The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-01 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1844.

In the House of Lords, Lord COTTENHAM moved
tie second reading of the Debtors and Creditors
Bill, and pointed out the injurious effects of the
present system, especially as regarded insolvents.
The LORD CRANCELLOR approved of the Bill, and
thought nothing could be more inconsistent than the
present law. He trusted, however, that the com-
mittal of the Bill would be deferred for a short time,
in order that the subject might receive due considera-
tion.

The Bill was read a second time, and, in order to
meet the views of the LORD CHANCELLOR, Lord
COTTENHAM proposed that it should be committed on
that day fortnight. No other business was done in
the House of Lords.
In the Com Mons, on the order of the day being
read for the further consideration of the Report on
the Basingstoke and Newbury Railway, Mr. C.
RUSSELL moved that the Report be further consi-
dered that day six months. A lengthened discussion
took place, and on a division there were for the origi-
nal motion 166, and against it 73; and the Report
was received.
In answer to a question from Captain PECHELL,
Mr. GouLnußls said, that the greatest care had
been taken to expedite the return of money to per-
sons whose income was under 1501. a year, and
from whom certain sums had been withheld under the
Income-tax Act. The delay had been chiefly caused
by the pirties net coming forward to make their
C_laims. This is a Strange assertion on the part of the
Vit.aNcxxxoa of the EXCHEQUER, as it is well known
that the difficulties thrown in the way of redress by
the Government functionaries, prevent great numbers
from asking merely for justice. This is one of the
most not?ri.9oWitevanees of this tax, yet the Crtari-
"•:i thw' cxeceuza throws all the blame on
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_.._llhis motion for
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a Select Committee to inquire into the effect of Pro-
tective Duties upon the national revenue.
Lord JocELYN asked Mr. HOGG to state, whether,
on the part of the East India House, they had any
objection to lay before the House any papers re-
'specting the recal of Lord ELLENBOROUGH ?
Mr. HoGG said he was net the organ of the
Directors, but expressed a hope, in consequence of
what had occurred in the House of Lords, that the
House, and the public, would suspend their judgment
upon the course which the Court of Directors had
pursued.
Mr. HUME thought the Court had acted rightly,
and asked Sir ROBERT PEEL whether there would be
any objection to lay on the table the correspondence
which had taken place between the Government and
the Board on the subject ?
Sir R. PEEL declined answering the question.

Mr. Fox MAums moved for leave to bring in a Bill
to regulate the administration of oaths in the uni-
versities of Scotland. His object was to do away
with a system of tests which might have been justified
at the time they were adopted, but which, in the pre-
sent spirit of the age, were totally and entirely
obnoxious to the feelings of all men of liberal educa-
tion, which could be attended with no good effect to
the Established Church, but, on the contrary, was
calculated to pull down rather than to support that
venerable fabric.

Sir J. GRAHAM opposed the motion, because he
considered himself bound to maintain inviolate the
Presbyterian Church as established in Scotland.
Mr. RUTHERFORD supported the motion, and de-
scribed the danger which would be the certain con-
sequence of religious tests. They would, he said,
not only destroy the Church, but they would create a
sectarian Church, which would become a most in-
tolerable evil.

The LORD-ADVOCATE opposed the motion, and
after several speeches, chiefly from Scotch Members,
the House divided, when the numbers were—for the
motion 101 ; against it, 128.
The other business on the paper was then disposed
of, and the House adjourned at Half-past One o'Clock.

From this day forth it is most probable that the
principal subject of Parliamentary discussion, during
the retnainder of the session, will be the currency
question. It is but natural that this should be so.
For, in truth, the absorbing interest—the domestic,
the universal importance—of our monetary system,
and the extent of its bearings upon every class and
condition of the empire, invests it with a character
which attaches to no other topic at present especially
fixing the public attention. The recal of a Gover-
nor-General of British India, even, fades into insig-
nificance by the side of this truly imperial question.
It involves nothing less than the consideration whether
our present greatness can be maintained so long as that
monetary system shall be upheld on its present foot-
ing ; or whether, by now determining on certain ex-
pedients and judicious modifications in some particu-
lars, and returning to principles in others which «e
have formally abandoned under tha enactments of
the Legislature of 1819, we shall give facilities and
guarantees for the continued progression of that
greatness, and for its permanent consolidation.
This is, succinctly, the tremendous issue involved
in the result of the Parliament's intervention
' with the currency. Let us not be blind to
the alternative of its non-intervention. Left to
itself, to pursue the same course in which it
has already encountered shocks so frequent and
so disastrous, that system must inevitably work
out to the fatal issue we have already indicated in
former articles, of panic, private bankruptcy, national
,anbarrassment, and commercial ruin—just as it
would do under the active superintendence arid
dirction of the most gifted enemy to British great-
ness. This inevitable tendency to destruction in the
existing system we would earnestly impress on the
minds of that considerable portion of the community
who, though alive to the imperfections and the perils
of that system, are yet content to await their de-
velopment, rather than incur the risks which they
attribute to such a process of unsettlement and disor-
ganisation as they assume must be the effects of any
change in our monetary policy. Ilow mischievous
this Laissez faire philosophy in economic policy may
be, and how absurdly exaggerated are the fears upon
which it is based, we shall hereafter be enabled to de-
monstrate. It is carrying out too literally, and to
an extravagant application, the wise axiom of the
poet : _ _

-" Better to bear the ills we hare
Than fly to others which w e know not of."

A man who should find himself in a fire.ship would
hardly push his respect for this axiom to the extent of
not cutting off the train, which he sees, by the index,
that the match already burning must otherwise ignite,
within a given number of seconds. It would be no
violent imputation on his philosophy or his good
sense to hazard the unknown fate—captivity, or escape,
for example—which may await him after securing the
craft he is in from annihilation, rather than to leave
a certain fate to burst upon him with all its horrors
of explosion and combustion, simply because
he is cognizant of the nature and the
presence of its elements. We are anxious
to deprecate this plausible plea for inaction
—this well sounding apology for apathy or timidity
—as one of the most dangerous that men can indulge
in, in these times. It is nothing for parties to urge
their dislike to open up and di;turb the disastrous set-
tlement of a vast question, on the mere fact of that
assumed settlement having taken place five•and-
twenty years ago, unless they can show that the
principles upon which their concurrence in so re-
opening it is asked is new, visionary, or purely theo-
retical. Failing to show this, they have admitted the
national mischief and prejudice produced by what
they call the " settlement" of the question ; yet are
content so far to fail in their common duty to the pub-
lic weal, as to stand aloof from all attempts to obviate
that prejudice, and to repair that mischief.
Now, the principles on which they proceed, who
are at this time, and for some time past have been,
labouring to obtain from the Legislature an imme-
diate revision of our existing monetary system, are,
as was observed last week by Mr. SPOTTISWOODE, on
taking the chair at a meeting of the Protection of
Industry Society, " as ancient as ARISTOTLE and
PLATO." So far from being visionary or purely
theoretical, they were adopted into the civil policy of
the most distinguished republics of Greece, and of
Rome herself (as shown by the very able authoi of
" The Essay on Money," Lond. 1843) ; and they
were successfully incorporated into our own law and
usages in respect of currency, from a period dating
before the Conquest down to the Revolution. This,
too, is the view announced by Mr. ENDERBY, in his
recent pamphlet on " The Distress of the Nation, its
Causes, and Remedies." Feeling the injurious ope-
ration of this repugnance to " new principles," Mr.
ENDERBY admits, for the sake of the argument, the
fact of their novelty, and sensibly remarks :

" Many persons are apt to look upon new ideas and
novel doctrines respecting the currency and the banking
system as empirical and Utopian, but I entreat them to
lay aside any prejudices which they may at present en-
tertain, and to test my principles by the only infallible
standard—the standard of truth."

For our own parts, we would put the whole argu-
ment we propose to raise for a return to a legalised
paper currency on no other or higher ground. If
we cannot make out a case for such a remedial mea-
, sure on principles evident to common sense, and con-
firmed by the most ordinary tests of investigation
and proof—analogy and experience—we shall be con-
tent to acknowledge to failure not less signal than
that which has attended the predictions of Sir
ROBERT PEEL and the late Earl of LIVER-
POOL, about the - effects of the measure
of 1819. Having, in a former article, demonstrated
the grave
and most remarkable, not to say disin-
glaetneumours.,
H errorsuatc taoafoin dealing simple
statement h
wt committedis
ti byos theon
the statistics
which the Currency Bill of 1819 is admitted to have
been founded ; the errors of calculation,
and the anti-
cipated scale of depreciation that they res • ectively
adopted, which the late Messrs. RICARDO and
IforiNEß, Mr. GRENFELL, and others of the metallic
heresy, fell into in the discussions and controversial
pamphleteering of that day—we must request the
reader, for the purposes of that fair consideration we
shall crave for our argument against maintaining
what is called the gold "standard of vceue,"
to dismiss from his mind the influence of
mere names. There is unfortunately no lack
of evidence on which to presume the fact of
their having egregiously erred in the doctrines they
aided more or less to force upon the practical adop-
tion of the Legislature andithe public. There is still

less deficiency of evidence as to the ruinous eons°.
quences which have, under the application of the
measure founded on these doctrines, ensued to our
commerce, to the condition of the middling classes,
and especially to the industrial population of these
kingdoms. We shall, in a future paper, proceed to
show that our present monetary system cannot be
carried on without speedily producing a crisis and
a panic more dreadful than any which the oldest
man living among us can recollect ; and a disorga-
nization of invested capital, and even displacement
of labour, with all their attendant evils, to an extent
of injury to the resources of the empire and their
healthful action which it may require half a century
to retrieve. We shall show that by a paper currency
(one of two or three denominations which have been
lately suggested) duly authenticated—to an extent
equal, say to the aggregate of our present taxation,
not convertible into gold, except indeed at the market
value of bullion (should that condition be really de-
sired), but circulating together with the present
issue of Bank of England and other bank notes, and
the gold and silver coinage—and receivable by the
QUEEN'S Exchequer and the Treasury, in payment of
taxes of all kinds, dues, fines, &c., the demand for
industrial labour might be largely and permanently
increased, the trade of the empire- immensely ex-
panded, our issues sufficiently guarded against, the
contractions of the Bank of England issues rendered
nugatory, and, by consequence, the panics occasioned
thereby obviated. We shall show that these end,
can be attained only by the abrogation of a law
which, fixing the price of gold, too often leaves that
statutably cheap whilst all other commodities are
marketably dear; and thus compels those to whom the
controlling power over the whole currency is ul.-
wisely confided, unnaturally to limit their own issues,
to be the better enabled to answer the demands of
the public for the conversion of their own notes
into gold. Finally, we shall show that this improved
system of paper currency supplies the only power of
distribution and consumption, which can keep pace
with, and make available to, the general happiness and
wealth, that at present over-productiveness and
always accumulating manufacturing energy, which is
now the bane and the curse, instead of the reward
and the support, of our operative classes. If after
establishing these premises, as we have no doubt of
doing, we shall succeed in proving the delusive nature
of the anticipated injury to our home trade and
foreign commerce, from the high prices which this
influx of paper money will occasion, and in establish-
ing the advantage ultimately accruing to the whole
community from those heightened prices, we shall
have, we trust, made good our demand for the instant
repeal of PEEL'S Bill of 1819.

The forty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Church
Missionary Society was held yesterday at Exeter
Hall. The Earl of CHICHESTER presided, and, toge-
ther with the Bishops of CHESTER and RIPON, Sir
ROBERT INGLIS, and the Rev. J. W. CUNNINGHAM.
bore testimony to the great success which had at-
tended the operations of the Society, which, he re-
marked had triumphed over all opposition.. It is cer-
tainly a glorious—a magnificent object to attempt to
convert the benighted heathens of the old as well as
of the new world to Christianity; to pour the steady
light of intelligence on darkened Africa; to hu-
manise the manners of the ferocious New Zea-
landers ; and raise the debased pagans of the Chinese
islands in the scale of civilisation and morality ;
this, we say, is a glorious object, and far be it from
us to hint aught that might convey the idea that we
were desirous to discourage it ; the blessings of
Christianity are inestimable, and cannot be too widely
diffused ; wherever the spirit of the Gospel pene-
trates, there peace, decorum, intellect, and all the
elements of social order follow in its train ; still,
while we cannot but approve the zealous and disin-
terested labours of the Church Missionary Society,
common sense and patriotic feeling would suggest
that that Society might be more profitably employed
at home, in reclaiming our own benighted country-
men from ignorance and its inseparable concomi-
tant, vice, than in instilling Gospel truths into the
minds of a set of squalid savages, who, compa-
ratively speaking, have the faintest possible claims
on our consideration. The available funds of the
Society at this present moment are, it is understood,
upwards of one hundred thousand pounds, the whole
of which large sum is to be spent in christianising
the barbarians of the South Sea Islands, and the still
more demoralised barbarians of Africa and the
Chinese settlements. Now, how much more ration-
ally—how much more profitably might not this sum
he employed in performing the same kind office for the
thousands and thousands of our own countrymen who
are sunk chin-deep in ignorance ; who have but an
imperfect acquaintance with, and an habitual dis-
regard of, the great principles of virtue and morality;
and who pass from youth to age without the slightest
knowledge of one single Gospel truth ? Who but
must remember the humiliating exposure made by
Lord ASHLEY last year of the degraded condition in
which vast masses of the lowest classes of our fellow-
countrymen were still suffered to remain ? lle proved,
by a variety of documents, that admitted of no con-
tradiction, that their ignorance was scarcely sur-
passed even by that of an Australian savage ; that
they were familiar with crime in its most loathsome
and hopeless form ; and were ever ready, as oppor-
tunity offered, to play the part of the desperado, the
insurgent, and the incendiary. No instructors had ever
been provided for them—no one was found to instil
into their minds the wholesome living truths
of Christianity—they were considered, so to speak,
as the outcasts—the Pariahs of society, on whom
advice, remonstrance, and menace would be thrown
away, and whom it was not worth any respectable
man's while to endeavour to reclaim. Surely these
unhappy and neglected beings have stronger claims
on the active consideration of the Phurch Missionary
Society than the far-away savages of New Zealand !
Surely it were wiser and better that we first
attempted-to Christianise our own benighted coun-
trymen, before we directed our attention to the spiri-
tual wants of the inhabitants of remote regions !
By all means send out missionaries to China, Africa,
the South Sea Islands, &c., but before you encourage
them to go abroad, insist on their exerting their most
strenuous efforts in the cause of religion at home
When they have succeeded in humanising and Chris:
tianising the minds of the thousands and tens of thou-
sands of debased creatures who swarm in our manu-
facturing and agricultural districts—aye, even in
Mr. BANKES'S boasted Elysium of Dorsetshire—then,
but not till then, let them turn their vigilant attention
to the religious and moral wants of the Africans, the
Chinese, and the South-Sea Islanders. Charity,
says the old adage, begins at home, and we are de-
cidedly in favour of setting missionaries to work at
home, before we send them abroad to plant the Gos-
pel, and sow the seeds of civilisation in countries
akin to us in no one single respect, and separated
from us by the breadth of immense oceans.

We have intelligence from Madrid to the 23d ult.
Reports were prevalent, which were believed by some
to be well founded, of a change of Ministry. BRAVO
was to resign, and be succeeded by NARVAEZ, as
President of the Council. Only two members of the
Cabinet were to remain in office. The Corresponsal,
however, states that these reports are entirely without
foundation.

The Three per Cents. were done at 351 for cash,
and 36 at sixty days ; and the Five per Cents. at 22f.

The following is the official dispatch of the Baron
DE MEER to the Minister of War, announcing the
butcheries of Gerona :

"Army of Catalonia—General Staff.
" Excellent Sir,—l have the satisfaction of informing your
Excellency, that the public tranquillity remains unaltered,
both in this capital and the other parts of the district in my
charge.
" The Carlist officers and individuals mentioned in the ac-
companying list which I have the honour to transmit to you,
were shot on the 16th instant, in Gerona, in conformity with
my last dispatch, for having entered Spain from France, in
order to excite civil war; and I have thought it proper on
this occasion to direct the address to the people and the army
which is contained in the General Order, a copy of which I
also transmit for the due informatiOn of your Excellency, and
the superior knowledge of her Majesty.—Ged preserve your
Excellency many years.
(Signed)
"Barcelona, April 18, 1844."

" RAMON DE MEER.

"Army of Catalonia—General Staff.
`• List of the individuals of the Carlist ranks who were shot
at Gerona on the 16th of April, 1844 :
" Feliciano Medi, aged 40, native of Gerona, brevet lieute-
nant-colonel, captain of the cavalry regiment of the Cid.
"Francisco Ohveras, aged 53, native of San Vicente del
Camos, captain of the 10th battalion of infantry.
"Augustin Dachs, aged 48, native of Pahnorolu, brevet
colonel, first commander of the 18th battalion of infantry.
" Jose Pont y Vinos, aged 32, native of Santa Eugenia de
Relat, captain of the 21st battalion of infantry.
" Fermin Pon, aged 44, native of Gerona, brevet lieutenant,