The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-10 00:00:00

itenin ---.6*--111A;
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LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1844.

Last evening the business of the Session was
brought to a conclusion. The Royal Assent was
given to a vast number of Bills in the Lords, and
three which stood fora second or third reading were
very summarily discussed. On the motion of Lord
WUARNCLIFFE, the House adjourned till the 2d of
September. _ _

I In the Commons, Sir ROBERT PEEL moved the
adjournment of. the House till Thursday, the sth of
September. This unusual motion, of course, gave
rise to a debate. Mr. SHELL brought forward the
State of Ireland. Lord Jour( RussaLL, with-
out pretending to give a summary of
the business transacted during the session,
and, indeed, protesting against the system
of Lord LYNDHURST, who, for some years, had made
a stirring speech to his partisans and the country at
the close of the session, took a general view of the
most important events which had taken place. He
alluded particularly to the trial of Mr. O'CoNNELL
and his colleagues, to the state of foreign affairs, and
to the great inconvenience of protracting the session
to such a late period.
Sir R. PEEL praised the moderation of the Noble
Lord, concurred with him on almost every point,
then followed the example of' Lord LYNDHURST,
though in a different strain, and gave a
most glowing account of the wonders which had
been performed, not only during the session, but
during the three years in which he had been in office•
The motion for the adjournment of the House till the
sth of September was agreed to. The speeches
made by Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Sir ROBERT PEEL
will be read with interest. They chimed so wonder-
fully together, that the public will not be able to dis-
cover which is Whig and which is Tory. After
some routine business, the House adjourned at a
Quarter past Eight.

At the dinner given to her MAJESTY s Ministers by
he Clothworkers' Company, the Master proposed

" Prosperity to Ireland," which was responded to
with loud cheers. Lord ELIOT, as the official repre-
sentative of the Sister Isle, returned thanks, and ex-
pressed his conviction that the time was not far dis-
tant when the people of Ireland would learn to value
the motives and intentions of Sir ROBERT PEEL.
We trust the people of Ireland will not be disappointed.
Hitherto they have only known the motives and in-
tentions of Tory Governments by acts of the most
cruel tyranny, by glaring suspicions of their loyalty
without reason, and by a system of one-sided justice,
which ever screened and promoted Orangemen, and
trampled upon the native inhabitants. A new era,
then, has commenced. The golden age, if it no-
where else exists, is to shine forth with all its splen-
dour in the land of " half-hanging and flame," and the
glory is left to the Conservatives of reconciling that im-
portant portion of the empire to British rule. We
care not by whom this great work is accomplished,
whether by Sir ROBERT PEEL or Lord JouN Rus-
seLL—whether by the Whigs, or the Tories, or
the Radicals—if the work is only done quickly.
If the Iron Duke, who, is a native of the
country, and the Prime Minister, who knows the
Irish well, should have the magnanimity to do jus-
tice at last to an injured, a brave, and a grateful
people, the one would add an additional lustre, and
,ale still more glorious to his deeds in arms, and the
other would sanctify the desertion of his party in
;ranting the Catholic claims. Never had men such
a noble field for legislation. One-third of the inha-
-I)itants of the empire are alienated, because they are
.mot treated as British subjects; on that ground
'done a cry has been raised for repeal, and
rhat cry, and that marked alienation from Bri-
tish interests may be put down in six months
IT a straightforward, upright, just, and manly policy.
[s this not an honour worth contending for ? And
what a people they have to deal with ! No nation is
more patient under sufferings, no people are more
grateful for kindness, and no portion of the British
tmpire would be more attached to the Imperial Go-
vernment, if they were only treated with common
justice. Even in their utmost humiliation—when the
olost savage penal laws were in existence against
them, when they were treated on the plea of religion
as outcasts, when the able leaders of the Catholics and
the whole nation, except renegades and the descen-
dants of foreign settlers, were excluded from every
office of trust and honour—they still clung to England,
they fought her battles, though enslaved, and in the
utmost extremity of our difficulties, neither the Eng-
lish nor the Scotch troops surpassed the Irish, in the
zlorious cause of defending their common country.
When the fate of Waterloo hung on a thread, when
the formidable attack was made on the British centre,
when a PONSONBT fell, the Enniskillen Dragoons vied
with the Scotch Greys, and the best cavalry of Eng-
land, in completing the most illustrious achievement of
that terrible day. They have ever been faithful to
us, yet they have been treated as aliens. They
have risen against oppression, but they have
lever sold themselves to the enemy. Their
iearts are with England, yet England has never
responded to their claims but on compulsion.
Let us hope that the bigotry of the dark ages of Pro-
estantism is past, that Catholics are to be placed on
:he same footing with Presbyterians, and that at last
ve are to have, not in name, but in reality, an United
Kingdom. This is the only way to put down repeal
ind disappoint the hopes of our bitterest enemies ; and
'1 the present Government carry into effect what
hey now promise, they would gain for themselves a
:lame which would be rendered only more glorious by
-he rabid attacks of a broken faction.

When a Prime Minister of Great Britain; in the
thirtieth year of a profound peace, is compelled to
supplement the vast revenue of the country, amount-
ng, on an average, to some 48,000,0001. per annum—
!iy the continued infliction of so intolerable an impost
Ls the income-tax, producing between five and six
millions a year additional, the unfortunates who en-
voy the distinction of being mulcted 7d. in the pound
•n their respective incomes, in addition to their pro-
iortionate contributions, in all manner of taxes, to the
:eneral annual revenue in question—have some
prima facie reason to complain. All Sir IL PEEL'S
Aausibility will not overcome the reluctant conviction
‘,tthose who are to be mesmerised out of their seven-
ilences for the satisfaction of this cross-bred property
And income- tax—that the superfluous cash, of which he
•eould so blandly relieve them, would be better in
heir own pockets than in the Treasury coffers.
['here is, in natural philosophy, no principle of' re-
adsion so strong as that which is excited in a tax-
payer by the contact of a tax-collector. In the
mvhole range of chemistry, no affinity has yet been
detected so active, universal, or tenacious, as that
which directs the fingers of the Government to the
Toney of the governed. In practical finance the
-xtinction of a profitable tax, whose produc:iveness
:ms once been tested and realised, is a result more
hopeless than, in human pathology—the extirpation of a
cancer that has once established and rooted itself in
the system. These, or some such reflections, operate
with your tax-payers, when they demand how it hap-
pens that with a rapidly growing trade—on which
the Minister dilates with the view of eulogising his
own Government ;—with a largely accumulating pub-
lic income, on which he expatiates in order to decry
that of his predecessors ;—with an economised expen-
diture, on which he relies for inducing the Parliament
to grant his estimates ;—the greatest and surest
branch of permanent revenue should have, for the last
seven or eight years, exhibited an almost uninterrupted
tendency to decline ? Does the Government, which
demands a cool addendum of six millions, to the
vast product of Customs, Excise, Stamps, and Post-
office Duty, Land-tax and Assessed Taxes, hereditary
and miscellaneous heads of revenue, sufficiently
watch and examine into its receipts in these various
departments ? The recent investigations into the
unbounded and audacious frauds practised at the Cus-
tom-house give a general negative to the last ques-
tion—founded on a particular case, which will well
repay the cost, the trouble, or inconvenience of the
most searching and protracted scrutiny that can be
applied to it. If there be one man in the empire who,
at this time of day, is prepared to concur in the ex-
pectation, avowed with a simplicity, which we might
almost term effrontery some twelve months since,
on the part of the Board of Customs, that,
bad as the case was, "the public had been by that
time apprised of the utmost extent to which the re-
venue had been plundered in the department of her
Majesty's Customs ;" we take it his credulity will be
dissipated by the most cursory perusal of the last
Report (supplementary to that of 22d May last) of
the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry—ordered by
the House of Commons to be printed on the 17th ult.
From this report we have no space at present for
making any quotations ; but in the course of next
week we shall feel it our duty to submit large ex-
tracts to our readers, for their better insight into a
system of wholesale fraud, conspiracy, and robbery,
such as, perhaps, was never before practised to an equal
extent on the revenue of any State. From such an
expose of utter demoralisation in so many
liberally paid servants of the Crown—of
participated guilt common to lower and higher
classes of officers, each, and all of them, charged with
responsible duties, that they have most scandalously
violated—of imbecility, neglect of duty, and in-
conceivable inefficiency, in the superior authorities of
the department ;—we rise with feelings of mingled
astonishment and indignation. Not one member of
the Board of Customs—of the Commissioners them-
selves—ought to be exempted from the most
rigorous examination by this Commission of In-
quiry, as to the grounds upon which he proposes to
excuse the culpable, the slumbering, incompetency of
the body, in its collective and in his own individual
capacity, pending the long existence and practice of
these delinquencies. Not only do the most alarming
circumstances, when brought to their notice, appear
to have awakened but a very slight or absolutely no
suspicion of misconduct ; not only do discreditable
acts and general conduct, notorious through all other
branches of their office, appear to have been profound
and sealed mysteries to them, and to them alone ; but
their demeanour in reference to proceedings ultimately
adopted, in some few cases, seems to have been still
marked by the same incapacity. Officers were
suspended, only, by them against whom they had
ample evidence to justify a sentence of immediate
dismissal ; or, after being reported, were not even in-
terfered with at all --. until their later offences,
or the subsequent examination of confederates,
compelled the Board to steps of tardy punish
anent. Nor does our accusation against the Comi---

missioners of Customs themselves stop here. We
I concur with the Commission of Revenue Inquiry on
reprobating the mode in which they delegated the
examination of offenders, whom they should have in-
terrogated themselves, to authorities more or less im
mediately subordinate, whose conduct in managing
such inquiries was exactly conformable to the antici
pations that might have been formed from the impro-
priety of their selection. In the case of WYCHERLEY.
a weigher, it is abundantly evident that inferior officers
having most important testimony—afterwards fully es-
tablishedi to tender against the malfeasance of the func-
tionaries next above them, were so discouraged, se'
manifestly intimidated, by the apprehension of se-
riously prejudicial consequences to themselves from
coming forward with such information, that they
either withhold it or gave it in a form much more
meagre than they would have done. In the affair
of Mr. LONG (a landing waiter since dismissed, his
malversation having bean unquestionably proved on a"
subsequent investigation), the Board remitted
the case for examination to Mr. Ross the Surveyor-
General (an officer whose own conduct is shown to be
open to much animadversion in-another part of the Re-
port). " Mr. Ross (Report p. 3) did so ; and recom-
mended the acquittal of Mr. LANG, and reported un-
favourable of WrcruarAr. The Board coincided in
his view of the case, and continued to place
confidence in LANG, but removed WYCHERLEY
from where he wits a check upon LANG.
and sent him to the docks ; a removal which was, in
fact, tantamount to a punishment." The Commission ,
add—" We found from the admission of Mr. Knox,
the landing surveyor, that when before the inquiry
the story was mentioned to him, WYCHERLEY was sent
for, and cautioned as to his proceedings, and told
that such a course would cause his dismissal
from the service, by making charges which he
could not prove." Again—" There was evidently
a predetermined impression that W-rcuertLEr was
sure to be wrong; indeed, the whole of the proceed-
ings bear more the character of the trial of WYCHER.
LEY for misconduct and drunkenness, than an investi-
gation into the conduct of LANG for being concerned
in defrauding the revenue." We only add, at pre-
sent, that this accusation was substantiated. What
must we think of the whole system on which the
Customs' Department has for years been conducted ?

We have received Madrid papers of the 2d inst.,
but they bring no fresh intelligence. The capital
was tranquil.

The Three per Cents. were done at 27k, at 60 days;
the Coupons at 24i, for the 13th of September ; and
the Floating Debt at 59, at 40 days.

A cowardly article in an Evening Paper, which
has pretensions to official information relative to the
arrest and expulsion of Mr. PRITCHARI4 from Ota-
heite, has induced the war party in France to believe
that the English Government have yielde.d to the
French, and that no reparation will be demanded for
the " gross outrage, accompanied by gross indignity."
Even the French Government papers, though they
ought to be better informed, infer that the affair is
all but settled. These are the words of the Journal
des Debats :—" The English journal admits, and it is
what we have said from the commencement, that the
English residents, after having protested against
French occupation, were bound to wait for instruc-
tions from their Government; that if they have
thought proper to resist by their own strength, they
have done so at their own risk and peril, and without
having a right to claim in any way the protection,
or engage the responsibility of, their Government,
which they had not consulted. It admits that, in
the case where Mr. PRITCHARD had commenced by
his own actions a private war against the Government
at Otaheite, the English Government was not bound to
follow in that path one of its subjects, who was acting
without its authority; and that the French authori-
ties considering themselves legitimately in possession
of the sovereignty, it was not only their right, but
their duty, to deport Mr. PRITCHARD. The ques-
tion, it will thus be seen, is much simplified, and we
are persuaded will be promptly and honourably ar-
ranged."
We believe that the statements referred to are
entirely destitute of foundation, and that the Eng-
lish Government have in no way altered their views
of the subject. Sir ROBERT PEEL, the Duke of
WELLINGTON, and Lord ABERDEEN, have all ex-
pressed their sentiments in language not 'to be mis-
understood, and though the outrage has been repeat-
edly referred to in both Houses, they have never made
an admission, or anything resembling an admission,
that they would yield in this manner, and throw
Mr. PRITCIIARD overboard. Such random statements
do immense mischief. Far from satisfying the war
party in France, they only make them rise in their
demands, and heap additional abuse on England.
The Courrier Francais, and, indeed, most of the Op-
position journals, have songs of triumph on the oc-
casion.

The accounts in these papers from Morocco,
though they add little to the previous intelligence,
are, on the whole, of a peaceable character.

According to the Presse, the French and Belgian
Governments have entered into new commercial ar-
rangements for a mutual reduction of duty on certain
articles of import. The following are said to be the
proposed modifications:—

- France is willing to lower the duty on raw hides, imported
from Belgium and of Belgian origin, from lf. 20c. per 100
kilogrammes to 50c. per 100 kilogrammes. On dry hides the
duty will be lowered from sf. to 2f. 50c. The present duty on
rough marble is 21. 70c.; it will be reduced to If. The duty
on hops would be lowered from 65f. 50c. to 45f. And the
duty on pit coal will be also lowered from 10c. per 100 kilo-
grammes to sc. per 100 kilogrammes.
Belgium, which has hitherto exacted a duty of 83c. on
French pit coal, will reduce it to sc. The manufacturers of
Ghent having to complain of the opposition they meet with
in the printed cottons of England, the Belgian Government
has resolved to raise by 50 per cent. the duties exacted at
present on English printed cottons at their frontiers. It offers
to France to except it from the ordinance upon that subject,
and, as far as regards France alone, to maintain the present
duties. Lastly. The resolution of the 14th of July, 1843,
which raised the duties on woollen thread and cloths, and
upon fancy articles and artificial flowers, will be withdrawn,
as far as the provisions regard France ; or, in other words,
the resolution will hold good in regard to all other countries,
but will be withdrawn as regards France.

TEE BOURSE—TuunspAy, AUGUST S.
First Highest Lowest Last
Prioe. Price. Prise. Price.
French Five perCints— •••• 121 .. 121 40 .. 121 .. 121 15
Four-and-a• Half..•• 113 .. 113 .. 113 .. 113
Four per Cents IN .. 106 .. 106 .. 106
Three per Cents.—
Bank of France •••. 3105 ..3110 —3105 ..3110
Latlitte Bank. 5,000 f Skaresso7s • •5075 • • 507.5 —5075
Belgian Bank. ••.• 675 .. 675 675 675
_ _

Eelgian Fives,lB4o • ..... • • 108 • • 1051 .. 105 lOb}
1842 •...••. 1081 •• 108/ .. 108/ 1081
Spanish Threes
Passive . . bf 51 .. 5f .. 51
Portuguese Five per Centa•. .43 .. 43 .. 42f .. 42f
Neapolitan..• ••••• •• • • • .. 98 55 .. 98 55 .. 98 55 .. 98 55
Roman
•