The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-29 00:00:00

nth irn.

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1844.

So far as we can gather from the Irish journals, the
cause of Federalism does not appear to be making so
much headway in the sister country as Mr. O'CON-
NELL, and those who think with him on this subject,
seem to have anticipated. The more enthusiastic
and determined among the Repealers, who may be
said to be represented by that high-spirited but some-
what Quixotic paper, the Nation, stand coldly and
sullenly aloof, if they do not meditate an active oppo-
sition to the new crotchet; while the more moderate
and timid party content themselves fur the present
with being mere lookers-on, watching the progress of
events, and hiding their time to act as circumstances
shall seem to warrant. Just now there is a complete
lull in Ireland. The spirit of agitation has gone,
fairly to sleep. One body of the Repealers is discou-
raged; another is doubtful and hesitating ; and a third
—the Triennial Parliament men—would appear to have
no sooner entered the field of political controversy than
to have retired from it, disappointed at the arrant
failure of the motion in the Dublin Court of Alder-
men, of their Corypheus, Dr. MAuNsELL. But to re-
turn to the question of Federalism, the most prepos-
terous of all the preposterous crotchets of the day.
Here is the language in which it is spoken of by a
Liberal journal in the north of Ireland :—"lt requires
no great stretch of imagination to picture a set of
Repealers practising the goose-step, a sort of Repeal
Polka; but it would require a vast effort of fancy to
imagine them practising anything else. We have no
difficulty, however, in understanding how the worthy
Repealers are ready to admire the performance of
the fresh piece ; but we are not, at present,
able to comprehend the folly of those who
are captivated, or are likely to be captivated, by
the humbug of Federalism. We are very willing
to make allowance for human fancies and vanities,
but that a set of brave and sensible men should set
about advocating Federalism, would appear to be
pretty nearly an impossibility, if we had not large
bxperience of human folly. We have heard of new
political combinations. The Federalists threaten us
with their nostrum ; and we are very anxious to see
their prescription, though we do not anticipate much
benefit from it." We doubt much whether there is
the human being in existence—unless, indeed, he be
hopelessly blinded by his prejudices—who anticipates
any benefit to Ireland from the Federal principle.
So far as we can ascertain, it is nothing more than a
proposition for a Parliament which shall have
neither
and herthfluence nor authority, except to dis-
cusscarry measures of the merest retail
character. A. total and unconditional
lßepeal of the
Union we can understand, str
epudiate the idea ; it is a bold,
idsaasohningit, straight-
forward forward crotchet, but Federalism'
n sneaking
conception, with this additional disqualification,
name-
ly, that it is just as impracticable as the' former
scheme. how is it to work ? In what spirit is it to
work ? What are to be the exact limits of its legisla-
tive powers ? These are questions more easily asked
than answered, and the originators of the project seem
to be in no hurry to enlighten us on this head. In his

last manifesto from Derrynane, Mr. O'CoraTELL
warmly praises Federalism, and even gives it the pre-
ference to unqualified Repeal ; but he does not vouch-
safe to tell us what is its particular character, or in
what way it is to benefit Ireland. He leaves his
readers in the dark upon both these points, and yet
expects that they will embrace a principle which is
nearly, if not quite unintelligible, merely because
it bears a Derrynane imprimatur ! Federalism,
like Repeal, will never answer any other purpose
than to keep Ireland in a state of incipient uneasiness,
and this our Irish fellow-countrymen will find out
ere long, but not before they have suffered bitterly
from experience. " There is, or might be, another
party," adds our northern Contemporary, " that
could do vast good—the party of the country—the
party that would act rationally for the public good,
and that would not be influenced by bigoted power on
the one hand, nor propelled by mere authority on the
other. We are in want of such a party, and we do
not despair that it will be found." Judging from
present indications, we should not say that the ele-
ments of this party are very rife in Ireland, still we
are willing to hope with our Contemporary that the
want will ere long be supplied, and that, when the
Repeal and Federal crotchets have had their day,
common sense and an enlightened spirit of patriotism
will assume the ascendancy over men's minds in the
sister country.

The remarkable excitement in the market of capi-
tal produced by the announcement of so many rail-
road projects already in course of execution, or pro-
posed to be commenced, is a symptom which cannot
be too carefully noted by those who would study the
phenomena of our social condition. Were it possible
for our earlier authorities on the statistics of capital
and wealth to waken from the sleep of the grave to
the aspects at this moment exhibited by the " money
power " in Great Britain, they would imagine them-
selves resuscitated in a new world. They would deem
that a new system of money had been invented.
For what are 'the contrasted features which any
of our daily journals exhibit of the wants and the
wealth, the refinements and the destitution, diffused
through the various classes of the community ?
Pauperism—the abject wretchedness of hundreds of
thousands—attested by vast district or union poor-
houses, swarming with whole colonies, not alone of
the aged and impotent, and helpless infants and youth,
but also of able-bodied men, still in the prime and
rigour of life, but unable to obtain employment. Peor-
rates for the support and maintenance of these un-
fortunate masses to the annual amount of 5,000,000/.
An aggregate population so far removed from
the general poverty which these premises would
seem, at first sight, to infer, as to pay
innually the largest amount of taxation per-
haps levied on any nation of the world ; yet
burdened with the largest amount of national debt
(800,000,0001.) ever recorded as having been con-
tracted at any former period of history ; the charge
if interest and management alone thereon amounting
to upwards of 28,000,0001, per annum. A commerce
sf almost boundless extent, and a mass of accumulated
capital, still awaiting employment, so vast that after
supplying all the enormous funds of our greatest ex-
isting public works, such as docks, railroads, &c.,
now and for some time past in full operation, it is still
i'urther hypothecated, so to speak, to the incredible
imount of 39,600,0001. for the forty new projects of
railroads, to be carried over 2,100 miles of ex-
tent, of which we have so lately given an ac-
count. If TEMPLE or CHILDE, or if DAVID
EIUME or ADAM SMITH, or Dr. CAMPBELL,
could contemplate this extraordinary state of things,
•)r so huge a sum of social misery co-existing with
such enormous advances in domestic opulence—so
earful a leaven of poverty in the masses, made only
'the more palpable by the imperial wealth concentrated
in class interests, and in the coffers of individual
capitalists—the first inquiry, perhaps, of their saga-
cious and provident minds, would be, what were the
chances of permanency attaching to a system under
which elements of so antagonistic a character could
have attained, coincidently, so striking a develop-
ment ? To determine this question, they would at once
institute a preliminary examination into the nature
of our monetary system, and, probably nothing would
,o irresistibly suggest an inquiry into the character
and the amount of our currency as the contemplation
of these gigantic demands of railway speculation. But
this last is a question of too vital and present an inte-
rest to be dismissed, together with any mere theoretical
assumptions of what the dead economists might think
if us. May they sleep lightly, without
,disturbance
from those misgivings which we own to, while con-
sidering the probable results of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
currency legislation on a condition such as we live
under in 1844.
• The Act of last session has fixed the same ominous
amount of 39,000,0001. odd as the whole aggregate of
the paper currency to be issued by the Bank of
England and the provincial banks, under the sanction
of the Crown, throughout the whole of the United
Kingdom. The fancied security of this amount and
description of issues is, that "it is intended ultimately
to be based on Government securities and on gold
conjointly." Any circumstances which tend to dis-
turb or deteriorate the value of either of these ele-
ments, must place their joint aggregate in imminent
jeopardy. Now, of these thirty-nine millions, one
' component is, in round numbers, twelve millions of
the Government's own liabilities, held " as securi-
ties " by the Bank. The Bank is limited to the
issue of such an amount of notes only as it can pay on
demand in gold bullion, eked out, if necessary, by a
permitted per centage of silver bullion. To
answer these conditions in the simplest form, the
Bank ought to command about 22,000,000/. in gold
alone (which it never possessed yet, and in all proba-
bility never will) and 5,000,0001. in silver. f Suppose
the actual stock of gold bullion to be some of these
days drained to the fearfully low ebb at which it has
actually stood within these seven years, by any one
of the causes that certainly and inevitably produce
such a result—as Ist., a commercial panic like that
which ensued within.this period, on the acts of insol-
vency announced by the United States banking and
private establishments ; 2d., the efflux occasioned
by loans to foreign states; 3d., a great disturb-
ance of the balance of trade from any other
causes ; 4th., a failing harvest :—in either of these cases
we should be fain to learn from the supporters of Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S Bank Charter Bill how its mis-
chievously-empirical operation can be controlled !
Where is the gold necessary for that purpose to come
from, unless you are to cut down the dimensions of
your trade, at no longer notice than intervenes be-
tween the weekly advertisement of the Bank in the
Gazette, to the contracted corresponding dimensions
of the Premier's financial capacity and of the Bank of
England's bullion resources. Any one of the four
causes we have just recapitulated, excepting only
thanks to a beneficent Providence, the danger of a
failing harvest, we may be called on to encounter to-
morrow. We see no great encouragement, yet, for
renewed confidence in American good faith, honesty,
or stability. We have great fears that the experience
of the past will be lost on the present generation
when certain European Powers are calling for
loans on terms so much snore advantageous (osten-
sibly at least) for investments than the reduced
interest of our own public securities at present
offers. And the effects of the Zollverein confederacy
against British trade, and of the tariffs of Belgium
America, France, Portugal, and other States are not
yet so far developed, that any man shall undertake to
predict their ultimate effect on the balance of trade.
But are there no superadded or instant causes of panic,
and disorganisation to be apprehended ? The Minis-
ter purposes next sprint to apply his "gold equiva-
lent" screw to the monetary affairs of Scotland. By
the very last gazetted account of the Bank of Eng-
land's assets, liabilities, &c., the far-famed sixteen mil-
lions of gold, have dwindled down to twelve millions and
forty thousand pounds. Coincidently with all this, we
see these announcements of new railway companies,
calling for a capital of forty millions ! Say that from
lines abandoned, and schemes reduced, their actual
demand shall be for only half the amount—what is to
become of the accommodation required for general
commerce, domestic trade, and the dealings of society,
with the enormous additional demand for wages,
which these projects suppose, and the efflux of gold
contingent on dealings founded on the seventy millions
of imports, and one hundred and fifty millions of ex-
ports, which represented their value for last year ?
If this trade is to
abandoned, and gambling ape-
culationb in home scheme
be demolished, if those demands
cannot be responded to, .if commercial enterprise is
to be discouraged and
s and foreign loans are to

be necessarily encouraged, in order to accommodate
the march of events to the scheme of the Premier ;
what will presently become the value of the securities
held by the Bank of England from that Government
which such a Premier administers ? And what will
be the means possessed by the Bank to meet "in gold"
its own liabilities, when those securities shall have
sustained this serious deterioration ? And what must
be the fate of the empire if both the Government
securities be discredited ; the evolution of private
capital crippled ; the stock of bullion drained to a
fraction ; and no sounder and more expansive system
of curreny organized to supply and represent it ?

Accounts from Madrid of the 21st state that the
Committee appointed to draw up the address in reply
to the speech from the throne had adopted the prin-
ciples contained in her MAJESTY'S speech, and that
the majority are in favour of the new Reform Bill.
Little doubt existed that it would be adopted by both
Chambers unless their labours should be interrupted
by insurrections in Catalonia. Measures are evi-
dently in progress for rising in various places. In
the French depots the Spanish refugees have given
such symptoms of a general movement that several
arrests had been made at Carcassonne and Narbonne.
Some had been arrested at Bordeaux. Brigadier
AYMERICK, Military Governor of Madrid under Es-
PARTERO, had made his escape from Valladolid, and
every effort to capture him had proved useless.
The Heraldo makes the following remarks on the
threatening appearance of affairs :
" Notwithstanding the fears and the premonitory
symptoms of an Esparterist attempt to disturb the ex-
isting order of things, we do not believe that any such
attempt can succeed in the present situation of affairs.
The time is past when the army, deceived and surprised,
served as the instrument of revolution. The 700,000
bayonets of the National Guard, of which Espartero
boasted, have disappeared. The municipalities and pro-
vincial deputies are no longer clubs for conspirators.
The only hope of the Esparterists rests in the disunion
of the Moderate party. We do not believe that any
such division exists. It is unfortunately proved, how-
ever, that a vast conspiracy had been organised, and that
the province of Catalonia was to have been the first
theatre of the deplorable excesses of the artisans of re-
volution. To overthrow the existing order of things, to
drivel the Queen from her throne, or to keep her in
tutelage, such is the object of the men who announce
themselves friends of progress. A terrific progress
which can only advance through pillage and massacre.
Fortunately these sanguinary plans have failed in con-
sequence of the energy of the Government and the zeal
of its delegates."
Madrid Bourse on the 21st.—Three per Cents.,
25i, cash ; Five per Cents., 2,0; at 60 days.

The only news in the Paris papers :is from Africa,
which is of an unfavourable character. The Moors
seen determined to allow the French no rest id their
new settlements, and during the absence of ADD•Ei"
KADER fight with as much determination and skill,
as if that enterprising chief were at their head.
However peaceful may be the outward appearances,
the native hostility of the people is constantly break-
ing forth, either by sudden irruptions, or by risings
in the neighbourhood of some French garrison, ap-
parently reposing in the most profound security.
The following intelligence, copied from theAlgerie,
of the 20th, appears in all the Paris papers of Sun-
day :—" Events of a very serious nature have just taken
place at about ten leagues from Dellys, in the part of
the country not yet subdued of one of the three
Agalicks organised by the Marshal upon his departure
for Morocco. At the very moment that General
COMMAN was about to quit the country, which he
fancied in a state of tranquillity, in order to return
to Dellys, and thence to Algiers, he was informed
that the Kabyles were again collected, and in
a very numerous force. Assured of the
truth of this information, he formed his small
body of troops into three columns, which
he ordered to march towards the spot where
the Kabyles had gathered. The column commanded
by Colonel SAINT ARNAUD arrived the first, and was
obliged to sustain alone, for a great length of time (it
is said that the combat lasted six hours), the onset of
the Kabyles, three or four times more numerous than
itself. It defended itself with vigour, and had almost
entirely exhausted all its ammunition when the other
two columns came up. One of them, commanded by
Colonel FORE; one of the most distinguished officers
of the French troops in Africa, had been delayed by
the bad state of the roads, and by the attack of
another body of Kabyles, which came to increase the
already numerous body of the combatants. It is re-
ported that 29 men have been killed, and 130
wounded, among whom are more than 12 officers ;
one of whom has been obliged to:suffer amputation-
A steamer arrived in the evening of the 19th, with
106 wounded, and an- account of this unfortunate
affair. The Marshal immediately gave orders for the
departure of all the troops of the 3d leger, and of the
53d of the line, which still remained-at Algiers, and
embarked himself with his staff and his aides-de-
camp, determined not to return until everything
should be terminated in that part of the country.
The squadrons of Spahis of Blida and Medea, to the
number of three, have received orders to march. im-
mediately for the Maison Carree, where Colonel
Youssour will await them to direct their movements
upon Dellys. There are already .three squadrons of
the 3d Chasseurs upon the spot."
A correspondent of the Siecle gives another version
of this unfortunate affair :

" ALGIERS, OCT. 20.—T0-day the Sphynx steamer
has arrived from Dellys, with 100 wounded, and several
nore have remained at Dellys ; there are besides fifteen
.fficers wounded (two of them mortally), and thirty-five
privates or non-commissioned officers have been killed.
General Comman had for a month past been moving
About Dellys without encountering much opposition ; a
few days ago he would go to the Flipat-el-Bahara, a
traction of the Flipat on the seaside. Bel-Kassem had
sought refuge there, and organised a resistance. As at
the Col of Teniab, stone redoubts had been raised.
General Comman determined on attacking
,them. Colo-
nel Saint Arnaud, with the 23d Regiment, was to carry
them by a front attack, whilst Colonel Forey turned
them by the right. The latter experienced great resist-
ince, and was unable to reach the rendezvous in due
time. Colonel Saint Arnaud bravely carried the redoubt
without firing a shot ; the Arabs, according to their cus-
tom, retreated after their first and only discharge, which
put thirty men hors de combat. Our troops, being masters
the redoubt, awaited for six hours the arrival of Col.
Forey. When he came up night approached, the ammu-
nition and provisions had remained in the camp, and it
'zweame necessary to return to it. The retreat was
ffected in good order ; but the engineers, who were in
the rear, had two officers wounded, and twelve men hors
de combat. After this engagement, which took place at
about fifteen leagues east of Dellys, the troops re-entered
that town. The Marshal Governor-General, on hearing
4,f this serious affair, in which, despite our severe loss, we
have had the advantage, has immediately ordered the
departure of four battalions of infantry that have just
arrived from Morocco. The Marshal himself proceeds
to Dellys to-night. Three steamers, the only ones now
in the harbour, are to convey these four battalions (2,000
strong), which are to reinforce the 1,500 men under com-
mand of General Comman. To-morrow, at dawn, they
will be in the enemy's country, and on the 23d or 24th at
the latest hostilities will be resumed."

The Journal des Dcbats contains the following re-
marks on the new move in Ireland :

" The repeal of the union is no longer agitated. That
symbol has done its work, at least till a new order. Mr.
O'Connell himself feels that he must no longer abuse it,
and he has locked it up, always reserving the right to
bring it forward when occasion requires. Repeal is,
therefore, buried fur the moment ; and the long and
diffuse letter which Mr. O'Connell has lately addressed
to his countrymen, may be considered its funeral oration.
We know not, in fact, which we should admire the most,
the rare boldness of Mr. O'Connell, or the still greater
docility of the Irish people. During a whole year, with-
out counting preceding periods, the great agitator of
Ireland has preached repeal—repeal—nothing but repeal.
He turned all heads, excited all imaginations, raised all
passions, and almost went to the verge of civil war. Then,
one fine day, he found out that he was on the wrong
road, that he was in a blind alley, and that he must turn
about, or be brought to a full stop. The position was
difficult. Continua the campaign of repeal—convoke new
lewtt
cut
tsci
ktssahu
ofmpot hreutir nsi
totghrhei
legalityiat m3qv uepoeowefssatasli isol benld.e
force
touched,f foomwrrt
ahras. mohna,eaocnntfdooonarofentneeielni
:101
sti
fest
knew
Government
eocn
awyt
side..
co rr' ihne
meetings—organise a new crusade against the Saxon,
tllaiastt
wellmO net tththatoet
other hand, the attempt to stop short the passions which
he had excited was not without danger to him. Already
iroung Ireland complains—several protestations are
made in one place or another, mad one of the companions
of the captivity of Mr. O'Connell, the editor of the Na-
tion, has gone the length of publicly blaming the mani-
festo of his leader. It is almost unnecessary to say that
this new form of separation has as little chance of success
as that which it replaces; and that federalism is not more
substantial than repeal.
The Moniteur contains three ordinances, giving the
royal approbation to the adjudication passed on the
lath of October, for the concession of the Amiens
;loognn e
the Railwayth
of too October, for
fLorA
tFhrerrTE,BLo concessionuNoTf,
andan Cod Boulogne
the Orleans and Vierzon Railway to Messrs. Batt-
THOLOSIT, BENOIST, BOUSQUET, and Co. ; and on the
same date, of the concession of the Orleans and Bor-
deaux Railway to Messrs. LAURENT, LUZARCIIE,
MACKENZIE, and Co.
At TORTONI'S, on Sunday, the Three p©r Cents.
were quoted at 82f. 18c.