The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-06 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1844.

TIIE QUARTER'S REVENUE.

The r. turns for the year and quarter ending July
4611844, are of the most cheering description. The
total amount for the year is 50,220,6781.—1a5t
:year it was 47,780,3421., showing an increase of
2,440.336/. A considerable portion of this increase
must by placed to the amount of the property-tax ;
hut independent of that department of the revenue, it
is satisfactory to state that all the others are in a
prosperous condition. The Customs revenue is
19,770,1581. showing an increase on the year of
535,3491., and an increase on the quarter
of 312,0291. The Excise produces 11,965,6021.,
exceeding the amount collected last year by
420,0734, and that for the quarter by 85,4791.
The Stamps produce 6,518,0631., exhibiting an in-
crease on tee year of 72,6931, and on the quarter of
46,0231. The Taxes amount to 4,197,5161., the in-
'crease on the year being 6,3871., and on the quarter
eof 5,0431. The property -tax we pass over, because
its amount is already known. The net revenue of
*he Postroffice is 632,0004,__showing an increase on
ttbe year of 34,000/, and on the quarter of 10,0001.
In the Miscellaneous there is a great decrease, both
.5n the year and quarter. In the former the decrease
as 1,154,4011., and in the latter 641,3371. This is ac-
counted for by the large amount of Sycee silver
:received last year; while during- the present year, till
'within these few days, no importation of the kind
From the Celestial Empire has taken plUce. We are
eouly surprised that the Government did not make a
push to place under the head of " Miscellaneous" the
-waggon-loads of silver brought to the Mint the other
to svVell out the amount; but possibly they keep

! it as a body of reserve in case of future accidents.
Without adverting to that further, however, there is
sufficient cause for rejoicing. All the great branches
of industry seem to be in a prosperous state. There
is an increase in almost every department of the re-
venue, both for the year and quarter, and we are
happy to state that in two departments, reckoned the
best tests of the prosperity and trade of the country,
the Customs and the Excise, the increase is most
conspicuous. Taking them together, the increase on
the year is 1,255,4221., and on the quarter,
397,5081. These show the vast resources of the
country, and are an honourable tribute to the indus-
try, skill, and enterprising spirit of the people. We
learn, by accounts from the manufacturing districts
that trade is still exhibiting symptoms of im-
provement. In Birmingham all hands are fully
employed, and this remark will apply to most
other places. Could not Sir RonEwr PEEL, then,
try to give these industrious and hard-working peo-
ple a little more encouragement, by reducing the
taxes that press more heavily upon their necessaries
of life, and place them on a footing with their rivals
on the Continent? He has reduced the duties on
sugar to a certain extent, but he might carry the
reduction much further, and that, too, without any
danger to the revenue. If he were also to reduce the
duty on tobacco, coffee, tea, and corn, which would
include nearly all the foreign articles they require for
domestic use, the revenue and the comforts of the
people would be increased together. He would thus
put down those daring robbers of the community, the
smugglers, and bring into the Exchequer all the legi-
timate duties intended by the Legislature to be ex-
acted from the public. Even admitting there might
be a risk, of which we have no fear, does not the
prosperous state of the revenue warrant him in making
the experiment ?

The Earl of MINTo, after adverting to the re-
duced state of the British navy when questions of
great importance, such as those of Texas, the Oregon
territory, and the war in Morocco, were in an un-
settled state, asked the Earl Of HADDINGTON if it
was the intention of the Government to send to the
coast of Africa, or elsewhere, such naval force as
might be necessary to protect British interests ?

The Earl of HADDINGTON replied by stating that
the Government had such naval forces on every
station as they thought sufficient. They had gradu-
ally increased the forces on the coast of Africa
Ships had been sent out, and others ordered there,
and nothing would have prevented them from send-
ing them out sooner, but the necessity of having
ships on the Irish coast. Could there be a stronger
proof of the impolicy of the Government in regard to
Ireland than this admission ?

the Bank Charter Bill was read a first time, and
the second reading was ordered for Tuesday.
Lord CAMPBELL moved the third reading of the
Law of Libel Bill, which was opposed by the LORD
CHANCELLOR and Lord DENMAN. A division took
place, when there were for the third reading 3, and,
against it 33. •
_ _

The Earl of lIADDINGTON reported from the Com-
mittee on the Sees of St. Asaph and Bangor, that the
Bill of Lord Powis could not be introduced without
the consent of the Crown, and the House adjourned.
In the Commons, on the motion of Mr. THORNELY,
a new writ was ordered for Birmingham, in the room
of Mr. SCHoLEFIELD, deceased.

On the motion of Sir J. GRAHAM, the House went
into Committee on the Poor-law Amendment Bill.
A lengthened conversation took place on the bastardy
clause. Mr. T. DUNCOMM: suggested that the time,
six months, allowed to unhappy females to name the
putative father of the child, was hardly long enough,
and urged on the Government the propriety of ex-
tending it to twelve months. Sir J. GRAHAM readily
adopted the suggestion, and moved that the word
" twelve " be substituted for " six." The clause as
amended was agreed to. A number of clauses were
passed, and the House resumed.
The other orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at a Quarter to One o'clock.

In moving on Thursday, in the House of Lords, for
the appointment of a Secret Committee to inquire
into the practice of detaining and opening letters at
the General Post-office, the Earl of RADNOR justly
remarked that when the Home Secretary of State
' thought that the public safety required an examina-
' tion of private letters, he ought to open them on his
own responsibility. If the law were to be violated
with the object of securing the safety of the State by
seizing upon correspondence, then, added the Noble
Earl, "the Minister ought to violate the law on his
own responsibility, and haying done so, he ought to
come down to Parliament and boldly say he had done
so, because there had been a public necessity for it,
aid call on Parliament to protect him from the conse-
quences. Those who urged the necessity of opening
letters in order to secure the safety of the State, sup-
posed the case of correspondence, the seizure and
examination of which might prevent rebellion or dis-
turbance at home; but such a necessity for the inter-
ference of the HOme Secretary could never have
been anticipated with respect to the letters of
foreigners. It appeared to him that this detention and
examination of the letters of foreigners was a breach
of the laws Of hospitality which was revolting to the
public mind." This is well put by the Noble Lord.
The law on the subject of opening private corre-
spondence at the Post-office, which was never in-
tended to he other than a dead letter, except in ex-
treme cases of necessity, which the Legislature has
no right to anticipate, should at once be abrogated ;
and the Secretary of State—as'Lord RADNOR sug-
gests—should open suspicious letters on his own respon-
sibility; plead the imperative emergency of the case,
and claim the protection of Parliament for the con-
sequences of his act. Rarely, if ever, it is to be
hoped, will he be compelled to have recourse to this
step ; but white the law exists as at pre-
sent it warms him with sufficient power to
have recourse to such an obnoxious stretch of au-
thority, which, in the hands of a suspicious, unscru-
lous, tyrannical Afinister—and such have existed, and
may exist again—could not fail to be attended with
the most injurious and demoralising consequences.
As regards the Committee, to which the Duke of
WELLINGTON unhesitatingly acceded, on the plea that
there was no alternative, we must honestly confess that
we are very doubtful whether any really good results
will follow from it—first, from] the absolute se-
crecy which is to be attached to all its proceedings,
and secondly, from the nattir& of the inquiry
which it is proposed to enter into. Another
curious feature in the business, which we do not pro-
fess at all to -understand, is, that the Lords' Com-
mittee are to have the benefit oCthe advice and assist-
ance of two law Peers,' while lerwyers are rigidly ex-
cluded from the Committee oft be House of Commons.
Surely there is some inconsistency here ! What is
sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if the
aid of a' lawyer is considered :necessary in the one
Committee, we should have th ought, as a matter of
course, that it would hare bei.tn Considered equally
necessary in the other. The si hole affair, we suspect,
wilt end, like many others of the same sort,
in smoke ; little or nothin g more will be heard
of the proceedings of either coarclave ; but, meanwhile,
a substantial good has already-been effected, for public
attention has been strongly fixed on the subject,
public indignatiOn and astoniisti'ment everywhere ex-
cited, and the conseqUence will be, that no private
letters will ever henceforth be opened at the Post-
office, whether with or withot it the warrant of a
Home Secretary, unlesg t tecessity of the case
be made so apparent to Parliament, that no rea-
sonable man can possibly objet to it. The most
remarkable feature in 'the wl iole affair, and not
the most creditable to our vacillating. Government,
has been the high, authoritative ground which
they took on the first mooting. of the question by
Mr. DUNCOMHZ, and the readines's with Which they
immediately afterwards abandoned that' ground. In
the first instance, they were strongly' opposed to any-
thing in the shape of inquiry, and -would give no
explanation at all ; yet, not three nit ihts afterwards,
they were unanimously in favour of i inquiry, with a
view to afford the fullest: explanatio' a! The • truth
is they have been influenced, in tl is as in every
other case, by sheer motives of expedi ency ; and have
granted the Committee, as they will be pretty sure
to grant a repeal of the corn-laws, th e instant it suits
their views of expediency to do so. As for acting
upon principle, and the convictions ( if their own un-
derstanding, such a thing never once- enters into their 1
calculation.

The whole " talk" of the How a of Commons, this
am
session, has not afforded us so mi 4ehamusement as a
lachrymose and vituperative I'4tie attack made,
on.

Tuesday night last, by Mr. ARTHUR ROEBUCK, on
the conduct "of the daily press of this country,"
touching the Post-office exploits of Sir JAMES
GRAHAM. When serpents cast their skins, accord-
, ing to a popular superstition, they assume with their
new cuticle all the vigour and sprightliness of renas-
cent youth. Whether Mr. ROEBUCK has experienced,
in his own person, the genial influences
of some such vivifying process on throwing
by his gown of "stuff," and involving himself in
one of silk, we do not undertake to determine. But,
under some conscientious conviction of such a fact
only, could " he," Mr. ARTHUR ROEBUCK, whose
freaks we have watched for these last fourteen years,
" assure the Right Hon. Baronet that he fully
sympathised in the feelings he had expressed." The
association of " ROEBUCK and sympathy" would be
too extravagant—too ludicrously monstrous—for the
heading, even, of a Bath electioneering placard. It
would not impose on the credulity of a Bath chair-
man. " Sympathy"—and for a political superior too
—from the splenetic, querrulous, cavilling de-
nouncer of all parties, and all partisans, by turns !
From the waspish, petulant aspirant after
impracticable honours and hopeless elevation ! Why
we could more readily credit a rumour that the Duke
of Tomes bronze statue, from the somewhat more
majestic isolation of its position, had heaved a sigh cff
" natural sympathy" (for his Royal Highness's mt.,
viving creditors), than that Mr. ROEBUCK has any
such graceful weakness in his moral or physical com-
position. If he ever had it, we should say "it
withered all"—like OPHELIA'S flowers—when the
common catastrophe of extinction overtook the re-
nown of his friend, M. PAPINEAU, and the insurrec-
tionary efforts of Lower Canada. But Mr. RoEnnex.
proceeded to say that " advantage had been taken of
this incident"—(the whole subject matter of Sir
JAMES GRAHAM'S inculpation—the fact of opening the
letters—the mooted question whether one or more
warrants were requisite for his authority to do so,
all are compressed into this convenient " incident ft—
advantage has been taken, he says, " to call down
public indignation upon an officer who has done
nothing more than tread in the footsteps of his
predecessors." (Exemplary Sir JAMES ! He would
not even break open sealed letters except under
warranty of precedents !) " This opinion has been
aided and created out of doors, by all the vile arts
which attach to the daily press in this country."
What means this ? That the " daily press" has
no sympathy with Mr. ROEBUCK ? We trust it has
not. Mr. ROEBUCK, as the Morning Chronicle well
observes, " is, in his small way, as unpopular as Sir
JAMES GRAHAM and, after these marked advances
on the part of the " sympathising" silk gown, we
should not be astonished to see them figuring together
as partners, in a political " Polka dance," for the re-
mainder of the session !

Mr. ROEBUCK passes from the imputation of " vile
arts" to the daily press, to the declaration "that a
fouler instrument of calumny cannot be found." No?
Not in the wholesale, unmeasured, unfeeling, insolent
invectives against distant Lieutenant-Governors of
colonies, and absent military commanders, and de-
ceased civil and professional authorities, with which
the House of Commons has been occasionally
nauseated, for wearisome hours together, in endless
arraignments, night after night, of all that has been
said or done, written, directed, or transacted, by the
Government of -the day at home, and its representa-
tives abroad ? With such remarkable instances of
individual slander on record, does Mr. ROEBUCK ven-
ture to talk of "all the foulness of the calumny of the
public press having been heaped on the Right Hon.
Baronet ?" Come, come, Mr. ROEBUCK ! You are
troubled, we fear, either with a short memory, or a
bashful unconsciousness—" temporis acti."
But since we, for our parts, cannot give to Mr. ROE-
BUCK credit for any such mere "prejudices"—(more
important principles pass by that designation, ,in his
system of ethics, than simple einotions)—as "sym-
pathy" for any human being:in existence,—save one
—we must suppose his " sympathy" is for the conduct
of Sir JAMES GRAHAM. He would ".tread in the
footsteps" of Sir JAMES'S predecessors. We wish
him joy of his prepossessions. We have often ob-
served, that on questions wherein the personal rights
and liberty of the subject have been found
in collision with corporate or peculiar claims,
or with the accidents of industrial occupa-
tion (such as those of female and infant
labour in factories, or such as those wherein,
for example, the " privilege-of-Parliament" pre-
tensions have been urged to their highest flight ;)
Mr. ROEBUCK—With an inconsistency peculiarly
graceful in the noisy advocate of democratic institu-
tions and the working classes—has taken a part
utterly opposed to the popular—to the generous view
of the great majority of the community. Perhaps a
vulgar love of paradox--perhaps the simple fact that
" a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind"—may
prompt his vote on such questions, or questions of
that class, and may incite him to the rescue of the
Home Secretary on this occasion. It is not worth
while examining how this may be. But we have
just one grain of curiosity touching another topic
personal to this busy declaimer and silent barrister.
What are the past distinctions, the present ser-
vices, or the existing position of Mr. ROEBUCK
(saving always the rights of that most fussy
and obtrusive of dignities, identified with an acci-
dental M.P.)—en which the Learned Gentleman
deems himself at liberty to hold such disrespect-
ful, such abusive, language of the " daily press of this
country ?" We never heard him even suspected of
any such superiority in position, in services, in dis-
tinctions. Hia ill-breeding in all this, being the
Learned Gentleman's misfortune, we don't insist
upon. If he cannot help that, however, he is not,
therefore, at liberty to advert to the press in terms of
insult and contumely, for having discharged what it
has conceived to be its duty, on a great public ques-
tion. Does Mr. ROEBUCK imagine that the official
conduct of members of the Government is not public
property, and, therefore, a legitimate subject for the
discussion of the public press ? Or has he such a
freehold, whether in fee-simple, or in (imaginary)
expectancy and remainder, in the ministerial reputa-
tion of Sir JAMES GRAHAM, that, like that other hero
of a farce, who over-estimated his own prowess, he
will not allow even the boots of his mightiness to be
challenged?
Really, Mr. ROEBUCK has no excuse for his over-
weening folly. A man so infirm in temper, so un-
genial in temperament—without poetry, without
sentiment, without the power of attaching others, Or
appreciating in others the softer or more generous pur-
poses in which he is careful to show himself deficient;
such a man might surely learn to be practical, con-
sistent, temperate, in his public deportment. His
idiosyncrasy, and the crude, harsh, utilitarian cha-
racter of his philosophy—(such as it is)—suggest
no excuse for these escapades of peevish
imprudence, and atrabilious resentment. We
have one word more for our parting. In
the true King CAMBYSES vein he thus concluded :
—"/ will not do honbur to one more than another of
these detestable channels of public information by—
naming them!" Horresco referens. Their doom,
then, is fixed ! For ourselves, we shall endeavour to
live on, notwithstanding. We have taken a part—
perhaps no inactive one—in the general delinquencies of
our unhappy brethren. What we might have gained,
first in our own good opinion, secondly in that of the
public, had we been selected, by name, as an excep-
tion to this fearful sentence, we cannot tell ; but it
would have been little, indeed, if we may judge by
the terrible constancy with which we support
ourselves under our actual calamity. Mr.
ROEBUCK will not "honour" one journal more
than another by naming any one of them.
An overwhelming avalanche of silent destruction!
An awful but voiceless ruin ! And yet—(such is the
indomitable levity of these " detestable" natures)—
that the Chronicle replies to these " words of power"
with this irreverent exclamation—" Heaven help the
poor irritated little gentleman !", We shall only add,
of the distinction thus barbarously withheld from us
and our brethren, that we can imagine no dose so in-
finitesimal—so, utterly imperceptible to the highest
microscopic power—in the homceopathy of political
depreciation, as—the " honour" of Mr. ROEBUCK'S
nomination.

Several of the Paris journals continue their attacks
on the demand made by the KING for pensions to his
sons and daughters, but we find nothing in the articles
deserving particular notice. The excitement is dying
away and probably little more will be heard of the
affair till some motion is made in the Chambers for a
provision to the Duke DE NEMOURS as Regent. In

the Chamber of Deputies the discussion on the Paris
and Strasburgh Railway Bill was brought to a close
on Tuesday. M. ARAGO moved an additional article
for limiting to one-tenth of the whole the number
of foreign. made locomotives to be used on the line,
with a view to encourage home manufactures, but
the motion was rejected by a large majority, 191 to
62. The sum voted for carrying the works is
88,700,000 f. The line is to run from Paris by
Essernay, Chalons, and Nancy, with branch lines to
Rheims and Metz.

No authentic accounts have been received from
Morocco later than the 27th ult., when the French
troops retained their position. The following curious
details respecting the Emperor of MOROCCO, in a
letter from Tangiers, appear in the Algerie, a paper
published at Algiers :

" The Emperor is suspected of having poisoned his prede-
cessor and cousin. Solyman, and he is now constantly afraid
of a similar death himself. • Except hie son,' says the letter,
nobody can approach him. It is he who serves him at table,
and always first tastes his food. For a length of time this
duty devolved on Sidi-Mahommed, the Sultan's eldest son ;
nt present it is the task of Muley.Ali, his younger brother.
Both of these sons are born of the same mother, called in the
country Rhamouna, and she is an Englishwoman. Sidi-
Mohammed, the heir-presumptive to the throne, is a man of
about thirty-five years of age; his blue eyes and fair beard
betray his half British origin. Abder Rhaman, who is about
sixty, .is strong and active, and of a cruel and brutal charac-
ter. Sidi-Mohammed replaces his father in all difficult cir-
cumstances.- At the conflict of May 30th, at Lalla-Magrania,
it was he, it is said, who commanded the Morocco troops.
He, besides, for a length of time kept up relations with
Abd-el-Kader, whom he encouraged in his struggle against the
French. The people of Morocco state that, without him, the
:-Emir would have given in years age: The correspondence
between the Khalifa and the future Sultan has always been
exceedingly active.'"
-

The trial of CADOT and ROUSSELET, for the murder
of M. CADOT, the banker at Pointoise, was brought
to a close on Wednesday, when the son was acquitted,
and the other convicted of murder, hut, according to
the verdict of the jury, under extenuating circum-
stances. He was condemned to the galleys for life.