profitable branch of the gum trade in Western
Africa.

Madrid journals of the 17th have been received,
from which we learn that, on the 16th, Queen CHRIS-
TINA reviewed her regiment, the " Reina Guberna-
dora," to which she had lately been Colonel. She
was attended by General NARVAEZ, Duke DE SAN
CARLOS, Duke DE LA. BOCA, General CORDOVA, and
several other officers of rank. Her MAJESTY was
enthusiastically received by the regiment. Accord..
ing to accounts from Gibraltar, the Emperor of Mo-
Rocco is making great preparations to resist the
proposed attack from Spain. He has proclaimed war
against the Infidels, and called out forty thousand
horsemen. The subjoined decree appears in the
Madrid Gazette, put forth probably to gull the fo-
reign creditors, and prepare the way for a loan

" The Queen, in her anxiety to re-establish and consoli-
date, by all possible means, the national credit and confi-
dence of the creditors of the State, and being persuaded that,
in order to attain that end, nothing is more efficacious than
the rigorous observation of the laws and special ordinances,
and the execution of contracts, has fixed for the Ist of May
next the drawing of the foreign deferred debt, which is to
take place in the present year, conformably to the law of the
16th of November, 1834. A Committee, appointed to that
effect, will proceed to draw, under the presidency of the
Director-General of the Sinking Fund."
More butcheries have been committed in the East
of Spain, as will be seen from the following procla-
mation of General ESPLETA, addressed to the inha-
bitants of Gerona on the 16th :
"Although the authorities of the neighbouring kingdom
(France) have, thanks to their excellent vigilance, arrested
47 Spanish emigrants, most of them chiefs and officers who
wanted to revive civil war in their country, on the 11th and
13th, nine other emigrants attempted to enter Spain by
night. Seven were apprehended by the people and detach-
ments in the army. After an inquiry into the affair, and
spiritual assistance being administered to them, they have
suffered the punishment they deserved. They have this
evening been shot."

The Three per Cents. were done at 36 5-16 for
cash, and 37i at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents.
at 22i.

In the French Chamber of Deputies on Monday a
discussion took place on a Bill introduced by the
Government for the improvement of prison disci-
pline. The main object of the Bill is to establish
throughout the prisons of France the Pennsylvanian
system of solitary confinement, a system to which
we are glad to find many of the members are decidedly
opposed. It is admitted on all hands that the present
mode of punishment in that country does not accom-
plish its object. Crime is on the increase, and the
worst offenders are those who have been committed
to the galleys, where they have been initiated into
every crime; but between this defective system and
that most horrible of all punishments, the silent sys-
tem, there is a wide difference, and scope enough for
other experiments. One of the speakers, M. DE SADE,
strongly opposed the Bill. He considered the system
of solitary confinement which it recommended dan-
gerous and barbarous. Madness and death would be
frequently the consequence. He quoted instances.
from the penitentiary at Lausanne in support of this
view of the question, and remarked that in Pennsyl-
vania it was on the point of being abandoned. This
system was, above all, opposed to all religious in-
struction, and oa this very ground the Court of Rome
had refused to allow cellular imprisonment. None of
the Ministers had spoken on the question. In the
Chamber of Peers the debate on the Education Bill
was going on, and would probably last for several
days. The whole of the sitting (four hours)
of the first day, was taken up with a
speech from M. COUSIN in defence of the University.
" It was asserted," said he, " that the philosophy
taught in the University led to materialism. What-
ever persons said so were not men really religious,
no matter what dress they wore. True religion was
too sure of itself to dread false or true lights. The
true light only made it the brighter ; the false one
paled before it." The Noble Peer concluded by de-
claring that the " fate of the University was in the
hands of the Chamber, and that he would call on them
to remember, in legislating on it, that whatever ame-
liorations they decided on ought to be founded on the
grand principle of the University—the power of in-
terference according to the State."
The following are extracts from the papers :

We read in the Constitutionnel :—" The affair of Otaheite is
much spoken of at the Chamber, and every one inquires why
the departure of Admiral Hamelin has been retarded. To
this the friends of the Cabinet reply, that the affair may
shortly receive an unexpected solution, which may allow
M. Dupetit Thouars' work to be maintained; but they show
more reserve when pressed to declare what price is to be paid
for this concession by England. We believe, however, that
it has been whispered that there is a project of recalling the
expedition sent to China. The Ministry is well aware
that it would expose itself in France to new remonstrances,
but it will have provided for the most pressing matter—the
customary policy of expedients. The affair of Otaheite is
not the only one, it is reported, which is treating between
France and England. A project for the partition of the island
of St. Domingo is spoken of in diplomatic circles. France, ,
founding her claims on the non-execution of the conditions
attached to the recognition of the independence of Hayti, of
which M. de Mackau was the negotiator, is to claim the
French part, and England, substituting herself for the claims
of Spain, would take the Spanish part, in compensation for
certain claims against the treasury of Madrid."
The Commerce says :—" We can affirm, from positive in-
formation, that M. Guizot has had a note of the following
take
aw
a y is
from decided c itdheed on
glita followingtoreia
purport, addressed to the various Italian Governments, with
the exception of the Duke of Modena :—' The French Go-
vernmenttais such halal
hopelineooffpeovl leery
obtain-
ing as will
from France the physical or even moral support, with the
hope of which they now deceive themselves. All the