The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-09 00:00:00

k anti/1M aAnt

LONDON, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1844.

We are sorry to observe that the invaluable faci

ties and extension afforded to the operations of com-
merce by the newly-organised scheme of "overlaid
communication," as now established between thls
country and India, are occasionally much comprc-
raised or disparaged by some defective postal arrange-
ments that ought to be made the subject of prompt
investigation. The shortened term—as compared
with that of the old sea route—which is now required
for the interchange of letters (to say nothing of
visits) between the British islands and the Indian
peninsisla, is one of the most remarkable and most
useful triumphs of modern enterprise. The service
of the empire has already benefited, to an
enormous extent, by the early intelligence
vvbich the Governments of the last ten years
have thus been enabled to receive of the great
events and mighty combinations that have taken
place, in that interval, at the northern and north-
western portion of our vast dimensions in Southern
Asia, and in the seas and on the coasts of China. For
some years to come we may reasonably look for an
enlargement of our mercantile connexions in those
regions, of a magnitude that is little dreamed of, yet,
among a considerable portion of our foreign traders.
Political reasons, of obvious force, connect themselves
with the commercial considerations which should
make the uninterrupted maintenance of these relations
and facilities an .object of the most anxious solicitude
to our Government Nor can we help adding, that
their officers—especially those who hold appoint-
ments abroad, in which they control the machinery
for the transmission of the Indian mail to this country
—should be taught that it will be expected of them
to act up to the spirit, as well as the letter, of their in-
structions, and to assist, rather than to coatract, the
scope of the British Government's orders. The delay
of the letters brought by the Bentinck, has been
the occasion of severe complaints among our mer-
chants in London, and has necessarily led to many
grave inconveniences that, we are inclined to think,
might all have been avoided. Where does the fault
of these " untoward interrruptions " really lie ? At
the door of the principals,
We observed, at or at that of their servants ?
the time, on the analogous case of
the Hindustan; about two onths since—and from the
tardily-elicited letter of Lord LONSDAIE in that affair,
in reply to four several
applications from Mr.
STIKEMAN, they Secretary of the East India and
China Association, we are disposed to pronounce the
superior authorities of the Post-office to be to blame.
In the case of the Hindustan, a very large mail from
Calcutta and Madras, on its arrival at
Malta, was
not allowed to be passed via Marseilles, through
France as intended, and in which course they would
have been delivered in London on the 4th of July,
and replied to on the Bth of that month, in time for
the next outgoing snail ; whereas, by being passed on
and landed at Southampton, they were not delivered
till the 10th, and so remained unanswered till the
mail subsequent to the 10th, an interval of some

weeks. It seemed that our Government must have

had reason to believe the crime of " letter breaking
- by authority" to be infectious—a disease that, like
the- cholera, was fully capable of crossing the sea
in all its malignity! For the plea at last set up by
the Post-office, when it at length condescended to
notice the• repeated applications of Mr. STIKEMAN,
was—that " the boxes brought from Calcutta to
Suez, per,liinda.stan, were not properly packed, arid
were, therefote,' forwarded to Southampton." But
the East India and China Association distinctly pro-

testa through their secretary, that of fifty-two
boxes of letters, so
,brought per Hindustan to
Suez, and reshipped in the Great Liverpool, at
Alexandria, two-thirds or three-fourths were in tin
boxes, hermetically closed, and marked in white
painted letters via Marseilles :" and the Association
submitted that it had "always been the distinct un-
derstanding that letters coming through or from
Egypt in such boxes, would be brought, according to
the convention with France, through that country."
Yet, when the Admiralty agent in charge of the
mails was about to land them in Malta, he received
a notice from the Post-office agent in that island,
stating that he was not authorised " to forward through
France any other portion of the mail but such as
' came from Bombay." Now, Colonel MABERLY, in
a letter, dated 17th July last, repudiates this pretence
of the Malta post-office agent, by assigning, solely;,
the cause of the boxes not being properly packed, as
the reason for not sending them on through France.
Again, as we have seen, the Secretary of the East India
Association shows that three-fourths of all the letters
were enclosed in sealed tin boxes—so far from being
improperly packed.
Upon the whole, we are afraid that the delays of
delivery which have been found so annoying in the
cases: of the Hindustan and the Bentinck will
neither be the least important nor the last that will
occur, if the Postmaster-General do not deem the
strict and perfect working of the whole scheme of
postal arrangements connected with the overland
communication with India, an object worthy of all
that energy and attention of which—(it is doing his
Lordship but bare justice to say)—few, if any, of the
public servants devote more to the performance of their
duties. We are persuaded that defects of this admi-
nistrative character are easiest removed when soonest
pointed out ; and we have, therefore, felt justified in
thus particularly and earnestly alluding to the case I
of the Indian mail, •

The decision of the House of Lords in the case of
the " Irish conspirators"—as they have been called
for the last six months—will, we trust, go far to re-
move the notion so long entertained in Ireland, that
that country had nothing to expect from the justice of
England. The highest Court of Judicature in the
Empire has now proved to demonstration that this
notion is an unfounded one. Justice has been done to
Ireland, and common sense asserted its supremacy by
the unconditional release of men who ought never to
have been found guilty. The news of the decision of
the House of Lords occasioned a great sensation
throughout Dublin the instant it reached that city; the
decision was evidently an unexpected one, and in their
first surprise people seemed scarcely to know whether
they were justified in giving credit to it or not. By
this time the auspicious intelligence must hegenerally
diffused throughout the sister country; and arc we
indulging in too favourable an anticipation, if we say.
that it is likely to moderate much of the ill-feeling
and distrust that of late years Ireland has expressed
so decidedly towards England? Whether it will have
that effect or not, we cannot undertake to say with
confidence; but • we hope it will; and moreover we
hope that it will tend in some degree to check the pro-
gress of the Repeal question, by convincing Irishmen of
all classes that England is by no means such an inve-
terate enemy to their natural interests as they had
imagined. Meanwhile, in what light will Mr. O'CON-
NELL regard this important decision, which unbars
the gates of the Richmond Penitentiary, and leaves
him free once again to rove with his gun and
his dogs over the mountain steeps of Derrinane,
or listen—to use his own favourite poetic phrase—
to " the murmur of the Atlantic wave that rolls in
unbroken from the free coast of America." Will he
regard the decision with lofty indifference
or with eager exultation ? Will he-- be I
stimulated by it to make fresh exertions in the
cause of Repeal, or will he quietly lay by for a
while, watch the progress of events, and be guided by
circumstances, ready to renew his agitation the in-
stant he discovers that nothing is to be hoped for
Ireland at the hands of the Conservative Ministry ?
If he be wise, the latter is the course he will adopt,
for Government has already led people to believe that,
during the recess, they will be busy with some reme-
dial measures for Ireland, which they will take the
earliest opportunity of bringing forward next session ;
and it would be scarcely just or fitting—notwith-
standing that they have been so tardy in coming to
some determination on this pointto which, by the
bye, they have been brought evidently less from in•
clination than from the pressure of inexorable ne-
cessity; it would scarcely, we say, be just or fit-
ting in Mr. O'CONNELL to throw any obstacles in
the way of Government's remedial measures by con-
tinuing the vigorous agitation of the Repeal question
By so doing, he will not only in some degree be
crippling the movements of Ministers, but be fur-
nishing them also with an excellent plea for backing
out of their projected remedies, in case—as is by no
means impossible—they should be smitten with a
sudden fit of decided Toryism. The most prudent
game that Mr. O'CoNicELL can play at the present
juncture, is to rest quitly on his oars, and vigilantly
watch _the direction that events are taking. If these—
notwithstanding the conciliatory announcement of
Sir ROBERT PEEL towards the close of the last ses-
sion—be unequivocally adverse to Irish interests;
if it be made undeniably manifest that Ministers can
do nothing, and will do nothing for the welfare
of the sister country, then it will be time enough to
renew the agitation for Repeal—an agitation which
is only justifiable when it is shown to be the last re-
source of national despair. But to agitate that ques-
tion just now, when the Ministerial plans are incom-
plete, and may possibly, when matured, turn out
to be much more efficient than • was anti-
cipated—what is . this but • to refuse fair
play to Government, and in some degree to
incapacitate them from satisfactorily accomplishing
that which, nevertheless, you most wish they should
accomplish ? By delaying the agitation of Repeal
for a season, Mr. O'CONNELL deprives Ministers of
every plausible pretext of backing out of their reme-
dial projects; he gives them an opportunity of show.
ing their faith by their works, and at the same time
he satisfies that lore of fair play which is a consp
cuous feature in the English character.

Madrid journals of the 30th ult. have been received.
According to letters of the 17th of August, some
of them received at Gibraltar from Oran, the Moors
were again assembling an army on the frontiers, near
the camp of Marshal BUGEAUD. who, it is said, had
ordered fresh reinforcements to join him from Oran.
This, however, is very improbable. Intelligence from
Cadiz to the 26th had reached Madrid, but no men-
tion is made of the Prince de JOINY4LLE and the
French squadron. We are therefore to infer that a
paragraph which appears in some of the Paris jour-
nals, announcing the Prince's arrival there on the
24th, is incorrect.

Madrid Bourse on the 30th.—Three per Cents. 27.
for account, 60 days ; Five per Cents. 19i for ac
count, 15 days.

Intelligence of the acquittal of Mr. •O'Comium.
' and his fellow-prisoners was received in Paris by
telegraphic dispatch, on Thursday, and excited uni-
versal joy. The Speech of the QUEEN, and the result
of the deliberation in the Cabinet Council on the
Otaheite affair, were looked to with much interest.
The article put forth by the Times of Tuesday, an-
nouncing the probable settlement of the misunder-
standing between the two countries, had been re-
ceived by only one journal ; and, as far as we can
learn, had given much satisfaction to the friends of
peace. Whether the manner in which the affair has'
been arranged will please the war party, is another
matter. All the articles in the Opposition, and some
of the Government journals on Tuesday, were written
in the belief that the ultimatum of the French
Government would be rejected. The Globe, M.
GUIZOVII paper, is an exception, and contains an
article which leaves no doubt that it had received
some communications which could be depended on.
That journal says :
" Our readers know that we have never ceased to believe, not only in the preservation of peace between
France and England, but gland, but also the
understandingbetween
maintenance
two harmony and a cordial
Governments. We still have the tar confidence , and,
indeed, adhere to it more
firmyextra
extraneous
eenruear n
2Apslinthae.
question becomes stripped of its
Lions, in proportion as the men who have to resolve
are relieved from the pressure made upon them by the
Chambers and the journals, they have drawn
nearer to
-
mutual understanding, and daily made steps to concilLa-
tion ; and, we venture to say, that the incident which
has so much occupied the public mind is on the point of
receiving that solution which is so earnestly desired by
all the friends of order and peace in both countries.
We are bound to congratulate the two Governments on