The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-26 00:00:00

Cattning Int

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1845.

The Senate of the United States, as will be seen
from the intelligence from Washington, published in
another part of the paper, had adopted resolutions for
the annexati.m of Texas to that Republic by a ma-
jority of 2, there being 27 in favour of the measure,
and 25 against it. This consummation is only what
might have been anticipated from the moment that
emigrants began to occupy land in that extensive dis-
trict. It has been the policy of the Government, as
well as the wish of the people, to extend their
territory by purchase as well as by affiliation of
neighbouring states, and with such a weak and
contemptible Government as Mexico, Texas could
net long be an kception to the general law. But
the Americans will not stop there. The pressure
from within will only increase with the increase of
population, and unless some strong causes inter-
vene, whether from the interference of other
Powers, or the opposition of the Northern
States, Mexico itself will soon be swallowed
up by this unscrupulous and enterprising people.
The bigoted, priest-ridden, and indolent descendants
of the Spaniards have no chance with the active, in-
dustrious, and warlike Saxon race. The accession
of power given to the Southern States by this event
is
yetoletaadt
toa i
all mm.pelocrotiannettcootnhsoesleueonfetehz North, and may

The prop:sition with which we closed our extract
in a former article from the pamphlet on " Com-
mercial and Financial Legislation," is one that Euro-
pean statesmen cannot, in these times, keep too
steadily in view. It is a princip!e of the highest po-

litical certainty, as well as moral truth, that the
only security against a return of those " warfares of
material interests, of which state wars are the in-
evitable results," is to destroy the " elements of the
former," which he happily terms, " wars of fiscal
ports, or custom-houses." He proceeds to show, in
the note appended to that passage, that Mr. PITT, in
1787, had nobly and wisely acted up, not only to the
spirit, but to the very letter of his spirited policy.
It is a most impressive, though a tardy tribute to the
genius of that statesman, to exhibit him as devising
the terms of a treaty of commercial reciprocity be-
tween Great Britain and France, founded on prin-
ciples so far in advance, in point of sagacity and
forecast, of the commercial policy of his age. We
can easily understand how Mr. PITT, with all his
tenacity of purpose, may have been shaken in his
adhesion to the enlightened scheme of com-
mercial connexion he had thus marked out for
the two greatest monarchies of the world, by the
events of the next half dozen years. Events of so as-
tounding and eventful a character succeeded each
other, in such rapid succession, that a feverish and
incessant excitement umrped the salutary influence
that might otherwise have then, and permanently,
triumphed, of calm deliberation and vigilant expe-
rience. But it is very certain that the precipitate,
crude, and ignorant prejudices, on all general ques-
tions involving the true principles of a sound, inter.
national, commercial policy, which swayed the coun-
sels of the various French Governments called into
action by the revolution, were the main disturbing
forces which threw down the beneficent system that
Mr. Pll T'S genius had created by the treaty—whose
frank, clear, and equitable stipulations we gave, in
abstract, in our paper of Wednesday evening last.
In the lapse of nearly sixty years since the date of
that treaty, two furious wars have been waged between
the two countries, but, for the last thirty years, rela-
tions of uninterrupted peace have been established be-
tween them. If the contingencies of the brief interval
between the years 1787 and 1793, sufficed so com-
pletely to throw down and obliterate such a record of
commercial statesmanship as the treaty in question,
owing to the overwhelming force of adverse circum-
stances; how little has the evolution of fifty-two sub-
sequent years (thirty of them, as we have just stated,
being, as years of peace, eminently favourable to
the restoration of the good work that had
been demolished)—accomplished towards the attain-
ment of such an object ! What can so many Minis-
ters have been about, who have since directed the
affairs of this country, never to have attempted, with
all the encouragement, with all the political advan-
tage and authority which the course of European
events has from time to time given them—never, we
say, to have attempted the renewal of PITT'S treaty ?
The author of " Commercial and Financial Legisla-
tion" could not have better timed his reference to this
remarkable doctm ent, than by choosing for that pur-
pose the era of our quasi " transition state," from
a monopoly-ridden condition and class protections
tc one not indeed of free trade, but of released energy
and more lightly fettered operation. We confess,
with a feeling of humiliation as well as astonish-
ment, that the great political experiment which was
successfully accomplished in 1831 by the will of the
people, expr, ssed directly through their representa-
tives—we mean the Reform of Parliament—has hi-
therto discharged but a poor instalment of the great
benefits which its bondsmen—its advocates—within
and without the walls of the Legislature,
repeatedly guaranteed to the country. Class
legislation has actually increased both as to its extent
and its abuses. Monopolies have been multiplied
and aggravated. The interests of the public consumer
have been sacrificed more than ever to the interested
views of the Ministerial supporters. It is truly won-
derful that such a barbarous system of protective, dis-
criminating, prohibitory, arra retaliatory duties as
that which still manacles the gigantic powers,
and represses the native vigour of British
commercial enterprise, should have been left
comparatively unreformed by a Reformed and
Reforming Parliament. Sir Roma's. PEEL, in-
deed, has taken some few steps in a right direc-
tion ; but his course has been circumscribed and
crippled by the trammels of previous Tory connexions,
the paralysing control of official precedents, and tht
still more hampering influence of official advisers. It
belongs only, we fear, to an acute mind, an uncom
promised judgment, and a philosophical estimate o!
the existing condition of great national interests, to
trace, with a bold unprejudiced hand, the relation be-
tween cause and effect, and, in doing so, fearlessly to
expose the former, with a view to the extinction of
the latter, where it is embodied in a shape hostile t.
the prosperity, or destructive even to the welfare of
the State. We can scarcely expect, in the present
balanced state of parties, any such demonstration
from a Prime Minister. lie, of all the QUEEN'S sub-
jects, can least afford to act practically and independ-
ently on the dictates of his unbiassed judgment. W(
feel the more obligation to any private individual who
will adopt this salutary course, even if it be a.
an " anonyme." In another article we shall enable
our readers to judge, by a more detailed examination
of his pamphlet, how much the author of " Commercial
and Financial Legislation" has done to set the public
thinking upon the important topics in respect of
which our Governments hare done, as yet, so little to
testify their own appreciation of them.

Madrid journals of the 18th inst. state that th(
discussion in the Chamber of Deputies on the Church
Property Restoration Bill had been brought to e
close on the 17th, and that the Bill had passed by e
majority Gf 126 to 16. Previous to the conclusion 01
the debate NARVAISZ, as well as the Minister of Jus-
tice, assured . the Chamber that the Government
guaranteed to the present owners their rights to the
property already sold, and that on no consideration
should these rights be interfered wiih. The present
measure as necessary, not only as an act of justiv
towards the clergy, but also to satisfy the Court of
Rome. 'With these view s the suspension of the sales
had been resolved on, and the restitution only post-
poned till the proper time. On the 18th a couriel
was dispatched to Rome with the intelligence. Tht
capital was quite tranquil, and preparations were it
progress for celebrating the Easter festival witl.
unusual splendour. The Court, it was understood,
would go to Aranjuez al.out the middle of April.
On the 18th the Thre:.•. per Cents. left off at 35 at
60 clays ; the Five per Cents. at 2.54 for cash, and 26
at 60 days ; the Coupons at 28a for the 16th of April;
and the Debt without Inter( 3; at 71, at 59 days.

The intelligence from Enrich is t ) the 21st inst
The rev,lution of the Diet relative to the suppressio..
of free corps, which we gave yesterday, had beei:
:-.dopted by thirteen and two half states, and conse-
quently became a federal law. The President, M.
MoussoN, announced that the Austrian Charge
d'Affaires had delivered to him a copy of a dispatch,
addressed to him by Prince METTERNICH, which he
would communicate to the different cantons, as he
had not received it in time to deliver to the Diet. lh
then closed the session in the following terms:—
" Our deliberations are terminated. Some of you
will retire dissatisfied. A similar disposition will
manifest itself among a portion of the Swiss people.
It is consequently a duty the more imperious for you
to exert yourselves to maintain public order and
tranquillity, and not allow the interests of the com-
monwealth to be sacrificed to party spirit. I must
remind Lucerne that it depends upon its Government
not to increase the existing irritation, and to effect a
reconciliation by making a sacrifice to the country.
May Switzerland be ready to provide against
events, arid strong enough to uphold her honour and
liberty under every circumstance. She would re-
pent too late, if her authority and power were aban-
doned to the mercy of party interests." We here
subjoin the note of Prince METTERNICH, referred to
by the President; but we cannot agree with our
Conservative Contemporary, the Herald, which pub-
lishes the document, that" it is directly threatening."
In our opinion, the threatening part contains rnua
good sense, and points out to the different cantons
vt hat course they should adopt to preserve the friend-
ship of the Great Powers. The following paragraph
would apply with equal force to the Government of
the United States, which would not, or could not,
prevent the lawless citizens from robbing and mur-
dering their inoffensive neighbours :—" A Govern=
ment not possessing sufficient power to master its
subjects, to prevent them carrying, with arms in
hand, murder and pillage into the territory of an in-
offensive neighbour, such a Government would not
deserve that name."

" Vienna, March 13, 1845.
" A MONSIEUR DE PHILLIPSBERG, A ZURICH.
" Monsieur,—You have acquainted us with the mani-

festations addressed successively by the Courts of Lon-
don and Paris to the Federal Directory, in Pi-der to show
the Confederation the impression produced uron those
Cabinets by the events of which Switzerland has for some
months been the theatre.

" The principles professed by the Emperor, our august
master, and the sentiments with which his Majesty is
animated towards the Helvetic Confederation, are known
to you, Monsieur; and you have recently been autho-
rised to be their interpreter to the Governmmt of nrith,
upon the occasion of its entry upon its diree,orial func-
tions. Ido not, besides, doubt but that upon all occa-
sions, when during the present Diet you have had to
express the int ?talons of your Court, you have acquitted
yourself of your task according to the spirit of your
general instructions, and which have had for basis, upon
the one part, the alum friendship that his Imperial Ma
jesty feels for the neighbouring State, and, upon the
other, the respect that the Emperor entertains for
treaties and laws imposed by international jurisprudence,
as well as his desire to see other States, especially those
which, in consequence of their geographical position,
are in most frequent relations n ith his monarchy, main-
tain thems, Ives in stich wise as that they may be in the
condition of exercising reciprocity in regard to Austria.
His Majosty, moreover, feels satisfied that, according
to the tenor of the communications conveyed by England
and France to the Confederation, his judgment of the
general position of Switzerland is shared by these two

powers.
"If the Cabinet of St. James, in his dispatch to
M. Morier, of the 11th Febrbary, takes pains to present
to the eyes of Switzerland a picture of the fatal conse-
quences which would be entailed upon her by the anni-
hilation of the act by which she is constittred ibt,) a
political body, recognised by Europe, you will recid to
mind that the same subject has been develop d by our
Cabinet in more than one of the disp itches ad Tressed by
me during the course of late years to our legation in
Switzerland, especially in that of the 27th February, 1841,
and you will feel that late events, so far from changing
or modifying the opinion that we ever entertained,
have but served to confirm it. In fact, the greater the
chane,s of seeing nullified the Act of 1315, and ancord-
ing as they multiply, the more does it become evident to
all sound minds that the cessation of the Act of Union
between the 22 sovereign cantons of Switzerland will be
in the interior of the Confederation the signal of civil
war, of anarchy and oppression ; while, as regards fo-
reign relations, it will break those titles under which
these 22 states occupy their actual position in the great
European family. l'he domestic misfortunes, the suspi-
cions, and the political dangers which for Switzerland
would follow such a state of things, are but too evident
not to be felt by the true friends of this country, while,
at the same time, it inspires them with the desire that,
by the wisd:jm and rectitude of the men called to direct
her destinies, such mighty perils may be averted.
" We, with the English Cabinet, agree with that of
the Tuileries, relative to the reprobation which, in the
dispatches transmitted to the Count de Pontois, the latter
pronounces upon the enterprises and the existence of the
tree corps. A Government not possessing sufficient power
to master its subjects, to prevent them carrying, vi ith
arms in hand, murder and pillage into the territory of
an inoffensive neighbour, such a Government would nut
deserve that name. It would be worthy of being put to
the ban of the opinion of civilised Europe, if, to the tole-
ration of such misdeeds, it should add acts of connivance.
In a confederation of States, united one with another
for the sake of aid and mutual assistance, the odium of
such enterprises -.would be further augmented by the
weight of thoSe sentirneiitS that are always naturally ex-
cited by the violation of sworn faith. Such a disorder must
be put an end to, an l extirpated by the root. It mug
cease to be possible that a canton, besieged by armed
Lands encamped along its frontiers, shall for months to-
gether be kept under arms, and obliged to exhaust the
means and patience of its population, if Switzerland de-
sires to preserve in the eyes of foreign nations the elm-
racter of a Confederation of States (to quote the words
of the declaration of Vienna, of the 20th of March,
1815), in the integrity in which they existed as a poli-
tical body at the period of the Convention of the 29th of
October, 1813, the same being recognised as the basis of
the Helvetic system.
"The unanimity of all the powers, which cannot fail
to be demonstrated at presont to the eyes of Switzerland,
upon the fundamental principles which govern the
question, and the friendly explanations which all have
shown themselves desirous of entering upon with her
must hare proved two things—the one, that all the
powers, without exception, are animated with the same
sentiments of friendship for, and interest in, the Con-
'edera tion ; the other, that, looking at her present posi-
,ion, all upon the same point of view, the powers have
claim to the presumption of believing themse!ves in the
right,

It now remains to be seen how far the delegates of
the Swiss people will know how to secure their country
..rom the incalculable evils that the 'unchecked liberty
llowed to the wicked and destructive passions of the
day must inevitably prepare for her.—Receive, &c.,
METTERNICH."

Easter Monday was observed as a close holiday by
most of the Paris journals. The Chamber of De-
puties, nevertheless, met as usual, and entered on the
discussion cf the Customs Bill. The Deputies were
-o assemble in Committees on Tuesday, to appoint
Commissioners for examining the Bills for railways
between Paris and Lyons and Lyons and Avignon. No
result of importance to the public was expected
from the Customs Bill. In fact, prohibition or
'ppressively heavy duties must be submitted to by
the French people yet for years, but it is gratifying
to learn, that at least one of the journals is alive to
the evil, and points out the vast mischief caused, not
only by restricting foreign commerce, but even the
domestic intercourse between different departments.
Matters," says the Dentocratie Pacffique, " have
peen so arranged amongst us, that every treaty of
-eciprocity, whether a treaty relating to manufac-
ture, agriculture, or maritime affairs, would in the
present state of things cause a grave injury to any
of these three branches. Our great governmental
capacities have reduced France to a complete state of
paralysis. If this system be only persisted in a little
longer, nothing else will remain to be done but to sur-
round the frontiers with walls, and to rot in the isola-
tion established in some degree as the condition of the
existence of the country. And it is not alone in our rela-
tions with foreign Powers that our legislation produces
this shameful immobility, but at home our fiscal system
is organised in such a way that each province is in a
nanner obliged to consume in part the productions of
he locality. Potable liquors and corn could give
,ccupation to an immense coasting trade, if stupid
tnd barbarous taxes did not force them to be con-
sumed on the place where they were produced. it is
m account of these duties that corn is seen to occupy
,n the South the place of vines, which could produce
excellent wines, :.nd that the wines of Argenteuil and
'iuresne are drunk at Paris."