The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-07 00:00:00

filming .7 Ant

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1845.

The House of Lords met at five o'clock.

The Church Building Amendment Act was committed.
Lord STANLEY took the opportunity of the presen-
tation of a petition by the Earl of Devon, on the subject
of the Land Commissioners (Ireland) Report, to assure
the House that the recommendations of the commissioners
were under the attentive consideration of the Govern-
ment; and that a Bill on the subject of giving compensa-
tion to the tenant fur any improvement he might have
made on the land, was in a state of forwardness, and
would be laid on the table shortly after the recess.
Lord BROUGHAM gave notice that he should move
that a certain Railway Bill which had passed the House
of Commons, notwithstanding 300 breaches of the
Standing Orders, should be referred to the Standing
Orders Committee when it came before their Lordships.
A short conversation ensued, which led to no result ;
after which the Noble Lord presented a petition from the
inhabitants of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, complaining of
the conduct of Mr. Michael Gibbs, and praying for a re-
vision of thqlawsregulating vestries.
The Auction Duties Bill, the Sugar Excise Duties
Bill, and the Colonial Passengers Bill were respectively
read a third time.

The Privy Council Appellate Jurisdiction Bill passed
through Committee, and the House adjourned.
The House of Commons did not sit.

For some weeks past the French journals, and more
especially those which usually affect to be well in -
formed upon the intentions of the French Govern-
ment, have been putting out those minute but signi-
ficant paragraphs which may be called the "antenna"
of journalism—the feelers of that policy of which
they are the organs—and these feelers point to the
intended occupation of a part or the whole of the group
of the Soloo islands, at one extremity of the Great
Indian Archipelago. Our attention was arrested by
the first " protrusion" of these feelers, and we thought
it would not be long ere the action was repeated. In
another ten days, cur expectation was realised. The
object had now assumed a more definite form.
Whether because no notice had been taken of the
former demonstration by the English journals, or in
the English Parliament, we cannot say, but the ob-
ject was more boldly defined to be the "seizure" of
the Soloo islands. And last week we encountered
some speculations in the same journals as to the par-
ties to whom this expedition and the direction of its
proceedings would probably be confided. There can
be little doubt that, in due time, on some one of those
fine mornings—nothing daunted by the failure of
their hope in grasping the Marquesas by a coup-de-
main, and establishing themselves in Otaheite under
false pretences—we shall hear of our neighbours
having domiciled themselves on some island of
the Soloo cluster (not on the whole, as some
of our Parisian brethren surmise, with more
of territorial appetite than geographical ac-
curacy.) But the importance of a position
there, coupled with the anxiety and vigilance they
have shown to avail themselves of the opportunity
afforded by our successes in China to establish com-
mercial relations with that empire, they have not, as in
the cases of the Marquesas and Otaheite, exaggerated.
It is much to be dreaded that the importance of their
intention is grievously underrated by this country, or
rather by that miserably incompetent branch of the
Government which so ruinously administers its
Colonial possessions. On former occasions we
have devoted some articles to show with what
suicidal folly a Tory Government—after we
had conquered Java, and in a brief posses.
sion of three years, given freedom to its people,
their industry, and its vast commerce, so that in re-
venue, as well as in natural products, it had become,
under our rule, the richest of all the eastern islands—
we restored, without compensation or guarantee of
any kind, Java to the Dutch. We have shown how
scandalously the Dutch have since, and, to this day,
evaded, and violated, the terms of the treaty of 1824,
after we had, with almost equal childishness, agreed
to their own construction of those terms. At least,

let us profit by the example we have had of Dutch
cupidity, and, since there seems no likelihood of our
regaining Java, negotiate, immediately, with the Go-
vernment of Holland, who have interests in that distant
region, and the native princes who exercise hereditary
dominion there, for a position in the Soloo groupe
also. This is a better, and every way more respectable
a course than seizing clandestinely, and backed by
an overwhelming force, on the lands of defenceless
savages. The geographical and commercial import-
ance of the Soloo islands, always very great, has
become infinitely enhanced by the extension of our
mercantile establishments, and our intercourse with
China. Two years ago, a ♦ery able writer in the
Indian News, in a paper admirable for its various and
valuable statistics of the Indian Archipelago, wrote
thus prophetically :—" But the supineness of Great
Britain, with regard to the splendid Indian Archipe-
lago, is quite inexplicable. Even Singapore we
owe not to the Government, but to an individual,
for it was with great reluctance that Sir STAbi•
FORD RAFFLES was permitted to create this
valuable entrepot; and at the present mo-
ment, when Manilla, from its propinquity to
China, promises —or rather, threatens —to be-

come one of the most important settlements in
the Eastern Seas, we have not even a Consul there,
to look after our trade, and report to Government
at home !" Have we any Consul there now We
doubt it; though this question was suggested so far
back as April, 1843. We recollect that, at the close
of the last session, when Mr. GLansToxE's notable
scheme for admitting Manilla sugar under discrimi-
nating duties, to evade its free-labour production, was
being forced through the House of Commons in
spite of its often predicted (and its now often
proved) futility, the Premier attempted to
conciliate objectors by the announcement of
some magnificent plan for sending out sala-
ried agents to Manilla, among other foreign sta-
tions, qualified to test and report upon the qualities of
the sugars to be admitted into our home market. We
nfer, though we cannot speak positively, at this
moment, that we have no Consular agent at Manilla.
" Our Gallic neighbours " (continues this writer in
the same spirit of prescience) "are more on the alert,
although with not a tithe of the cause ; and we learn
from a private source that the French Consul is a per-
son of great talent and shrewdness. As for the Ameri-
cans they never sleep. Without a foot of land in the
Archipelago, and without manufactures for barter,
they are yet the busiest traders in these seas. An ac-
credited agent of Congress is perpetually roaming
among the islands, and a Yankee frigate is never far
distant where their flag requires protection." Three
words suffice to explain the facility and impunity
with which the Americans can thus break through
the Dutch prohibitory system, when we do not.
They are not hampered by the blunders of Lord
CASTLEREAGII'S restitution-folly of 1814, nor the
disgraceful and self-imposed disabilities of the treaty
of 1824.

But we recur to the conclusion of the paper we
have quoted for au incidental notice of the Soloo
Islands that is calculated to give a casual, but striking
notion of the admirable position of those islands, and
the relations of that of Manilla to them. " Let a
British Consul," he says, " be established at Manilla
to watch the progress of events which, under the new
relations of China with Europe, may, at no distant
day, render that settlement the most important
entrepot on the Eastern seas, and finally let the
Government take steps to acquire a knowledge of the
extent and present state of the general trade
of these valuable islands, the duties chargeable
at the several parts, and the impediments which exist
in the way of British commerce."—(How much, may
we parenthetically inquire, of this sort of information
is really in possession of the Foreign or Colonial office,
or the Board of Control, at this moment ?)—" A