The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-11 00:00:00

er trb Nbttton

THE FUNDS-(C

OSING PRICES.)
FUNDS.

BRITISI
Bank ..... 208%
3 per Cent Red 100)i
3 per Cent. Cons. .....

Ditto hjnis £l,OOO 76 pm.
Ditto under £l,OOB. 7B pm.
South Sea Stock

_
per Cent. Red ............
New 9% per Cent........... 102 h
New 5 per Cent. —
Long Annuities to expire
Jan. 1860.—...........
Oct. 1859...............

Ditto Old Annuities

Ditto New Annuities ...

Ex. Bills, 1,0001. I)6d ... 56 pm.
Ditto 5001............... Pwl

56 pm
IBank Stock for Acct....
_77_

Jan. 1860.•.....•• 0000

Consols for Opg.
India Stock for Acct. « 286

Indian 5t0ck..„.................
FOREIG

FUNDS.

Austrian, 5 per Cent .....
Belgian, 5 per Cent 101341
Brazilian Bonds ..„..., —
Buenos Ayres, 6 per Cent —
Cuba Bonds, Oyer Cent
Chlliant 6 per Cent
Colombian, 6 per Cent:.., —
Danish, 3 per Cent ......
Greek, 1825, 5 per Cent...—.
Mexican, 5 per Cent
Neapolitan Bonds, 5 per Ct —
Prussian Bonds, 4 per Cent —
Peruvian Bonds, 6 per Ct —
Portuguese Bonds, 5 per Ct

Russian, 5 per
Ditto, Metallic
Spanish, 5 per Cent., 1840 25
Ditto, 1841..«..«...«....« —
Ditto, .....
Ditto, 1843......... ......
Ditto, 1841......... .......
Ditto, 3 per Cent 3714
Venezuela Bonds, 2 per Ct —
French, 5 per —t. -c,
French, 3 per Cent —f. .
Exchange ....... —f. —c.
Dutch, 2% per Cent ..... 64
Ditto, 5 per Cent

SHARES.

Birmingham and Gloucester (100 paid) 96
Cambridge and Lincoln, l) paid 2
Churnet Valley, 2 paid
Direct Northern, 234 paid
Eastern Counties (25 paid)
Great Southern and Western (Ireland) 5 laid
Great Western (75 paid)
Ditto Half Shares, 50 paid
Hull and Selby, 50 paid 69
London and Birmingham (Stock)
Ditto, New 'thirds, 2 paid
London and Greenwich (12t. 1.%11. 4d. paid) 9%
London and South Western (411. 6s. 10d. paid) B3
Ditto Eighths (15s. paid)
London and Croydon • 1634
Lynn and Ely, 13( paid
Manchester and Birmingham
Ditto Quarters ( 2 paid)
Newcastle and Darlingron Junction, 24 paid
North British, 5 paid
Northern and Eastern (45 paid)
North Kent, 2% paid 33L
Richmond and We,t Etid Junction, I paid 2
Rugby, I paid l%
South Eastern and Dover (33 2s 4d paid) ..... .... 39
Ditto, New Shares, 4 paid... l2
Trent Valley, 2 paid 9
York and Worth Midland (50 paid) lO2
Ditto Half Shares (25 paid)
Boulogne and Amiens, 2 paid
Paris and Lyons, 2 paid
Paris and Strasbourg, 2% paid 3

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
GLOBE.—The Post—though utterly disapproving of
the object sought to be effected—is " glad to find that
the farmers of England are preparing to bestir them-
selves against the malt-tax." We showed yesterday tht,
the " farmers of England" know better than to mate any
stir for such an object. In fact, they refuse to move in
the matter ; and that for reasons whit t are no less
cogent than they are convincing to ;lie said " farmers
of England." Indeed, our CeTetemporary, in a sub-
sequent part, of the same ',Article, limits the phrase,
the " farmers of Eni,;and," to the " agricultural
gentlemen"—that is, the landlords, as contradistin-
guished from those who cultivate the land. These
" agricultural gentlemen" arc apprehensive that the
present rents cannot be maintained under the new state
of things which the Conservative Government they
invested with power has managed to bring about.
The tenant-farmers are complaining ; and, we believe,
not without cause. The landowners are endeavour•
ing, with their usual sensibility of personal inte-
rest, to work this feeling for their own advantage.
They see—Sr think they see—an opportunity for se-
curing the- " surplus revenue" to themselves. The re-
peal of the malt-tax would be neither more nor less than
a positive donation by the Government to the landlords
of nearly five millions from the revenue of the country.
The history of the:, malt-tax, and the conduct of the
landed interest with respect to it, will assist to an un
derstanding of the movement which is now sought to
be got up for its removal. The present amount of
malt duty is but a remnant of that which existed in
1815. At that period the malt duty, including the
tax on beer, amounted to about 565. or 58s. per quar-
ter. No sooner was peace restored, and produce began
to feel the effects of peace prices, than the agricultural
interest in.the House of Commons obtained a diminu-
tion of the malt duty to the extent of 16s. per Winchester
quarter. :.The agricultural-distress-year of 1822 was
taken advantage of for the purpose of getting another re-
duction from the malt-tax ; and what was called " the
annual dsfty" was given up. Next followed the repeal of
the beer duty—equivalent to 12s. on the quarter of malt.
The agg,tegate of these reductions—obtained from the
governrne4its by whom they were relinquished through the
influence" exercised upon them by the landowners—
amounted to seven millions of annual revenue. Their ob-
ject was to keep up rents, by maintaining war-prices in a
time of peace ; and to e. very considerable extent they
succeeded, in effecting their object. A combination of
new and concurrent circumstances—principally caused
by the insane and cruel policy of wbat is falsely called
"agricultural protection "—threatens the farmers with
another -visitation of " agricultural distress." The land-
lords are On the qui vine. Repeal of the remaining
portion bf the malt-tax is the panacea which is to re-
move the distress, and avert the pending calamity—from
themselves I The trifling relief which the removal of
the maltetax would afford to the labouring classes will
at once be seen, if the amount of duty upon the
quantity of malt required for the production of
thirty-six gallons of porter—the favourite beverage of
the labOuring classes —is computed. The amount of
duty upon the quantity of malt required for producing
that quantity of porter is 6s. ; being 2d. per gallon, or
as nearly as can be estimated, one-third of a penny
upon the pot. The price of the pot of porter would
therefore be retailed at aid.—one farthing less than at
present. And this is the reduction which the Post's
"agricultaral gentlemen" advocate, on the pretext
that it would enable the labourers to procure beer
who Cannot now obtain bread. The absurdity of the
plea is:too manifest to impose on any understanding
which is not previously prepared to yield to the delu-
sion, is-an excuse for embarking in a project which
is meant' to subserve the landlord's interest at the
cost of - every other class of the community.
The Post imposes on those who are disposed to
follow its counsels, a labour equal to that of Sisyphus:—
" The` farmers, who now think only of demanding a
repeal of the malt-tax, may soon find courage to demand
a repeal of the new corn-law, of the tariff, and of the
Canada Corn Act. The same energy which will be
required to get rid of the malt-tax would suffice to get
rid of the free-trade measures of the last three years, and
of the Currency Act of 1819 into the bargain." And
yet thin was the kind of argument with which the far-
mers.; suffered themselves to be deluded at the last
election.. The same oracle of the agriculturists com-
plained what it calls the violation of these promises,
and "the consequent disappointment of agricultural
hopes :—" Promises may have been made to farmers on
the subject of the malt-tax, and those promises may have
been violated. Nothing, however, was said during the
great 'struggle in 1841 between the League and the agri-
culitiral body on the question of the tax on malt ; and
the pledges—express and implied—which were given by
our present rulers, and by the majority of their sup-
porters, bore reference, assuredly, to matters of infi-
nitely.greater importance." The " straw" is manifestly
" moving"—not for the repeal of the malt-tax, but for
objects yet more embarrassing to Ministers than any
movement in that direction.

STANDARD.—The Morning Chronicle of this day
commences a long article as follows:—" The friends of
the Church of England may well be alarmed at her pre-
seni position. The Puseyite crisis exposes to the world
the two fundamental defects of her constitution—the
want of -any supreme governing body, and the vicious
system of promotion, which has filled her high places
with men destitute of that statesmanlike ability that
could guide her through her present difficulties." We
shalt observe upon the latter imputed defect first. We
do 'not find that: the Divine Founder of our Church
seltctedstatesmen as his Apostles. We have the qualities
requisite in a bishop more than once distinctly enumerated
by the inspired teacher of the Gentiles; but statesman-
shiOr political wisdom is nowhere mentioned among those
qualities, which may be classed under the heads of
piety, purity of life, and a meek temper —qualities in
which no man will say that the Bishops of our Church,
as it boily, manifest any deficiency. They may err, as
all'men err ; but surely the common complaint has
latety.been that they have erred on the side of forbear-
ance towards men who would bring in heresies. And if
one or more of them manifested more energy than the
rek it is the generally meek character of the order
whiEli causes such conscientious energy to be regarded
as turbulence. But as our view of the conduct of
oilrers- takes a colour from our approbation or disap-
picbation of their end (the observation is as old
as Aristotle) we are disposed to characterise as
turbulence that energy employed in opposition to
orit opinions which we would gratefully welcome as
manly courage if employed on our own side. The con-
siderition, however, which we would press is that an
excessive meekness, and superabundant charity, are the
faults—the only faults—which can be charged upon the
present Bishops as a body ; but these faults are Chris-
tian virtues, and better become the fathers of a Christian
CEurch than the opposite virtues of statemen—vigilant
distrust and some amount of unfeeling rigour. The first
fierect imputed to the Church is one that really does not ex-
ist; and we are not a little surprised to see its supposed
eid4ence matter of complaint with a Liberal journal.
The detect in question is, " the want of a supreme go-
vtining body," explained as follows in the next para-
grAph.,:--" The constitution of the Church of England
,mserits the singular anomaly of an extended and com-
plicated hierarchy, complete in all its organisation, with
:the one exception of a head. It has neither Pope, nor
0111161, nor general assembly, to wield the sovereign
authority, and enforce uniformity of doctrine and prac-
flee- throughout its entire body." The want of a "ge-
% neral council" is one which the Church of England has
endUred in common with the Church of Rome for ex-
eddy three centuries, the last General Council of the
Rditlish Church, that of Trent, having been assembled

in'lll4s. The want of a Pope i.;, therefore, the
_ opt,aly respect in which we are at a disadvantage
,is compared with Rome. And this is made
....matter of complaint by a journal professing upon
all occasions to be the champion of civil and re-
_ # pus liberty. If, however, the Church of
.. ' And acknowledges no human arbiter of religious
f 4 _ . ;lot-tine—no despotic master of its ritual—it surely has
_ tut equivalent for such human arbiter in the Holy bcrip-
,..tuxes, and for such despotic master of ritual in the law
the law, which is quite strong enough to maintain the
liktliority of the Scriptures, so long as the people are free
frobytter corruption, and to enforce or to amend its own
ritua ,arrangements.the state of the Eng-
: :lish and Romish Churches Comparingdu the latter half of the
tkree centuries that have elapsed since thea sliest general
P. &sincil—the first half was a
con-
stant political disorder in Christendom, fromm°3tthe*finence of which religion could not escape—comps.
We say, the state of the English and Romish Churches,

Tll

during the last 150 or 200 years, we assuredly do not
find that a Pope has, even with the aid o' the Inquisi-
tion and the temporal sword and the faggot, more
effectually maintained uniformity of doctrine and ritual,
to say nothing of political order and personal morality,
than the Scripture and the law have maintained them all
in England. It is, in truth, out of the happy tranquillity
and implicit confidence arising from an experience of
the operation of our English system, that the present
danger, the magnitude of which no honest and observing
man will dispute, has arisen. Indulgence on the part of
the heads of the Church, implicit confidence in their
clergy, had been nursed into inveterate habits by the
calm, and steady, and glorious progress of religious
truth. It was not that the Bishops slept on their posts,
or that the laws had lost their power ; but there
really was no fit occasion for the active interposition
of either ; all was going on so well without
the helpl jof either Pope or general council,
that any rude interposition would be indeed a wanton
challenging of danger. Such was the state to which the
Christian liberty of centuries had exalted our Church
twelve years ago, as every Englishman now living can
attest. We say of Christian liberty, because the govern-
ment of law is liberty, and the only true condition of
liberty ; and the government of law is most perfect
where the law is least frequently invoked. Of liberty,
however, it is a necessary attribute, that men may go
strong if they are prepared to abide the consequences of
doing so. And so it has proved in the Church. About
twelve years ago, certain stupid, ignorant—we repeat it,
most ignorant—conceited, and perverse men sought to
introduce into the Church novelties of doctrine and of
ritual by which they hoped to make for themselves a
name. How were the Bishops or the Universities
to deal with these persons, when they :saw the
tares flung among the wheat? They might say at
the hebdomadal board at Oxford, how many Bishops
in their charges did say, "An enemy has done this
thing." But the reluctance which all good men feel to
awaken the sleeping lions of the penal law—the spirit of
the parable referred to compelled them to wait until the
wickedness or folly of the new heresy was fully de-
veloped ; besides that a precipitate course would
risk the danger of presenting as martyrs those who were
simply criminals. The forbearance thus manifested, though
wise and just, and the effect indeed of the prosperity of
the Church, has been, we admit, attended by this incon
venience, that it has given occasion to doubts and
scruples in the minds of some good men, which, though
relating to matters in themselves indifferent, seem
jto throw these good men, in some respects, into
I the hands of the heretics. Poison is rarely adminis
tered save in combination with something palatable,
nr at the least indifferent, and the false doctrines of
Tractarians were, in the usual course of these things,
mixed up with an abundance of professed veneration for
obsolete ritual observances. Some of these obsolete ob-
servances, however, unfortunately appeared obligatory on
conscience, and though the real question is between pure
Christianity and Romanising innovation, it has, at
least in appearance, taken the form of a dispute
about surplice preaching or the use of the offertory.
Now while we entirely sympathise with the resolution
of the people not to submit to authority, where the
legal foundations of authority shall seem to be doubtful,
and though we have no doubt that there is no au-
thority whatever to enforce surplice preaching, stilt
we think that the dispute raised is one which
(if the Bishops who enjoin surplice preaching
unhappily feel bound to persist) can be determined satin.
factorily only by the law. We say again, that we have
no doubt how the law will determine it. In order, then,
that the wound to the Church be promptly probed, let the
question be at once referred to a legal issue, and, if ne-
cessary, prosecuted to the court of last resort, the
Privy Council. Let some clergyman of the diocese of
Exeter, for example, use his accustomed habit in preach-
ing; if he do so unmolested, the question is set at rest
in that diocese, and the people well know that all who
abandon the former usage do so, not from a necessity of
canonical obedience, but from a bias towards the
Romanising heresy ; if, on the other hand, an at-
tempt be made to punish the clergyman who adheres to
the usage of two centuries, the people will support him
in his successive appeals, up to the appeal to the Privy
Council. This is the course which to us seems to be in
all respects the best, and, if unhappily rendered neces-
sary, it is the course which we hope to see pursued.

STATE OF TRADE.
(From the Manchester Guardian of this day.)
The intelligence of the complete closi-,g of the Elbe
by ice, which reached this town on Saturday, has put
a sudden stop to purchasers of yarn for Germany ;
and the accounts from India not beingconsidered favour-
able, the yarn market has become exceedingly dull,
though, as yet, without any material change in prices.
The market for manufactured goods is also inactive, for
which the season may sufficiently account. Yesterday
there were some rather extensive inquiries for 40-inch
shirtings at lower rates ; but, we believe, not much busi-
ness done.

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, MONDAY, DEC. 9
The Flannel market has been very similar to the two
preceding ones, and something like an average quantity
of business has been transacted at previous prices. There
has been much more inquiry after wool to-day ; and
some kinds, sue as noils and long wool, have realised a
small advance in price.