The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-13 00:00:00

Prom its own blunders, as from the coldness of its supporters.

Lord Dalhousie had the misfortune of being connected with
colleagues who, on a brisk attack, threw each other overboard.
But what does the Times suggest for the future ? It mag-
nifies existing evils no doubt ; but we look in vain
for a single idea which will illuminate Sir George
Clerk, or alleviate the labours of Mr. Estcourt. There is
much good denunciation of stags and staggery, but not a
particle of suggested amendment—nothing that can elucidate
or dispense with standing orders—nothing that can shorten
or simplify the labours of committees—not an idea on which
Lord Granville Somerset can found a crotchet, or on which
Mr. Green can introduce a ray of light into the commission
chaos of the railway system. Nor are the Stag Journals,
as they are called, a whit more communicative. They burn,
no doubt, with a strong desire to allay what they call panic,
and to disprove the depreciatory sentiments which are run-
ning about the town on our modern railway legislation; but
from neither one nor the other is there the smallest twinkling
of light amid darkness visible, or the least approximation to a
conjecture how the Parliamentary system can be made to
work under existing circumstances. The truth is, the sub-
ject is one on which declamation is most easy, but improve-
ments quite the contrary. It is easy to declaim against
standing orders—against counsel, attorneys, engineers, and
committees. It is still easier to take the tone of the Minis-
terial press, and to imitate the carelessness of Olympian
Jove on so immaterial a point of policy. What,
call a Cabinet to arbitrate on railways ! Is the Duke of
Wellington amenable to gradients? or the Lord Marquis of
Tamboff to Mr. Hudson? What signifies the labour of pri-
vate Members, if her Majesty's Ministers can have their ease
in Downing-street? But this language is not that of com-
mon sense, and so everybody feels. By right or wrong, the
railway system is now a fad accompli, and of the most sur-
passing magnitude. All of a sudden every city, every market
town, and almost every village is for the means of simulta-
neous locomotion. It is not a light matter, for it involves
some hundreds of millions. We are not philosophers enough
to make distinctions; but in our simple apprehension, if we
spend all our surplus money one way, there must arise a
scarcity in others. We cannot eat our cake and have our
cake. We cannot spend a hundred millions on any single
object one year, without a sort of scarcity the next. Nor will
it be so easy to prevent a deluge of new Bills, notwithstand-
ing the existing discount, as many persons suppose.
There is much, no doubt, derivable from the close
of the Stag season. It recreates the rural
eye to see a newspaper at last without long lists of names
and nothing else. We congratulate ourselves on having ar-
rived at a close of the system of Parliamentary pluralities;
but, in spite of this, the deposits have been paid in many
cases where there was no reason either for the scheme or for
the premium; and we may depend upon it the attorney and
engineer, and perhaps a quorum of the executive, will take
good care that the unfortunate shareholders see no return of
their lort moneys without a further diminution. They must
prepare themselves for the usual consult-41th% of lively turtle
and sparkling champagne; for vigorous exertions, till the
season of white bait and green peas—for tribute to divers
agents, divers witnesses, divers engineers—for still larger'
and more useless contributions on account of the attendance
or non-attendance of learned lawyer—and 'eat, not least, for
an enormous and unnecessary and profligate expenditure in
contesting to the utmost in both Houses of Parliament for
points that a little common sense might settle. The deposits,
we affirm, in a great many cases, are already paid; and whereso-
ever deposits are forthcoming, who ever heard of any nneon-
Burned ? The sacred fluty of expenditure must be fulfilled.
The solicitor owes it to his family to save the point of ho-
nour, and to have the preamble proved. The engineer cannot
meet his rival in the provinces without earrying the new Rail-
way "Act" in his writing-case. The committee are nervous
about returning without a Bill; accordingly they take their
chance of getting one in Westminster, in the certain confi-
dence, at any rate, of having a sufficient one in Covent. garden.
The panic, therefore, comes too late for bubbles without end.
There is the Peel family of " direct llues.b There are junc-
tions without number, and withhtit necessity. For our own
parts, we are getting SO immersed in prejudice, that we almost
call upon the House of Commons to throw out every
Bill which contains the names Of Members of their
honourable House without adequate local justifica-
tion, or where any of the 'illustrious band of
pluralists and absentees) who shall be nameless, figure in
their firmament. The truth is, money enough for this single
head of expenditure was voted or authorised last year. If
Sir R. Peel would have the courage to take the retnanets, and
nothing else, in 1846, with a few I3ills for Ireland, the over-
gambling would soon be discontinued, and the railway system
would resume good order. But if Parliament, in the anarchy
of accident, proceed next spring, as it did last year, in pass-
ing railroads without reference to the amount of expenditure
required, do not let us wonder if the gale becomes a hurricane,
an the effects become as disastrous as these or 1825. The
country will be involved In another voluntary evil, hot from
providence® or misfbrtune, or foreign War, bht, its in the case
of the sliding-stale) from the financial insagacity of the
Geverntnent.

—lt is an old observatidni Mid On obseflltitin
too faithfully verified by experiette; that mankind Are by
far more sensible to eVer; trifling injtiriet than td the
greatest benefits War is; htiwevef; tifflitig injilry a
nation ; on the other handl eVtn Where its results Are fortu-
nate, it is a greettr calamity than any tither with Which a
people can be visited==lextePt 4i wa *WA Owes unsuc-
cessful ; either generally is the most terrible of
national alliktions. In proportion ii ,war 14 an evil; peace
mutt be a bleai'ag ; bnt fetid A 4 he tie yoke of just
corrplaint'Againiq alj Uneeessary war, how little do we,hear
.d, tl'alltude due for the enidynient of, Uninterrupted and
solid peace. Peakr rits hf t+.ls7l3_ Eiirope has enjoyed,
contrary. to •e*,Cttillion, and almost beyond hope ; and we
pixkt'Ati to show, by the testimony pf a Witiiesi übovo keep-
tion, that at present the prdiApev3t W: long 7iobtinued peace is
daily growing More and more 'ears
age Ili: 'ThierS, hi FrinCe; And died Palliteratonl in
England; appealed ?re. raked their ingenuity to
proVid* 11, of 'quarrel between the . two great
hati:Ms upon whose good understanding . the Peace of the
world ahgeltitely 'deeenclit. The firebrand Ministers were
distaias'ed by the wisdom of the King in one country; Mid 1437
tht wisdom of the Parliament in the .t1;;;!,:r; but neither. did
the ill effects of their incrAdiary practices iri office; per their
own efferte tti Angdient the flanie that kindled,
ternibiate with their ffi`eial. t.ltlStenee. M. thiers labohred
assidouft aiid; a time, too tueeesSfullY, to keep iitive
the ti
res
-English feeling by his labeu, in the Chai_ilber and in
the Tress; and Lord PalnPrste, ho test industriously, Wiled
in his own fiplitrie as Member of Parliament and ite74iiper
Writer, to excite among ceiintrynien a jealousy tif Fraiice.
If, though aided, by the Volufitee': inaolence of the Times,_
his Lordship failed, it Was because he had to deal with
a people thtOie thoughtful and more tkp'arieheed in tlia
•exercir.4e of politici jtiagnicht than, oltk• tu~i mercurial,
though high-spirited, lieighbtk?'', At the other side of the
Manche. Even the.tirlillggood sense of Enzlishmeri. !ryer,
theless, Wohltl scarcely have proved for the
preterVation of peace (for England was but one of two
parties), were it not that, happily for mankind, the Govern-
ment of each country was placed in the hands of men as
desirous of peace, because they knew the real interests of
their respective nations, as their incompetent predecessors
had evidently been desirous of war. M. Guizot in the one
country, and Sir Robert Peel in the other, present a concur-
rence of wise and able and resolute statesmen, determined to
cultivate peace between two great and proud neighbouring
nations, such as is rare in history ; if, indeed, there is any
example, in the case of two such nations, of a struggle to
avoid war, without a compromise of national honour, like
that through which the illustrious statesmen named have at
length (we think we may now say it) triumphantly Nased.
Our Witness is the Morning Chronicle, 104 the Tekele 94.