The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THUR

regard to this important undertaking was made."
And why? Was any principle involved in the
acquiescence of the Government in such a re-
quest, so important to the general management
and prosperity of public works in this country,
that to have acceded to the wishes of the depu-
tation would have been to compromise the still
more important object of upholding that princi-
ple? No. This pretence does not appear to have
been thought of. Even the hacknied plea of all
Administrations in this country, for their want of
spirit or sagacity to appreciate propositions calcu-
lated to effect objects of the highest public utility,
—namely, that all undertakings entered upon with
a view to public accommodation or pleasure, are
best left, in England, to private speculation,—
does not appear, on this isolated occasion, to have
been thought of in Downing-street. The no-
tions under which the First Lord of the Treasury
and the Secretary for the Home Department re-
fused the assistance required, were, if our Con-
temporary's statement be correct, just what we
would have ventured beforehand to predict would
be set up. They are eminently characteristic of
that small, pedling, crafty, bargain-driving
cunning which Sir JAMES GRAHAM has through-
out his public career mistaken for statesmanship;
and that habitual prudery, wincing under the
contemplation of any departure from official pre.
cedent, and always looking forward with a
nervous horror to being questioned in Parlia-
ment for any acts which may damage, however
distantly, his political plausibility, that is the
most hopeless and, at the same time, the most
pitiable among the moral weaknesses of Sir Ro-
BER r PEEL'S public deportment :
It was considered on the part of the Government that any
such arrangement would at present be premature, as there had
been scarcely time for drawing the public attention to the Re-
ports of the naval officers employed by the Admiralty, and that
of Mr. Walker. the civil engineer, and for giving to parties
generally who might be induced to undertake the construction
of a railway communication from Chester to Holyhead, the
opportunity of submitting to the Government any proposals
they might have to offer.
Premature, forsooth, to contribute the prompt-
est and most efficient means for quickening com-
munications between Saint James's and the Vice-
Regal Lodge at a time like this ! With such an
enormous portion of the Irish publicasyou know
to be in avowed discontent with your Govern-
ment, your policy, and their connection with
the one and the other, will you await " the
drawing of public attention to the reports
of Mr. WALKER"—which object may take
as much time to accomplish as Mr.
WALKER'S repairs to Westminster-bridge have
already occupied? With State trials pend-
ing in Dublin, the event of which, in certain
results, no man can undertake to foretel—with
hourly sources of political and popular irritation
opening and welling afresh, all around your
establishments, civil, judicial, and military
in Ireland, will you talk of awaiting the
determination of parties " who may be in-
duced" to undertake, or submit to Go-
vernment te.eir proposals for undertaking, the
construction of a work which you, the Govern-
ment, in a more provident and far-seeing dis•
charge of your duty, would long ago have ac-
complished yourselves, or caused to be effected
by others? Profound administrators of a "Con-
servative" policy, truly—thus to have hitherto
neglected, thus now to huckster and tam-
per with, a measure of paramount, inde-
scribable exigency, for the interests of that
public whom you affect to serve ! But per-
haps it may be attempted to justify this
tardy and reluctant, this cold, sneering, discou-
raging entertainment of the proposition made—
on the score of the expense to be incurred by
giving effect to it being excessive and inordinate,
as compared with• the admitted value of the
work when accomplished. Let us see how the
facts stand.

So far from this being the case, be it remem-
bered that the whole question was as to the Go-
vernment's allowing a certain surplus allowance
for the conveyance of the mails along the pro-
jected line. We dismiss this proposition at once,
not caring whether the_over-allowance was to,
have been 20, or 2,000 per cent. beyond the or-
dinary charge for such service on ordinary
roads. We contend, for the reasons we
have already assigned, that if any diffi-
culty is experienced in the immediate con-
struction of the work by private capital, the Go-
vernment should advance, say upon an issue of
Exchequer bills, in the usual form "for Public

Works" the whole of the expense. The length
of the line would be but sixty miles. The saving
of time, as Mr. WALKER has shown, on the
whole communication between the extreme
points of Dublin and London, would be nearly
twenty-four hours! The total estimated expense
would be 800,0001. or thereabouts. Let it be
assumed at 1,000,0001. Will any Minister ven-
ture to get up in his place in the House of Cora,
inons, if challenged on this subject, and attempt
to justify the denial of such advances for an ob-
ject of this prodigious importance, on a plea of
the danger of the precedent to be established ?
Look at the advances already made for railway
lines on the Irish side of the Channel. Why should
similar assistance be withheld on this ? Again,
the National Gallery,
_the Park improve-

inents, the extension of other works
which, though called public," are so ob-
szure as to be known to but very few indi-
viduals, have cost within the last three or four
years, in various parts of the kingdom, double
the amount required for this wise and necessary
undertaking—to say nothing of Royal stables,
and other objects merely appertaining to the ex-
ternal pomp and dignity of the Crown. We
protest that we cannot find a single ground ofjus-
tification for the course adopted in this matter by
Sir ROBERT PEEL and Sir JAMES GRAHAM.

r How to restrain under-graduates from running
into debt has been recently broached as a question
of University reform. A very interesting
question it is, as not a few unhappy parents
throughout the country already know to their
cost; and many a poor curate, atoning by along
I:fe of penance for the thoughtless expenditure
of his youth, will be ready enough to assert that,
of all the many items of complaint which are
alleged against the conduct of his Alma Mater,
this one, relating to the financial affairs of
her offspring, is by far the most important.
Primium petunia qucerenda est.

Well, but how are matters to be improved ?
There has been no lack of suggestion, and if
only a tithe of what has been said to have been
attempted has been carried into practice, we can
only wonder at the lamentable deficiency of
good resulting, and attribute to the very atmos-
phere of an university town a tendency to en-
courage this highly aristocratic epidemic. But,
rely upon it, the evil is curable, and it only re-
quires proper treatment to eradicate this shame-
ful vice from the constitutions of our university-
educated youth. One recommends the adoption
of public registries, in which the tradesmen
might easily ascertain the rank, residence, and
resources of the aluminus he is asked to trust.
Another suggests a vigilant system of surveillance
on the part of college tutors. A third would have an
Act of Parliament constituting a new Statute of
Limitations, for the benefit of all, in statu pu-
pillari. We don't really know how many recom-
tnendations have even been made beside. We
believe his Grace the Duke of WELLINGTON,
when he first assumed the Academic toga, and
became invested with the office of Chancellor of
Oxford, threatened the most severe measures
against all in any way concerned in the propaga-
tion of debt amongst the junior branches of the
University. Nevertheless, we have never heard
that even his Grace's denunciation had much
effect, and we are even inclined to believe
that just at the present time there is
more credit given to Oxford under-graduates
than there was even when his Grace began his
Chancellorship. At Cambridge we know very
well matters are by no means mending; and,
judging from several circumstances that have
recently come to our ears, we should fancy the
tablets of those engaged in supplying the extra-
v agancies of the youthful Cantabs are more co-
piously filled than ever.

But then it is the fashion to fasten all the
blame upon the tradesmen of Oxford and Cam-

bridge. Judging from the invectives which have
been so unsparingly heaped on this devoted
order of men, one would infer that they really
were a race of veritable human harpies. Now
we happen to know, from some four years' expe-
rience, something of the character of these gentry,
and Nye confidently assert that they are not the
monsters they are represented to be. Our ex-
perience is of course confined to the tradesfolk
of one university, but we are also able to speak
with something of cosmopolite facility of the
idiosyncrasies of the race located at the other of
the " eVes of England." Indeed we found them
all of the very same genus, and, strange to say,
that genus is precisely the same as one finds in
other parts of the country. Seriously, they have
only one pair of eyes; their legs are neither diffe-
rently constructed, nor more numerous than
those of London tradesmen; they have nails,land
not talons, as some have alleged, and they do
not run about, and inveigle fresh men into sub-
terranean emporiums for contracting debt.

Fathers and mothers, the cure for the evil of
which you are all so ready to complain, is in
your own power, and rely upon it it resides no-
where else. Set a wholesome example to your
offspring under your own roofs—inculcate the
moral turpitude of getting into debt, which
is now by so many deemed a venial
and highly fashionable vice —limit your
own expenses to the resources which
you have it in your own power to command, and
commit the education of your sons to the care of
those who at school will enforce your instructions.
By doing this you will supply your sons with a
healthy bias, which even the noxious influence
of bad example will with the greatest difficulty
overpower. And it, in addition, you watch over
the moral characters of these young men, when
they from time to time revisit the parental abode,
you will have done the most, and that will be
effectual for repressing the tendency to contract
debt during their university career.

We have received Madrid paper.; of the 3d
inst., and are not a little surprised to learn that
the New Municipal Bill hardly excites a murmur
of discontent. The Political Chief of Madrid is
actively employed in organising the mode of exe-
cution of the new laws. The majority of the
members of the municipality submit, but sew-
ral have given in their resignations. It is not
thought that that body has an idea of making
any opposition to the new law ; the meeting was
rather for some regulation of "the affair. It is
also stated that the new laws have been well re-
ceived in the provinces. On the 2d, the Liberal
electors of Madrid met for the purpose of select-
ing candidates on their side at the elections which
are to take place, in consequence of the vacan-
cies caused by the late appointments. The fol-
lowing names were unanimously agreed to :
MM. ARGUELLES, OLOZAGA; SAN MIGUEL, CAN-
TERO, LUJAN, MIRALLES, SAGASTI, and ANGULO j
and the candidates for the Senate, CALATRAVA„
ZUMALACARREGUI, and VALLEJO.
The Imparcial of Barcelona of the 2d inst.
states that the commander of the castle of
Figueras had capitulated on the following terms :
—" 1. The soldiers of the army and of the free
corps are to serve eight years in the army ; and
the National Guards, after being disarmed, are
to remain under the surveillance of the authori-
ties. 2. The chiefs are to re-enter the class of
citizens. 3. The revolters possessed of property
are to indemnify the individuals who have
suffered material damage by the insurrection."
On the Madrid Bourse the Three per Cents.
were done at 23k 24 23k for cash, and 24i at 60
days, and the Five per Cents. at 20k at 60 days,
with premium.

The Paris papers are almost entirely filled wit,
the debates in the Chamber of Peers on the ad.
dress, and comments on the various topics on
which it touches, and chiefly on the visit of the
Duke of BORDEAUX to England. The Legitimist
papers, of course, are furious against M. GulzoT
for describing the attentions paid to the Prince
by Frenchmen as 4. revolting scandals." "M.
GurzoT," says the Quotidienne, " yesterday esta-
blished the sterling value of the Royalist party
by contending with it as he did, and by revealing
his system of conduct throughout Europe with
relation to the Duke DE BORDEAUX. Vainly did
M. GulzoT attempt to attenuate the importance
of this great party by cutting it into halves,
making one-half wise men, and the other halt
fools. The fools, it appears, are henceforth to play
a prominent part in the Ministerial controversy.
But let us leave M. GUIZOT, the philosopher,
w amuse himself with his own inventions. France
knows very well what the Royalist party in the
mass expresses. The Chamber of Peers would
have been taught this yesterday if two men, ac-
customed to explain with the greatest authority
to it the true Royalist ideas, had not been absent;
one of them painfully kept away by illness, and
the pre-occupied by apprehensions
which
hope, will dissipate. No, no !
there but in parties that will not
:ispassing around them, and will
othera
Gre oclDlro,u
lefvloel
the crises with which they are
nloootkbaettaaungyhtlttibnyg
menaced. The fouls are the Ministers, who dare
to murmur threats of exceptional measures.
Therefore let us render thanks to M. GUIZOT,
fbr he has placed us in the most favourable posi-
of the session. Having offered
tion for our defence, and for defending the
country against the follies of the Ministry. This
itsipaofiunretiompnkens tingo
M. GIIIZOT, let us do homage to
Messrs. DE RICHELIEU and DE VERAC."
The Journal des Debats gives unqualified
praise to the address, and to M. GUIZOT'S speech,
which it thus characterises :—" We shall not
attempt to analyse the speech of the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, for we should be afraid of weak-
ening the profound impression and irresistible
ascendancy be gained over the Chamber. All
that eloquence which the highest power of rea-
soni
passion, could by the most noble and legiti-
mate could be brought forth from a
statesman defending the rights of his country,
her greatest and best interests, both present and
future, M. GUIZOT infused into his answer to the
audacious manifesto proclaimed from the tri-
bune. We have been the first to say,
and we repeat with the illustrious orator,
that an importance beyond their deserts as-
suredly ought not to be attached to vain demon-
strations. Some allowances should be made for
the well-known irreflection and incurable folly of
the Carlist party. There has been as much
frivolity as culpable attention in the small assem-
blage of gentlemen who have amused themselves
by playing at royalty in a private house in Lon-
don. Thanks be to GOD, the scenes in Belgrave-
squere have not placed the Revolution of July
or its dynasty in any danger, but they have pro-
euced, repeating the words used by M. GUIZOT,
an immense scandal."
No doubt remained that the Dotation Bill had
been given up, and it was currently reported also
that there would be no discussion on the Right
of Search question, as it would interfere with
pending negotiations. On. Tuesday the editor of
the Gazette de France was tried at the Court of
Assizes, for what was termed a "seditious libel,"
published some ten days since, and was condemned
to pay a fine of 6,000 francs, and be imprisoned
for two years.
BOURSE—Etats, TuEsnAy, JAN. 9.
First Highest Lowest Last
Price. Price. Price. Price.
French Five per Cents. 124 30... 124 30... 124 25... 124 30
Three 5.......... 82 50... 82 55... 82 45.. 82 b 5
Bank of France.. ..... .3215 ...3220 ...3215 —.3220
Laffitte Bank 5,000f...5075 _5076 ...5075 ...5075
Belgian Bank 697 W... 697 50 .. 697 50... 697 50
1841 ...1080 ...1080 ...1080 ...1080
Belgian Fives, 1840....
108* ... 108 i ... 108 k ... 108 i
1842.... 109 109 109 ... 109
Spanish Active 291 291 ... 29i ... 291
Passive 51 6i 5i 5i
Neapolitan
Roman .... 1041 1041 .. 1041 ... 104 i