The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-07 00:00:00

mercial history influence our neighbours to imitate
our present policy.
POST.—We still find the shameless organs of the
shameless Whigs bellowing about Indian affairs, and
endeavouring to drown, by an exhibition of drunken
fury, those calm reflections which occur to every man
of common sense in England. The absurd and unjust
policy of the Whigs has done all the mischief in India
which it is now so difficult to repair. The invasion of
Affghanistan was, from the beginning, an absurd and
unjust measure, which could not come to good. The
evil it has brought about has been, indeed, more sud-
den and more tremendous than even the least hopeful
could have calculated upon, but an ultimate result of
evil was foreseen by every prudent man—every man
who was not intoxicated by the same dreams which
carried away such politicians as Lord. Palmerston,
Sir John Hobhouse, and that dull, well-meaning agent
of theirs, Lord Auckland. The world rings with the
disasters and ',disgraces of this Affghan war, while
the political promoters of it, instead of bowing their
heads in humiliation and sorrow before a justly-
offended public—instead of humbly seeking pardon for
the rash ignorance, and the paltry, grasping, unworthy,
spirit which have led to results so calamitous crown
their grievous fault by an audacity at once boisterous
and contemptible. Working themselves up into an
artificial fury, which seems to own the parentage
both of extreme spitefulness and *strong drink, they
express the most extravagant rage that their policy
should not have been still pursued. Because the
monstrous folly of which they were guilty is not re-
peated, they will have it that the fault is entirely with
those who will not go on in the wretched course which
already is strewn with the bones of our countrymen
—of our countrymen who perished not in the victo-
rious fight, nor even in the honourable defeat of a well-
contested field, but who were butchered in the trap
whither the rash policy of the Whigs had led them.
We find a great deal of rent in the Chronicle, the ob-
ject of which is to defend exasperation and violence on
the part of troops with arms in their hands, but we
find no common sense. We do not see it explained
how the march of British troops upon Caubul is to
have the effect of rescuing the prisoners, or of doing
them in any way any good. We do not find any
statement to justify the supposition that the pri-
soners would be found at Caubul, supposing the
British troops to reach that place. We do not find
it shown that the advance of British troops upon
Caubul would cause the prisoners to be taken to a
more agreeable place, or to be more considerately
treated. We do not see any attempt to prove that
the consequence of putting another army in the power
of Akbar Khan would be an extraordinary paroxysm
of generosity in the breast of that chief, leading
him not only to spare the second army after having
murdered the first, but to give back the prisoners
whom he selected out of the first army as hostages.
But we are weary of dwelling upon the drunken
rant of the writer of the Chronicle, the rather as
lie no longer amuses us with revealing what he
knows of the intentions of the British Cabinet, nor
further acquaints us with the things which Sir Robert
Peel dare not do in respect to Indian policy. We
repeat that a preliminary step to the measures which
British indignation (not blind headlong fury) should
take against Akbar Khan
.is the obtaining of the
British prisoners now held by him. It is mere prudery
and nonsense to pretend that there is anything un-
worthy in obtaining the release of those persons by
other means than those of intimidation and force. We
say it is quite palpable that intimidation or force can-
not obtain theprisoners, even though it might destroy
Akbar Khan. He may fall, but in his fall he will
crush the prisoners if they still be in his hands.
There is no humanity in the suggestion that the
British army should press forward for the sake of the
prisoners. It is not humanity which leads to the sug-
gestion, but the eager desire of the Whigs to be
avenged upon the savage chief who took advantage of
their rash and imbecile policy, and proved the folly
of British Government in the slaughter of British
troops.
ADVERTISER.—The movement in the manu-
facturing districts it appears has not subsided, and
we prophesy it will not disappear till the cause in
which it took its rise shall have been remedied. As
long as the Government refuse to administer to that,
let it expect agitation; and as long as the aristocracy
refuse to part with their superfluous wealth for the
sake of allowing of a more equal diffusion of the na-
tional riches, why let them look to it—whether they
possess their hereditary halls in that safety, which
doubtless they think desirable. It is in vain the
Tory Press goes about striving by a thousand devices
to sink the cause of the popular murmur; in
vain it harangues to-day of Anti-Corn-law Con-
ferences, then of associations of all kinds what-
ever ; then of monopolies of millers and bakers ;
then of combinations among the operatives, which
it is not quite sure whether the law may not
vi et armis suppress. For all this, it compasseth not
its object, and the cause of the national outburst is
there, just exactly as if it opened not its frivolous and
contemptible oratory—just as if it were a dumb spec-
tator of the perilous contingencies now openly, now
occultly in progress. While, too, the Tory press
selects for itself this career, but let the nation mark
the course of the Whig oracles. To-day raving
about approaching French Revolutions ; then, as if
they were in earnest, holding up the advantages of an
extension of commerce—appealing from an extension
of the franchise to extension of trade, just as if the
latter were not a condition wholly and abstractedly de-
pendent on the former. The result of a survey of the
general Press will, therefore, leave the impression that
there are but few journals indeed on the side of the na-
tional interests—the Tory i 3 for aristocracy, the Whig
for its own minute purposes of paltry faction; while
the true national interests are unsustained, save by a
journal here and there, strong in the independence of
honesty, but by its own intrinsic weight and majesty.
No wonder, is it, therefore, that the state of the
manufacturing districts has, unless in instances of
rare exception, been prevented: from truthful elucida-
tion. We have before asserted, that it is the interest
of the parties opposed to the rights of the people to
appear unconscious of the origin, consequently of the
curatives, of the national condition. True to this in-
stinct, it were psychologically curious to watch how
they evade it ; how they wind through a thousand
dark avenues of sophisms, rather than face the truth
in the open air of ingenuous argument. But evading
it is not overcoming it, and this we think the oligar-
chists
will find to their cost at no very remote period.

MONEY MARKET and CIT Y NEWS.
CITY, TUESDAY EVENING.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

TRIES.—The premium on gold at Paris is 8 per
mille, which, at the English Mint price of 31. 17s.
10d. per ounce for standard gold, gives an ex-
change of 25 35k, and the exchange at Paris on Lon-
don at short being 25 57f, it follows that gold is
0.88 per cent. dearer in London than in Paris.
By advices from Hamburgh, the price of gold is
433 per mark, which at the English Mint price of
3/. 17s. 10d. per ounce for standard gold, gives an
exchange of 13 9, and the exchange at Hamburgh on
London at short being 13 101, it follows that gold is
0.57 per cent. dearer in London than in Hamburgh.
The Committee appointed to receive subscriptions
for the relief of sufferers from the fire at Hamburgh
have just published their report, by which it appears
that the whole sum which has passed through their
hands is 4567/. 19s. 7d., besides contributions made
in different parts of the country, amounting to about
13,000/., exclusive of clothing and other articles; and
that the total amount received by the Committee at
Hamburgh from all countries, up to the sth of July,
is 268,8901. Great as these contributions are, the
Committee remark, while expressing their gratitude,
that.but little assistance has as yet been atlbrded, in
comparison with the damage done.
Having commenced an inquiry relative to the price
of bread, we shall probably follow it up till a solution '
of various points is obtained. The publication of the
price as set by the Lord Mayor in 1814, as it declares
the price of the loaf according to that of the sack of
flour, may perhaps remove the stigma of charging too
highly, from the individual bakers to the system that
has prevailed under authority ; but the document of
itself supplies no materials for judging of its own cor-
rectness, and the basis on which the calculations have
been made are yet to be elicited from other sources.
To attain this, answers are required to the following
questions
1. In fixing the assize of bread, what was the mode
of calculation—was the highest quotation of flour
per sack taken on an average of first and second
quality ?
2. What amount of money was added to the price
of the sack of flour to form the bakers' charges,
profit, &c. ?
3. How many pounds' weight of bread were esti-
mated as the average produce of the sack of flour
of 2801 b.?
" A holder of Spanish' Treasury Bonds" has ad-
dressed a communication, in which he affords some
further illustrations of the peculiar claims of these
creditors. That the present Spanish Admistration
has made admissions that the Treasury bondholders
stand in a position that entitles their claims to a
substantial preference, and not to the mere privilege
of being " no worse off" than the holders of coupons,
is generally known, from the communication made
by Calatrava on the subject. Our correspondent
states that in July last he had an interview with
General Sancho, the Spanish Ambassador, when that
gentleman assured him that he waspreparing dispatches
fia• Madrid to urge the claims of the holders of
Treasury paper, which he admitted to be of a pecu-
liarly sacred and inviolable character. A letter ad-
dressed to our correspondent, by M. Borrajo, and
dated the 19th of February last, shows that he
also is aware of the peculiar rights of the
Treasury bondholders, as he used the fol-
lowing expressions :—" The Minister of Finance
is, like myself, fully aware of the just
claim, of the bondholders, as well as of the right of
preference which they have attained by virtue of the