The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-04 00:00:00

01wining

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, ISIS.

In an article or the opening of a rew session of
Parliament, our Contemporary, the Speetotor, has
some caustic remarks on the unprofitable results to
which that session, in all probability, will lead. It
takes as disparaging a view of what it calls its "hope-
less" labours, as of the degree of interest with which
the public at large regard their commencement. This
degree, in its estimation, is evidently represented
by that negative quantity which, in commercial par-
lance, is termed nil. we rightly collect his
meaning, the Speclu himself expects no-
thing from the new Parliament; whilst the public
manifests such an apathy about its existence, as im-
plies that nothing is to be expected from it. We are kept,
it is said, in more than even the usual degree of igno-
rance of the programme of the measures to be brought
forward, the pieces to be performed, and the parties
to whom their representation is to be assigned. There
is more playfulness, We trust, than truth in these re-
marks, and in the conclusion which is deduced from
them,: " that the session of 1845 is destined to follow
the fate of some of its predecessors, in exhibiting
an absurd contrast between any brilliant expectations
formed of it at its opening, and the realised national
benefit derived at its termination, from the whole
aggregate of its labours during that in-
terva1.",,,,,,2",,,0ur Government must strangely neg-
lect its duty, if it fail to originate within the
next six months, some of the most important, ex-
tensive, and urgent questions that any administration
has submitted to the Legislature during the years
that haVe elapsed since the general peace of 1315.
Our Legislature will utterly have repudiated its own
legitimate functions if it have not, before the next
sessional recess, compelled the questions we speak of
to be submitted by the Government for full and na-
ture discussion -within the walls of Parliament. In
truth the necessity of the case, properly looked
at, supplies abundant guarantees for the
assumption that the now pending ses•
sion will be rendered memorable by the
variety, the number, and the extraordinary magnitude
of the matters and the interests with which Parlia-
ment will have to deal, which it must finally adjust
or vindicate, propound or renew, but which it will be
out of its power to postpone. On this account we
differ from our Contemporary, and are disposed to
look rather for a " hopeful" than C9r his "hopeless"
session.

Let us consider for a menient what, under the head
of home business, are the great social ard domestic

questions pressing for the earliest consideratim, with

a force and exigency proportionate to the intense
solicitude which they excite in the public
mind. There is, first, the reconstruction of the
amended Poor-law, especially in refereece to Sir
JAMES GRAHAM'S Bill, which attempts to estahlisl
the law of settlement on a s'ngle basis, namely, the
settlement in every case acquired by the father. It is
deemed, on high authority, very expedient that the
place of birth of the male parent should thus deter-
mine the settlement of the progeny ; and nothing
seems to be fii::er than the course which the Right
Honourable the Home Secretary has adopted, for ar_
riving at the opinions of the soundest practical autho-
rities on this vital question ; for it involves the recon-
struction, not only of the Ae!, but of the Poor •law Com-
mission itself. If we m judge cf the aggregate
returns from the Board: of Guardians throughout
England and Wales (and, we believe, Ireland) to
t'2o questlo-A submitted for their opinion and report,
with copies of the new Lill ; by these we have had
already an opportunity of becoming acquainted with,
we may safely predict that the replies to the Home
Secretary's various queries will be so contralctory,
so conflicting, and yet so unqualified and unhesitating,
in most instances, that Sir JAMES will be compelled
to abandon his new principle. On the other hand,
we firmly believe that the anomalies, absurdities, in-
justice, and uncertainty, attending the operation and
construction of
.the law of settlement, as, it
at present exists, will be so powerfully de-
monstrated by these returns and replies, that
Parliament will be brought to the unanimous
determination that such a law shall no longer be
acted upon. We have heard it surmised that these
difficulties will result in a foreseen conclusion; and
that the whole burden of the poor-rate will be levied by
a Poor-subsistence tax under Parliamentary authority,
through Government machinery, in the usual manner,
but with a more equable distribution than has hitherto
beeti adopted in respect of moveable as well as fixed
capital and income. Next, there will be the all-im-
portant
question, whether the property-tax is to be
re-imposed and re-endured; and if that should even
be determined in the affirmative, there remains another
almost as difficult—quite as inddieras :—" How shall
the surplus
,revenue be appropriated?" Without
the property-tax these can be no surplus at all.
With it, and a realised surplus, there will be the re-
missive pretensions of malt to be balanced against
those of windows, c f tea against those of raw cot': an, cf
paper, &c. The manufacturing interest will have to

Le fought by the reluctant Min'Aer on one Supply"
night against the landed irte--:.st; cn another the
landowner will be set up to ride over the manufac-
turer. It is very evident, that if there be a " surplus,"
the consumers of tea, sugar, tobacco, paper, raw
cotton, &c., &c., will not hear of their claims
being postponed or adjourned. These must be met,

and either affirmed or negatived. Then the busi-

ness of appropriation of surplus m:11 be transferred
to its re:ations with such vast affairs as the paying
for new harbours of refage, brzakwatcra, and forts,
the extension and strengthening of our steam navy,
and all the other details of that necessary condition
of preparation for warlike contingencies, the wisdom
of which appears to be no longer matter of doubt
with any party in the kingdom. A most rigorous
revenue inquiry we suppose will also be called for
by some of these Members in either House whose
eyes have been opened to the scandalous inefficiency
of our Custom I.!)use management, in London more

particularly, and th incal... fable loss, which the
frauds that have grown under such a fiscal
administration have inflictej, and still inflict upon
the annual income and financial resources of the em-
pire. We cannot believe that the corn-laws will be
continued to 1846 in the same shape they present
themselves under, now, in 1845. Nor is it to be
imagined that our monetary system can be trusted
for another year in its present rickety and vicious
condition to those happy accidents which have tided
it through so many perils, on so many occasions, with-
out actually renewing its disastrous shipwrecks of
1825-26, and 1838. We are much mistaken, more-
over, if the Legislature will not deem it sill its
duty to infuse more vigour and liberality into
any existing plans of national education, so as to
arrest, if possible, the appalling growth and in-
crease of crimes, in a large proportion of cases the
the
lastsucht
result of ignorance--in almost all, stamped by a cha-
racter of atrocity, recklessnessa
to
treachery, f blood, a proneness
to savage violence, and even
ill
impart to the criminal annalssw
ofmonths
of
darker and more prurient shades guilt, than bare
been heretofore thought compatible with
charac-
ter
semostquestions, degraded
in classes of
connexionf
with our population.
the twelve a
population.
Besides
do-
mestic and social status, the Parliament grillscarcely
separate again without paying due attention to others
that it is not less imperative upon it to regard with
i the most unremitting vigilance. The restrictions on
( our foreign commerce, which cramp our home in.

dustry and contract our foreign markets, impoverish
the trade of our greatest staples, and paralyse the
enterprise and speculation of our manufacturers and
shipowners, whilst they burden our consuming
classes with iniquitous ani vexatious imposts ;—these
must be largely removed forthwith. The utmost
limits of patience, as well as prudence, have been
reached. This is a work which brooks no further
delay.
In the foreign relations of the country, GOD
knows, we detect but too many indications that re-
mind us how possible it is that Parliament, even in
the pending session, may be called on to record its
opinions on political measures of the most profound
interest and the most extensive bearing. In Europe
we have not yet concluded all our differences with the
French Government, touching the right of search,
the Otaheite affair, or the trade of the Gambia and
the Senegal. In America we see but one continued
series of ebullitions, dictated by a feeling to
which it is not necessary here to apply a
name, but which seems identified with a
double purpose,of unprincipled territorial aggrandise-
ment, and of the manifestation of an attitude of defi-
ance to Great Britain. Neither in the Oregon occu-
pation, nor the annexation of Texas, nor the scanda-
lous tampering with Mexican and Texian authorities,
do we recognise in the bearing of the United States'
Government any cause for satisfying ourselves that
there is no danger of a violent disorganisation, in
1845, of those amicable relations between the Union and
this country which have subsisted now, through so
many years, to the great advantage of both nations,
sand the benefit of the civilised world at large. It is
not in such elements of disturbing forces, as these,
that we can make out the promise of one of those
"hopeless sessions," whose barrenness of excitement,
—whose routine-torpidity, offer perhaps, after all, the
best assurance for the prolonged maintenance of the
peace and repose of the world—to the two Govern-
ments which are most deeply concerned in pr. serving
them inviolate.

We have always been sceptical as to the amount o:
public benefit likely to result from the constitution of
the Board for the transaction of railway business—
created under Minute of the Lords of the Committee
of Privy Council for Trade, in August last. The
grounds assigned for this innovation on the practice
of former years are, in themselves, not merely
specious, but very sound ones. It had long been felt
that it was necessary to economise the time of Parlia-
ment, to the extent of relieving it from the unprofit-
able but indispensable preliminary discussions de-
manded by the terminal points, selected lines of pro-
jection, proposed levels, gradients, &c., and by the
probable expenses of the cuttings, embankments, con-
structions, plant, and all other details connected with
railroads, for which parties came forward to obtain the
sanction of the Legislature. It was acknowledged
as a grievous fact, within the experience of both
Houses, that, after devoting from week to week, and
month to month, the labour of many hours a day to
such investigations, and to the hearing of counsel for
consenting as well as for opposing parties, the exami-
nation of surveys, plans, and specifications, and the
conflicting allegations of innumerable petitions ; it
had been frequently discovered, after the Select Com-
mittees had reported in favour of a particular Railway
Bill ; and Parliament, acting on such report, had
passed such Bill through all its stages ;—petitions
and projects came before the House of Commons for
constructing, between the extreme termini of such
specific railroad, "a competing line," as it was called.
In some cases this competing line was found to be so
much better than that which had been already ap-
proved of and reported on, that it was found im-
possible to refuse the permission prayed for to bring
in a Bill for its accomplishment. In many more it
resulted that, though, in some particulars, the "come
Feting line" might offer preferable advantages, it
was not, as a whole, as much entitled to legislative
sanction as that which had been already affirmed.
Thus, after attaining to the stage of a first, or a
second reading, or even to the maturity of entering a
"Committee of the whole House," it was dropped, or,
upon vote, thrown out. In all such instances the
great evil was, that a vast amount of valuable time,
which was abstracted from the due consideration and
routine of the most important public and official busi-
ness, was fruitlessly sacrificed to the formal enter-
tzinment of Railroad Bills, and inquiries that proved
either utterly abortive, or were mere repetitions of
those previously devoted to similar schemes, better or
worse, as the case might be, but at any rate which
had been earlier brought forward. It must be obvious
that such a mode of transacting this description of
business was calculated to encourage a spirit of
gambling speculation on the issue of any pending
Railway Bill, and to promote the most hopeless,
and, at the same time, the most expensive litigation
between parties to originally proposed, and
parties to competing lines. Nor can it be
denied that that mischievous accumulation of
public business, the arrears of which it is found, at
the close of every session, to sweep off with an un-
considering rapidity and wholesale dealing of which
it is impossible to exaggerate the mischief, the in-
convenience, or the indecorums, has been greatly
owing to the absorbing occupation of railway busi-
ness. So far, therefore, as related to the economy
of Parliamentary time, the discouragement of specu-
lative litigation, and the diminution of legal expenses
in the process of soliciting and carrying Railroad
Bills through the Legislature, the new Board may
be pronounced an useful and a successful experiment.
But it remains yet to be proved whether it will effect
any such dispatch of the public and official business
of the country in Parliament, or work any such
diminution of gambling in railway scrip, as can
compensate for that vicious principle of its constitu-
tion to which we have, in a former article, directed
attention—namely, the indirect, but virtual, inter-
position which its arbitrary findings carry—with the
disposition and employment of private capital.
That men should expend large sums of money in
the bootless agitation of particular schemes for its
investment, both without and within the walls of
Parliament, is bad. That capitalists should make
ducks and drakes of their money by throwing it into
concerns which in the nature of things never can re-
pay them (whether from the excessive expenses at-
tendant on the construction of the proposed work, or
the disproportionate paucity of the passengers and
traffic to be reasonably calculated upon)--this, also,
is bad. But both the one and the other are evils, the
inevitable tendency of which is to correct themselves,
and the utmost possible extent of which is measured,
perhaps, by the loss sustained by the individual
parties. But to legitimate, by Act of Parliament, or
Minute of the Committee of Lords of the Privy
Council for Trade, or any ether authority, the inter-
ference of a Select Board, delegated without either
the election or consent, the control or the nomina-
tion, of the persons whose interests it is, in effect,
to report upon, by recommending Parliament to
grant the Bill craved by A B, but to refuse that ap-
plied for by C D;—this is really to hazard—at the
least—an evil of far more serious and extensive mis-
chief. It is to oppose the authority and influence of
a publicly-recorded official opinion to the free opinion
and unbiassed action of the capitalist; a policy not
only at direct variance with the first principles of free
trade, but directly opposed to that noble spirit which
has consolidated and extended the commerce of this
country to a degree never before witnessed by the
world. What would have become of those grea
public—aye, national works, in Great Britain, whic'
present to the admiration of the foreigner the glorious
anomaly of such achievements consummated neither
by the public will, nor by the national funds, but by
individual enterprise and by private capital, if this
sort of pseudo-paternal and protective authority had
existed among us, when the New River, the Bridge-
water Canal, the Decks of London, Bristol, Liver-
pool, the noblest bridges of the metropolis, or the
two finest railroads in the world, the Great Western
and the London and Birmingham, were constructed ?
The consideration of competing lines—the nervous
apprehensions of such a self-assumed official respon-
sibility would have crushed these magnificent under-
takings in the germ. And, again, the Railway
Board of Privy Council, or by whatever other title
we are to recognise it, can only be tolerable so long
as its " Reports" carry with them the concurrence of
a large proportion of public opinion. Their powers
are powers which will only be tolerable in virtue of
eßnxacentriidlewmaetysmoderation in their exercise. Their "Reports"
to Parliament, however, in name but preliminary
il
incidents in
ct, ninTiongeress
t;:noi
ninety-nine
e )
cases y g i
out
t
of a hundred, be decisive of the fate of such Bill. BY