The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-01 00:00:00

Vita 7fibttton

THE FUNDS-(CLOSING PRICES

BRITISH FUNDS.

Bank Stock
3 per Cent. Reduced
New 3-1 per Cent ........... 1031
India Bonds, 1,000/..
Ditto under 1,000/.
Bank Stock for Account... 2ll
Consols ...
Indian Stock
Exchequer Bills, 1,0004, l d.
Ditto 500/.
Ditto Small
FOREIGN FUNDS.
Buenos Ayres Bonds, 6 per Cent 4Ol
Spanish 5 per Cent. 1840.
Dutch, 2} per Ceut ....
SIIARES.
Birmingham and Gloucester, 100 paid
Bristol and Exeter, 70 paid 75
Bristol and Gloucester, 30 paid ..
Caledonian, 5 paid 4;
Chester and Holyhead, 5 paid 5l

- -
Churnet Valley, 2 paid 4
Cornwall, 3 paid
- • 3.
Dublin and Belfast Junction, 2-A paid 5
Eastern Counties, 25 paid...
Great Southern and Western (Ireland), 5 paid 1U;
Great Western, 75 paid 155
Lancaster and Carlisle, 10 paid
London and Birmingham (Stock) . .. 229
London and Illackwall, 166 7l
London and Brighton, 50 paid
London and South Western, 414 paid 75
Ditto New
London and York,* paid 5
Lynn and Elv, E3/4- paid
Midland, 100 paid
North British, 7i paid -
Norwich and Brandon, 8 paid
Ditto New, 1 paid . .
Richmond and West End Junction, 1 paid
South Eastern and Dover, 33A paid
Trent Valley, 2 paid
West London, Old Shares, 20 paid
York and North Midland, 50 paid
Ditto Half Shares, 25 paid
Ditto, Selby Scrip, 2(1 paid
Boulogne and Amiens, 2 paid
Lyons and Avignon, 2 paid
Oilcans and Bordeaux, 2 paid
Paris and Lyons, 2 paid
Paris and Orleans, 20 paid
Paris and Rouen, 20 paid
Paris and Strasbourg, 2 paid ....

4
2
41
9

104

...
41*

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
GLOBE.—Another year has been added to British
history—and a remarkable one it has been. Our in-
terest in the present is apt at such a time to give way
to a keener interest in the past, and the indications it
may yield of the future—and we willingly obey the
impulse. The first glance at the doings of the past
year is a satisfactory one. We see an aggregate of
advancement which is gratifying to us as men, and
especially as Englishmen. But how much of this is
due to the people, and how little to their Government!
—the former everywhere using their energies, already
more fettered by legislative restrictions than those of
any other people on the face of the earth, for great
and good purposes ; the latter looking idly on, or
only adding to the fetters ! The last virtue which it
is permitted to a weak Government to retain is cast
overboard in the effort to magnify its waning
strength. Laissez faire is impossible with a Govern-
ment whose chief desire is to be thought stronger than
it is—so impertinent interference has, at length, be-
come the chief characteristic of British legi.lation.
Of the more important Acts of an entire session, by
far the greater number are for " regulating " matters
which all political economy, worthy of the name, has
hitherto deemed best left to themselves. We have
stepped into the cotton factories and regulated their
internal arrangements with a minuteness which
might even excite the envy of some of our continental
neighbours, and added one or two more (whether
wisely or not, the result will show) to the restric-
tions which already hamper the poor in disposing of
their labour to the greatest advantage. We have
separated the Bank of England, at one stroke, into
two departments, and imposed upon its operations
a check, the effect of which no one pretends to
foresee with any degree of certainty, but which
all allow can only cease to be entirely inopera-
tive by becoming at least highly dangerous. We
have taken all the railways in the kingdom under
the especial charge of the Government ; and dictated
the amount of profit which private enterprise shall
make under free competition. Joint-Stock Compa-
nies and Joint-Stock Banks have shared the same
fate, and now find themselves very much at the mercy
of the Board of Trade—a branch of the Government
once known to the public chiefly by name, but now
apparently intended to wield powers such as the
British people have never yet accorded to any
branch of their Government. The good measures
proposed in the earlier part of the session were
nearly all dropped in succession, for want of power
to carry them through. Where legislation was
most required nothing was done, or the evil was but
tampered with. The only material step taken in a
right direction was taken by stealth. Mr. Gladstone
has yet to explain his views of the Sugar Duties Act.
Two good old causes—the Corn-laws and " the
Church"—have been severely damaged, rather more
by their friends than their enemies. Societies for
the Protection of Agriculture have been got up and
brought into a state of activity only to have
their attention directed to the ample means of
natural improvement, which are necessarily
neglected under a protective system ; and their
discussions turned unwillingly from the monopoly
interests of the landlord to the just interests of the
labourer. And at the same time the Church is shaken
to its centre by paltry squabbles about matters of form.
Education, under the auspices of Government, has
made but little progress ; though the measures of the
late Government have been distinctly adopted by the
present, and have even found an able and energetic ex-
positor and defender in Lord Wharncliffe. And, in il-
lustration of what we have already said, we may observe
• that the attempt to introduce the obnoxious educational
clauses into the Factories Regulation Bill has caused
the people to do more for themselves than they have
ever attempted at any former period. Abroad we.
owe much to fortune, something to the ability of
subordinate officers, and nothing to the Ministry.
In conciliating the great Powers of Europe, her
Majesty's hospitality has been substituted for
those great refPrms of our international inter-
course with a wise regard to the demands of
our most pressing internal wants, and the safety
of our immense interests abroad, combine to urge
upon the attention cf the British statesman with
,a force which increases u ith every year of neglect.
In India, it we have removed a Governor-General
whose policy has done more to endanger the con-
tinuance of- our ascendancy in that part of the world
than all the errors and all the mint-Pe-tunes which have
marked our Indian Government since the days of
Clive, we owe it to the independent spirit of a body
of metehants having triumphed over the endeavours
of tke Cabinet to preserve its protege at his post. In
Canada, if the clouds which have so long obscured
the horizon begin to disperse, it is because the Whig
policy has been adhered to, and the skill and firumes.
of Sir Charles Metcalfe have escaped the pervert-
ing influence of a home Government conducted
without any fixed principle. In New Zealand,
the best promises of a rapid and successful coke.
nisation, and the formation of a new .and most
important branch of our colonial empire, have
been cheated of their due performance by the blun-
dering obstinacy of a Colonial Secretary whose per-
sonal qualities have recently been well summed up in
the single term, "school-Lo:rish." Unnecessary MI-
- port duties levied on articles the importation of which
is most necessary to the advancement of the colony,
and the extensive issue, among a scattered and strug-
gling population, of a small and inconvertible paper
currency, sufficiently mark the competency of these
who are at present intrusted with the direction of the
affairs of one of the most valuable colonies we possess.
These are no isolated instances of the policy of the
present Government, at home and abroad. The same
course, and the same results, meet us at every turn; and
we are compelled to see in them the natural fruit of
an attempt to rule this country by the combined
agency of a body of men who can only act together
by a sacrifice of principle to expediency, and who
can only retain power by adopting, as their own,
measures which in other hands have received their
strongest condemnation. The corning session, how-
ever, promises a change for the better. The present
Cabinet is evidently not fitted to weather the storm
which must assail it in any attempt to hold on its
present course. The departure of Lord Stanley
from the House of Commons leaves the Premier
without a rival, and his present followers with-
out a leader to rally under, should they abandon
himself. A wide margin of surplus revenue gives
scope for the application of a sweeping measoucree
to
fiscal reform ; and though the attempt to reduce
practice any large additional modicum of Sir R. Peel's
free-trade theory might result in an extensive seces-
sion from the ranks of his supporters, we have no
reason to believe that the attempt, if judiciously made,
will fail of ultimate I. UCCCES. And whatever else may
arise from such a movement—whatever particular
benefits may accrue from it to the great commercial
interests of the country —will certainly be insigni-
ficant in comparison with those which must spring
from the substitution, for a Ministry like the present,
of one whose principles and conduct will be in accord-
ance, and to whom shuffling and hypocrisy will be
unnecessary.
STA NDARD.—The former appeals in which it
tV, ro e the custom of the conductors of teves-
_. whir( their ; eadere, at the commence-
el e- bete• year, have been pretty gene-
".
;.:id a,..; f: in es nse of the inconvenience
ort uurt,vcs cu :peek .wily to some topics
when there may be no topics presenting any