The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-26 00:00:00

fftertning Lim

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1844.

While Government are busily engaged during the
recess—as they have led us to suppose they will be—
preparing a scheme of education for the Irish, we trust
that they will not omit to take into their considera-
tion the glaring deficiencies in this respect of the
lower classes of the English, both in the manufac-
turing and in the agricultural districts. That they
failed last year in their proposed plan of instruction
is no reason why they should not persevere, especially
as their failure will have the effect of acting as a useful
warning, by showing them wherein their plan was
defective, and furnishing them with hints and sug-
gestions for amending it. The education of the
masses is not one of those questions that can afford to
wait the leisure of Parliament and the convenience
of Ministers. It is pressing—imperative—and the
longer it is delayed, and the more it is trifled with,
the greater will be the difficulty of bringing it to a
satisfactory adjustment. At least one-half of the
agrarian outrages that are of such continual occur-
rence in the south and west of Ireland, may be traced
to the deplorable ignorance of the peasantry ' • and
who can doubt that the midnight vagaries of Swing
have the same origin ? By accounts that appeared a
short while since in The Sun, it seems that the ma-
jority of those recently convicted of incendiarism
had received scarcely any education at all ; while of
twenty who were convicted of various offences at the
quarter sessions in one of the Wilts districts, upwards
of fifteen could neither read nor write ! What a com-
ment is this on the supineness and want of foresight of
Government, which legislates with restless officious-
ness for a variety of petty, partial grievances, while it
leaves the great grievance of all nearly, if not wholly,
unredressed I We hear much in Parliament of the
commercial difficulties of the people, who are some-
times patted on the back for their forbearance, and at
other times taunted with their sullen Chartist heresies;
but seldom is their benighted ignorance alluded to in
a spirit worthy of the occasion, or any indication
manifested of the earnest wish on the part of Parlia-
ment, boldly to grapple with the subject. Whigs and
Tories seem equally to shrink from the task, as though
it were surrounded with difficulties beyond their
powerc to overcome. We are not aware that any edu-
ac
al measures on a comprehensive scale were pro-
J ected during the ‘en years of Whig supremacy; and

sure we are that our present Tory rulers—not-
withstanding that year by year the evil has been ac-
quiring fresh strength—have as yet turned their
attention but slightly and indolently to the great busi-
ness of education. Well, the evil, we trust, is now
about to be remedied ; and for the best of all possible
reasons—namely, that it can no longer be staved off
with impunity. It is good that the people should be
provided with the means of subsistence; that the
burdens which press so heavily on them should be
lightened ; that ample work should be found for
them, by liberating trade and commerce from the
fetters in which they are at present bound ;—all this,
we say, is good, and worthy the most serious -atten-
tion of the Legislature; but better still is it that the
people should be rationally instructed, for by these
means —and these only—the ground-work is laid for
their advancement in life; principles of common-
sense, justice, and morality are instilled into them,
which in due course will have all the force of a second
nature ; and the best of all guarantees is given for
real, lasting, national tranquillity. The energies of
an uneducated people are never to bo relied on, for in
seasons of distress and difficulty, they are far more
likely to take a wrong than a right direction. That
such is almost invariably the fact, we saw in the ser- ,
vile insurrection under the leadership of FitosT and
other Chartist agitators ; and, still more recently, in
the extensive outbreak in the manufacturing districts,
which at one time threatened to involve the whole
north of England in anarchy. The strikes of work-
men, too, which are so frequently occurring in the
colliery and mining districts, where education is no-
toriously at a lower ebb than elsewhere, may be all
traced to the same source—the besotted ignorance of
those who take part in them, and who, as a necessary
consequence, adopt the very means which are the
most certain to increase their distress. Surely, with
these facts staring them in the face, Ministers will be
greatly to blame if they hesitate any longer to put
their shoulder to the wheel, and grapple with the
momentous question of education, in a prompt—con-
ciliatory—comprehensive and energetic spirit !

The Morning Herald declares that it notices, once
more, "with no unfriendly spirit, a charge" which it
distinctly stated, a month ago, against Lord MEL-
BOURNE and his Cabinet—namely, " that his Lordship
and his Whig colleagues were in the habit of opening
Mr. O'CONNELL'S letters in the Post-office." This
charge our Contemporary "regrets to say" rests on
such authority as it cannot hastily reject ;" for " the
confession was made by Lord MELnoustsiE himself in
the most august presence in the country, and in the
presence of too many witnesses of inferior, though
still of exalted, rank, to be retracted." And it is very
delightful to find the Herald discoursing thus em,.
phatically on the monstrous practice it now repudiates;
.... we are most unwilling b believe, implicitly, an
accusation which, if true, must brand the Whig
Cabinet with an indelible and eternal mark of infamy
and dishonour. To open the letters—of a Member of
Parliament—of a man entrusted by the people with
the solemn charge of their interests—is clearly a high
crime and misdemeanour against the constitution."
We entirely concur in—and have, on many recent
occasions, in specific terms, advocated—these senti-
ments. We denounced, in terms of equal strength
and reprobation, the scandalous offence to which Sir
JAMES GRAHAM pleaded guilty, of having issued
official warrants to authorise the detention and open-
ing of letters in their passage through the Post-office.
But the Herald found no offence on account of this
in Sir JAMES'S conduct. We, too, contended, in sub-
stance, that the practice of clandestinely opening
letters whilst they were within the assumed sacred
trusteeship of the Post-office, was "a high crime and
misdemeanour against the constitution." But that
which the Herald perceives to be manifestly such in
Lord MELBOURNE, it would seem never to have sus-
pected in Sir JAMES GRAHAM. Although it holds
that this species of delinquency in a Whig Premier, if
truly charged, "must brand a Whig Cabinet with an
indelible and eternal mark of infamy and dishonour,"
it cannot see that the same offence, in any way, should
affix to the Home Secretary of State of a Conservative
Administration any such stigma. If our memory
rightly serves us, the Herald was quite facetious at
the idea of imputing that to Sir JAMES, as officially
flagitious, or in itself indefensible, which had been no
toriously done by all his predecessors in office. But
it rippenrc thnt, ;i> mai bavo boon
for the purpose of our Contemporary when this grave
charge, in the case of M. MAZZINI and others, was
brought forward against one of its Ministerial patrons
by Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMBE, to shirk the enormity
of the specific violation by falling back on the whole
stream of official precedents (bearing on its tide
Cabinet Ministers of all parties, and all shades of po-
litical opinions, for more than one hundred years
oast), it afterwards discovered that it had been too
preripitate. By this generalizing, it had lost an un-
foreseen opportunity of " branding" a special delin-
quency, and this, too, committed by an enemy. Here
was a fault to be repaired at the earliest opportunity.
ft had allowed a whole flight of butterflies to escape,
in order that one, in which it was interested, might
not be folded in the 1-.‘et of a Parliamentary inquiry.
But it soon found, that among this flight, there was
another, a bigger, a more important individual, whom
it could not afford to lose. It ;esumes, therefore, in
its own person, the very chace N:ghich it had depre-
cated in others. Lord MELBOURNE is an "Emperor"
of the largest class ; and so he is caught, L'ud solemnly
pinned, and ostentatiously displayed, in the Herald's
newest specimens of political entomology, in tsPPosi-
tion (we suppose) to Sir JAMES GRAHAM, inipalLid in
a similar manner in the "glass" cases of the Oppo '47
ti in Collections, as " Papilio inspiciens—(GßA-
-11A m)"—a description which we humbly tender for
adoption.
Now, there is something, in all this, more than
amusing, though the fun is not small of seeing politi-
tical disingenuousness reduced to the shameless incon-
sistency of decrying in its opponents, to-day, as " a
high crime and misdemeanour against the constitu-
tion," that very offence which, yesterday, in its
friends, is not only considered venial, but almost
went out of its way to vindicate. There is, beyond
this absurdity, a legitimate moral to be deduced from
such party-serving tampering with principles. It is,
that the attempt to compromise truth is sure to entail
the discomfiture of him by whom it is made. The.
practice so loudly and universally complained of is
right, or it is wrong. There is no halting between
its justification and its condemnation. Even if its
defenders rely on the miserably humble plea of ex-
pediency, that plea is consistent—intelligible so far as
it goes. But it is not intelligible or consistent for
one man to-day, and neither consistent nor intel-
ligible for another to-morrow. If the Herald had
had the frankness and the manliness to admit, on a
recent occasion, that the opening of sealed letters was
a gross and detestable perversion of official privilege
in Sir JAMES GRAHAM, it might now, with perfect
consistency, denounce it—as we do, without hesita-
tion—a gross and detestable proceeding in Lord
MELBOURNE. The difference between us is this,
that, writing under no trammels of party, or inte-
rested feeling, we as indignantly and distinctly pro-
test against the constitutional misdemeanour in Lord

MELBOURNE, as we have protested against it in Sir

JAMES GRAHAM. But the Herald, after overlooking,

or palliating, or defending this course of action in its
political client, the Right Hon. Baronet, turns round

upon it, and holds it up to public execration, when
resorted to by its political adversary, the Noble Vis-

count. The fact is (for reasons which, having urged

in former articles, we will not press again upon our

readers), the; power of sealed letter-violation, whe-
ther authorised in the Secretary of State by the Act

of ANNE, and continued by Mr. LAnoucumiz's Post-

office Acts Consolidation Bill—or not—is morally
inexcusable in theory ; whilst for reasons of sound

policy, as well as on the ground of immutable rights,
and national honour and public faith, and even on
the much-relied one of political expendiency itself, it
is absolutely indefensible. The accident of %Vhig or
Tory connexion cannot affect, by one jot, the strength
of the principle. What was thus tainted with wrong
and fraud in the official acts of Lord MELnounNkr
cannot have been more pure or less to be execrated in
Sir JAMES GRARAM.

But it may be that the Herald's emphatic instance of
the letters " of a Member of Parliament," is meant to
suggest a difference between the case of Mr. O'CoN.
NELL'S correspondence and that of M. Meaux'. Be
it so. The " difference " is even then worthless, for
it leaves the case established against Sir JAMES
Gamum untouched. It was charged by Mr. Dux-

comnz that his own letters had been opened at the

Post-office. The charge was not answered, but it
was not denied. Mr. 'WALLACE stated, in the broadest
terms, that his letters for some time met with the same
treatment. The accusation was not repelled, for it
was true. Besides, it was admitted that diplomatic
correspondence of foreign Ministers had been, shall
we say, habitually opened, under a Conservative Go-
vernment. The Herald surely does not mean to in-
timate that it was a greater crime in a Whig Go-
vernment to have violated Mr. O'CoNNELL's corre-
spondence ? Again, we say—in few words—the
whole practice, from beginning to end, with its sta-
tutable authority, Ministerial precedents, and official
usage, is in all respect► base, pitiful, and inexcusable ;
—a degradation to the Minister who resorts to it, a
reproach to the country which tolerates such a
Minister.

Private letters from Paris mention that there is
every probability of the Otaheite affair being settled
amicably. It is said that Captain BRUAT, disapprov-
ing of the arrest and expulsion of Mr. PRITCHARD,
had reprimanded M. D'AuniGNr, and suspended him
till further orders from his Government. We shall
rejoice to find this statement confirmed; but as no
dates are given, nor any mention made of later arri-
vals from the Pacific, it must be regarded as a mere
report, though one which is extremely probable.
Captain BRUAT was selected by the French Cabinet
as a prudent and skilful man to succeed Admiral Do-
PETIT Tuouias, and it is not at all unlikely that he
at once disowned an act involving such heavy respon-
sibilities.
The following telegraphic dispatch was received
by the Government on the 22d instant :—" The last
accounts from Marshal BUGEAIJD are of the 9th. At
that date the Marshal still occupied the camp of Lella
Magrina. The negotiations with the Moorish camp
had yielded no result. The Marshal's army had been
abundantly supplied by our steamers. The squadron
of the Prince de JonsvlLLß was still on the 9th in the
waters of Tangiers."
A later dispatch, which will be fouled under the
proper head, brings intelligence from Marshal Bu-
GEAUD, of the 14th, and announces that he had gained
a great victory over 20,000 Moorish cavalry. The
journals are still almost exclusively occupied with the
affairs of Morocco ; and we regret to find that owing
to some indiscreet articles in the London newspapers,
the tone of even the Ministerial press is somewhat al-
tered. The Globe thus alludes to these articles:—
" Some days ago the Presse said that the journals
would fill up the forced silence of the Chambers on both
sides of the Channel, and that their mission became the
more important in proportion to the increased gravity of
circumstances. Yes ! the mission of the periodical press
would indeed become great and high if it would devote
itself to enlighten men's mitrls instead of disturbing
them. But it had rendered itself little because it has
undertaken a miserable task—a task of rancorous and
narrow recrimination. No—the press cannot supply the
forced silence of the Chambers, because the Chambers
are the soul, the intelligence, the justice, and the inte-
rests of a nation, and the press in general is but its igno-
rance, its passion, and often its raging even to delirium.
We apply this to the journals of England as well as of
France. On both sides the journals are spirits of dark-
ness, hatred, and barbarism. On neither side do they
stand forth as the sentinels of justice, peace, and civilisa-
tion. The harsh task which we had imposed upon our-
selves of making known the French press to French
readers has been too faithfully accomplished to leave
any necessity for our further demonstrating how well-
founded are our charges against it. It remains only,
therefore, for us to establish by the proofs that are in our
hands, that the English press is in no great degree be-
hind our own in irrationality, inconsistency, and evil
instinet. We regret to be obliged to produce the Ti.res,
a journal of so much importance, as a specimen of the
bad spirit which seems to predominate over journalism
in the free countries of Europe."
It afterwards adds :
" If it be true that order would be disturbed in France,
that our new-born dynasty would be endangered, that
our railroads would remain unfinished—that Paris, that
great seat of industry, would be deserted by foreigners,
and that with them employment, profit, and wealth,
would depart; that every hranch of our national industry
would receive a rude shock ; it is equally true that on the
day when the flames of war should break forth the voice
of O'Connell, now smothered, would be heard aloud ;
the element of democracy would make the aristocracy
pay dear for the aid it might lend. You would sow dis-
order and uneasiness amongst us, but you would not pro-
duce a revolution. Go to ! neither you nor we, nor any
portion of Europe, have anything to gain by a war. All
of us have need of order, undisturbed industry, and sta-
bility, and we all depend upon each other. The
first cannon-ball you fire against us will strike
all Europe to the heart. It is for this that we wish for
peace, and not from want of confidence in our own
strength or from fear of yours. When you talk of your
strength you commit an enormously great act of impru-
dence—you place yourselves on a ground from which
we have never stirred. England would be against us I
But we have had all Europe upon us, and she will long
bear the marks of the wounds we have inflicted upon
her. Would you know what has greater influence over
us than the strength of England—than all the might of
Europe? We reply, justice and equity. Convince us
that we are wrong, and though we will never yield a
step to dictates issued from the cannon's mouth, we will
give way to the arguments of good sense and truth. All
this would be very alarming if France and England
were governed by journals. But this is not the case.
The journals, through the calumet which is called a pen,
blow storms and tempests in the ocean, which is called
an ink-bottle. All this comes from no ,great elevation,
and penetrates to no great depth. Those who rule are,
like travellers seated on the summit of the Alps—the
storm is at their feet, but a calm is around them, and the
invariable canopy of Heaven above their heads."
The Journal des Debats adopts nearly the same
strain, but the writers in these journals ought to re-
member that the English newspspers were not the
first to begin the war of words, and that many inju-
rious epithets were for months applied to England
without any retaliation. The Journal des Debats, in
reference to such angry discussions, says :
" The English press shows far more anxiety about the
results of the bombardment of Tangiers than that of
France, and exhibits its uneasiness in a manner which,
we must declare, does it but little honour. The French
Government has formally and publicly expressed its re-
solution to wage only a defensive war ; it has declared
several times that it has not the slightest intention to
an inch of territory to its African possessions, and
yet it io in presence of these reiterated declarations that
the fnglish journals take the trouble of protesting
against 1111 permanent occupation of Morocco by France.
We have already asserted, and we now repeat it, that
such a proceeding is what is called showing courage
and firmness at a cheap rate. It is most ungracious
to impose on France limits which she had traced
out for herself beforehand, of her own accord, and with

out the permission of any one. The French Go•
vernment has nu desire to take Morocco, but it wishes
to keep Algeria. It may suit the English press to
deprecate what is taking place in French Africa, and
to say that we are losing our time, men, and money
there. That may be the case ; but, at all events, that
only regards ourselves, and we are but little sensible to
the interest that is so kindly shown for our finances.
We know not what England would have done with
Algiers, if she had got it ; but we have it, and will ex.

pend, if necesary, Millions of francs and thousands of
men, to keep it. We conjure the English press to watch
more carefully over itself, for it plays a part but little
worthy of itself, and of the great country the opinion of
which it represents. It turns a particular and accidental
question into a general one, threatens us with a coalition,
makes an appeal to the passions of 1815, and boasts of
the support of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. There is

but Hale honour in thus threatening with the sword of
others. England, if she accepted the responsiblity of
such a language, would strongly contradict herself. She
saluted with an enthusiasm, which, in spite of every-
thing'we havo not lost the memory of, the revolution of 1830,
because she beheld there the triumph of constitutional
principles, and the victory of legal liberties. It is owing
to the union of the two great liberal nations of the west
that Belgium was able to found her nationality, and that
Portugal and Spain could give themselves a Parlia-
mentary Government. Would England be now disposed
to repudiate this glorious obligation, and to repudiate
the cause of civilisation, progress, and liberty ? We
think not."

Considerable agitation prevailed on the Paris Bourse
on Thursday. The Three per Cents. at one time fell
to 78f. 85c. They finally closed at 80E 10c., and the

Fives at 120 f.
THE BOURSE—SATtranAy, AUGUST 22.
First Highest Lowest Last
Price. Price. Price. Price.
Frexiih Five perC3nts.. •• .• 120 05 .. 120 05 .. 119 95 .. 120 05
Three per Cents.— 80 05 .. 80 20 .. 80 05 .. 80 10
Bank of France 3035 3035 . • 3035 • • 3035
LaMtte Bank, I,ooof. Shares] C9O —lO9O .. 1090 ..1090
5,000 f. Shares.so64 —5060 —5060 ..5060
Belgian Bank ...... 665 .. 665 .. 660 .. 660

..... .• 1031 .. 1031
1840" lO3l .. 1031 .. 1031 .. 1031
1842 IEI .. 1061 .. 1061 .. 1061
EY8•111811 Adlv4 •.. • •.•. 30 .. 30 .. 30 .. 30
Passive 5l .. 51 .. 51 .. 51
New I)cferred l3 .. 13 13 .. 13
NeaPolitan•••••• •••••• •

Roman •• •
•
RAILWAY SHARES.
VorsAilles. R.R... •••• .... 370 .. '372 50 .. 370

.. 104

- 101

230
Rouen .. • ................. 940

.. 23C
.. 340

.. 372 50

.. 227 50 .. 227 50
.. 940 .. 940

Rouen to iiavre....
Orleans

.. 715
.. 935

Strasburg to 8a1e•... •• .... 232 5C • . 235
Avignon to Marseilles.. •—• 745 .. 745

.. 232 50 .. 233 75
. 740 .. 740

RAILWAY SHARES FOB THE ACCOUNT, 31st OF AUGUST.

370 370 .. 370 .. 378
L.B.— •• •• ...... 230 .. 230 .. 227 50 .. 227 50
940 .. 945 .. 937 50 .. 940
80Cent011avre............ 722 SO .. 722 50 .. 717 50 .. 717 50
Orlea'llll • ..... • • • • • • • • • • • •• 930 .. 935 .. 930 .. 935
strasbi:vg to Bale— --- 233 55 .. 235 . 233 75 .. 235
Avignon to Marseilles.. •• 745 .. 745 .- 738 75 .. 740

Madrid journals of the 16th have been received. In
one of them we find a letter from Algesiras confirm-
ing the intelligence from Marshal BUGEAUD, conveyed
by the French telegraph. "A report is current," the
writer states, "that the bombardment of Tangiers