The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-28 00:00:00

SUM ARY OF NEWS

AND

431gbItt eptlitolt.

" Who runs may read.'

FOREIGN.

A telegraphic dispatch has been received at Paris
from Vienna announcing that the Porte had consented
to the appointment of a Christian Governor for the
Maronite or Christian population of Syria, and a
Druse Governor for the Druses.
On Saturday evening their Majesties the King and
Queen of the French received the Due Decazes, M.
Dupin, Procureur-General at the Court of Cassation,
the Comte D'llaussonville, Baron Thenard, and Ge-
neral Dariule.
" It was on Saturday given out as certain," says the
Constitutionnel, " that the session would be opened
without any speech from the Throne; but that the
Ministry, in order to bring on a political discussion,
will immediately present the Bill for the grant of
secret service money. On the other hand, it was
asserted that this point is not yet positively decided
upon, but is to be finally determined at a Council to
be held on Jan. 4."

Private letters from Paris of Monday announce
that the King of Sardinia had conferred on M. de
Lesseps, the French Consul, and M. Gatier, com-
manding the French naval station off Barcelona, the
Cross of St. Maurice, for their exertions on behalf of
Sardinian subjects during the bombardment.
The celebrated Vidocq, formerly chief of the secret
police, will in a few days be brought to trial on several
charges—one for having assisted a fraudulent bank-
rupt in secreting the property of his creditors, and
again for having been connected with the fraud com-
mitted by Madame Benard, the housekeeper of Count
Demidoff.

The Chamber of Commerce of Havre met on the
23d to hear the Report of the Committee on the Sugar
question. After the document had been discussed, a
letter to the Minister was drawn up, in which the
Chamber strongly recommends the entire suppres-
sion of the home-made manufacture on paying an In-
demnity.
The Moniteur publishes a return of the imports of
France during the month of November last, from;
which it will be seen that, notwithstanding the reeee `
elevation in the tariff duties, the introduction of fo-
reign threads into France was still very considerable.
The quantity imported in that month amounted to
659,432 kilogrammes ; that of linens to 236,555;
coals to 130,417,685, &c.
Espartero left Sarria on the 22d for Madrid, with..
out having entered Barcelona.
The _Espectador informs us that the Supreme Tri-
bunal of War, which had been ordered to investigate
the charge of brutality and ill-treatment brought by
M. Lefebvre against Zurbano, is about to give in its
report, and that it is generally believed to be
favour-
able to the General.

The belief in the dissolution of the Cortes was very
current in Madrid.

The Patriots announces that the Duchess of Vic-
tory's soiree, on the 18th was numerously attended,
and nearly all the foreign diplomatists in Madrid were
present.

PUBLIC OPINION.
The Times, after pointing out a variety of absurd
anomalies in our Ecclesiastical Courts, adds :—" Nor
is it easier to comprehend the principle which has 4e-
fined the limits of that peculiarly ecclesiastical juris-
diction which is exercised pro salute anima, not f°r
the redress of wrong, but for the reformation of the
offender. Defamation, incontinence, swearing, and
one or two other vices, seem to be separated off from
the great mass of human delinquency, and consigned
to the care of the spiritual authority,
and unreasonably as the 201. note from the Leicester-
shire shire freehold, as if the robber or murderer were less
in need of emendation, or his practices less inconsis-
tentse
with ecclesiastical morality, than slander or look
living. That the Christian Church should undertake,
as in a certain sense, and by certain means, it does, to
as arbi▪ trarily_
contain all Christian men, or at least its own mem-
bers, within the limits of the Christian law, is no 11%
than its necessary duty ; the question being with
what weapons she is commissioned to p( oform
her task--persuasion, exhortation, menace,
eccle-
siastical censure, deprivation of civil Paw.
lege, fine and imprisonment, or fire and swot
but that the Courts of the Church she'''.
claim a jurisdiction over, and should not ex"
tend that jurisdiction beyond, certain elegant ei:ti?cts
of vice, of which no separate account can be given
except that they look a little like the leavings ,of
nicipal law, is a fact somewhat startling to ti'le un-
derstanding of a plain man. Nor is the clams ren-
dered more intelligible by recollecting that the ultnno
ratio of the Ecclesiastical, as of the Civil Courts, 19
its
jurisdiction temporal penalty of imprisonment, and that
jurisdiction does not in this, any more than in the
preceding cases, confine itself within the limits of the
English ecclesiastical establishment. How far the
practical inconvenience of all these anomalies is mixed
by fictions, limitations, and exceptions—and what will
be &Meted in its peculiar department by the late w
ell-
judged Statute of Wills—it is not to our present pur-
pose
pose to examine. We wish only to point attention to
the nature of these anomalies as a preparation r
probing more closely the nature of this confusion.
The Herald observes, in an article on the question
of the Sugar Duties There is, however, no ap-
prehension in the West Indies that the present Mi-
ters, in proposing a reduction of the duty on fc reign
sugar, will bring forward so monstrous and on.e-sided
a project as that of the Whig Administrat,..on, so,
signally and righteously rejected by the Etouse of
Commons. The colonists entertain the mc st con-
fident expectation that any reduction of duty on the
foreign will be accompanied by a modification of the
colonial tax. And all the protection theyto
ppear
seek is such as will give them the opportunity of ulti-
mately demonstrating that free labour if, in the tropics
cheaper than slave labour. That a prohibitory duty
such as the present is indispensable fo r this purpose,
the present state of our sugar colonies f,lone disproves;
for that duty has not, owing to particular circum-
stances, done aught to destroy the profit of the slave
trade, whilst it has, in conjunction with the circurn-
stances referred to, checked the consumption of sugar
in England and impoverished the Imperial exchequer.
There can be but one objection to a ( iiminution of the
duty on colonial sugar, and it is that the revenue may
suffer therefrom ; but surely the duties on the colonial
and foreign article may be so judici nisly proportioned
that the present amount of revenue may be maintained.
without diminishing the consumption of the sugar of
British possessions at home ?"
The Post, reverting to the question of free trade,
says :—" We are reminded by a cor respondent that
it was Mr. Alexander Baring, now Lord Ashburton,
who presented to the House ol: Coma ions, the petition
of the merchants of Londo',l in favour of free trade,
to which the Anti-Corn. law League' refers in its
advertisements, as contalning imperishable prince"
pies.' Our belief is that such maxims' as those re-
commended in the old London petition are very perish"
able. 'We believe that the most acute minds which,
two and twenty years ago, acceded to their truth, are
now convinced of tb eir unsoundness, and very reason-
ably so, because tlley have been taught by experience
that these free trade maxims ought not to be relied
upon in the policy of a State whose interests are ci▪ r-
cumstanced as the interests of Great Britain undouht-
ly are. 13e-fond question the most acute-minded, as
well as ti:VJ most eminent of all those who joined In
the Lorelon petition, was Lord Ashburton. Have the
free-tr aders still the advantage of his support ? The
Govirnment to which the Noble Lord has done such
ess,mtial service in the United States of America has
done much since its accession to power to promote
the. maxims of free-trade, and to give them great
weight and currency in these islands. Does Lord
Ashburton approve of all the proceedings of Govern'
anent in that regard ? We believe that experien.ce
has satisfied the mind of Lord Ashburton, that the
views expressed in the London petition of 1820 were
to a very considerable extent fallacious, and to his
praise be it said, he is not so bigoted to theories as to
refuse to be taught by the lessons of experience, nor
so wanting in candour as to refrain from suppor.tos
the modified views to which experience has given rise.
The Chronicle says :—" To Sir Robert Peel incie.
be attributed the want of employment for labourers,
of which we have such distressing accounts from
nearly all the agricultural districts. We have not so
mean an opinion of his understanding, as to suppose
that he was the dupe of his own arguments in favour
of the sliding scale, and we do not, therefore, thi▪
nk
that we are chargeable with any want of charity
toward the Right Honourable Baronet, in assumi▪
ng
that he took up the sliding scale merely as a means of
driving his political opponents from power. But
though we accuse the Premier of dishonesty in pro-
posing the sliding scale against his better judgment,
we will not go so far as to impute to him that he
anticipated all the mischievous consequences which
have flowed from it. He could not believe that his
sliding scale would be a permanent settlement of the
corn question ; but he might not be aware, that so
long as the farmers entertain the belief that a change
must take place, they cannot in prudence take leases,
or enter on any of those improvements by which
employment may be afforded to the multitudes of
labourers now idle in every parish. The farmers are
now as hostile to the sliding; scale as the manufacturers.
They have found, from experience, that it affords them
no protection, and that no calculations can be safely
made under it. The language of almost every paper
circulated in the agricultural districts is, away with the
sliding scale, and let us have a permanent law."
ONMY—TRADE--C 011111WER CZ.
At the meeting of the proprietors of the Croydon.
Railway yesterday, at the London Tavern, it was Fe,
solved to discontinue the carrying trade, by which
the Company had recently been losing 121. per week.
This resolution is to come into effect on the 24th
.of
March next. Negotiations will be made meanwhile