The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1845.

The Lords met at Five.
The Earl of DEVON postponed, until next session,
ieveral measures of which he had given notice.
Their Lor,lships then proceeded to discuss the ques-
tion of privilege which had arisen in the case of HAR-
LOW v. Mutza. The plaintiff' and his attorney, Mr.
Hanowm, having been called to the bar and examined,
The LORD CHANCELLOR moved that John Harlow had
been guilty of a breach of the privileges of the House.

The motion was opposed by Lord BROUGHAM in a
most eloquent speech, which was replied to by the LORD
CHANCELLOR,
Their Lordships were subsequently addressed by
Lord CAMPBELL and the Earl of Wick Low. After
which, the parties who had been called to the bar were
on the motion of the LORD CHANCELLOR, committed to
the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod.
The House then adjourned.
The Commons met at 12.
The Lunatics Asylum and Pauper Lunatics Bill was
reported.
The Lunatics Asylum (Ireland) Bill passed through
Committee.

At the evening sitting Mr. HUME withdrew the motion
of which he had given notice on the subject of the recal
of Lord ELLENBOROUGH.

Mr. HOPE gave explanations as to the recent disas-
trous occurrences in New Zealand and the Cape of Good
Hope.
Sir R. PEEL promised to lay the New Zealand papers
on the table to-morrow, and the discussion on the sub-
ject was fixed for Monday.
The House went into Committee on the Coal Duty
(Port of London) Bill, having previously agreed to an
amendment made by Mr. MITT, imposing the same
duty on coals brought into London by railroad or other
conveyance, as on coal brought by sea.
The Earl of LINCOLN proposed an amendment con-
tinuing the Id. a ton duty, and ordering the proceeds to
be invested in the name of the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests, in trust to be applied to defray the ex-
penses of Metropolitan Improvements.
The motion was opposed by Mr. WILLIAMS, Mr.
HUME, Mr. MASTERMA.N, Lord HOWICK, Mr. HAWES,
and Mr. EWART, and supported by Sir R. PEEL, Mr.
Alderman HUMPHERY expressing an opinion that the
tax on coal ought to be taken off altogether. On a divi-
sion it was carried by a majority of 27 ; the numbers
being fur the amendment, 69; against it, 42.
The remaining clauses were agreed to, and the Bill
was ordered to be reported to-morrow (this day).

The House then went into Committee on the Scotch
Poor-law Bill, several clauses of which were agreed to.
The House then resumed, and after disposing of the
other orders of the day, adjourned at Two o'clock.

If the intelligence last received from Algeria were re-
garded only as the usual succession of events in that part of
Africa, we should scarcely feel it necessary to invoke the
attention of our readers in that direction. Not because
whatever regards the condition and progress of the French
settlement and the French army in that noble region, is
other than a lesson full of instruction and of matter for
remark, but, because the occupation of the territory—
the costly price of blood and treasure which France has
already paid for her possession, and must still continue
to pay in keeping her own there—and the ruinous
disparity between her outlay upon, and her returns from
it—the charges she defrays for, and the revenue she
derives from it—are all matters of contemporary
history, the principal features of which are brought
daily, in some shape or other, under our notice.
What the Algerine question, however, may want
in novelty, it must ever retain in importance. Whatever
the casuistry of political party, or the promptings of the
national vanity may have suggested for its justification,
the whole history of the transaction establishes the fact
that it was a political crime ; that it originated in ar
act of political deception, and has been followed b)
casualties and disasters, which have realised the penalty
that, in the scheme of PROVIDENCE, great offences art
found inevitably to entail upon themselves. Tht
previous duplicity in contriving the sustained falsehood
in elaborating, and the unscrupulous avowals on matur-
ing designs of spoliation, exhibited by the French.
Government during the last three-and-twenty years.
were not less powerfully exemplified in the counsels and
combinations which led to the invasion of Spain,
in 1822, by the Due D'AstoouLEarr, than in the
whole course of their proceedings touching the
permanent occupation of Algeria. They were guilty, in
this latter case, to an extent even greater than in tht
former one, of deliberate and palpable falsehood in the
declarations elicited from them in reply to the applica-
tions of the English Ministry. France solemnly and
repeatedly disclaimed, from 1830 to the close of 1833, all
intention of permanently occupying the Algerine do-
minions, and afterwards, in May, 1834, elated with di(
successes of her disciplined troops over some of tht
Nomadic tribes of the desert, she threw off tht
mask. How her "conquest "—as she somewhat
prematurely calls it—has since been maintained ; by
what " razziav," what visitations of fire and sword,
what laying waste and plunder of Aral,
villages, what conflagrations of whole harvests.
and wanton destruction of human life, it
predatory expeditions against the unhappy natives, and
devastation and ruin of families, that conquest has even
since been waited on (as by so many fearful shadows.
inseparable from the fearful object they are des-
tined to accompany)—these are matters within tht
cognisance of every man by whom these lines ma)
be read. In these results—in the excited, and,
perhaps, implacable resentments, of the semi-bar
barons nations among whom they have intruded them
selves—in the incidental expenses which their collision,
with the Emperor of MOROCCO, and the formidabl,
cavalry of ABD -EL-KADER have caused to them—tht
French Government has been taught, by this time, tht
price which must be paid for indulging in the luxury o'
military aggression. Still, as we have before intimated,
all these things being now matter of history, the facts of
which are far beyond the reach of argument, as they art
physically incapable of recal, we should have abstained
from recurring to them. A new and aggravated critn(
against humanity, against policy, against civilization.
has, however, been recently committed by a French officer
commanding a detached force of the army in Algeria.
ur der circumstances that call for special denunciation.
Let us say, however, that the French press has expressed
its indignation, its astonishment and disgust, in terms
which are most honourable to the writers. They have vin-
dicated the common sympathies of our nature, whilst pro
testing against the dishonour which so inconceivable an
atrocity on the part of a French officer has cast upon the
French name. They require that a searching inquiry
shall be instituted into the facts, and that the
party who may be proved to have been guilty
of authorising so execrable a massacre shall be sub-
jected to severe punishment. They are naturally and
honourably solicitous that the name of France
shall not be sullied by the infamy of an individual, or
the national character for generosity and courage be
compromised by an outrage detestable alike for its
cowardice and its cruelty. We do but bare justice to
our Parisian Contemporaries in declaring that we have
never met with a more eloquent, genuine, or dignified
exposition of sentiments becoming the organs of public
opinion in a great nation than those which have been
elicited, in their columns, by the statements which havt
reached their capital of this Hun-like sacrifice to the
demon of extirpation. It is in a spirit of the most
perfect good-will and respect for these emotions, and for
those whe are actuated by them, that we would guard
ourselves against the supposition of imputing to the
French people those deficiencies of moral principle,
or those culpable delinquencies of personal conduct
to which we may have occasion to allude. Our purpose
is to contribute our feeble appeal to the French nation
to set itself right with the civilised world, with all
Christendom, by decreeing a most signal punishment
not only against the monster criminal who shall be
proved and declared to have been the guilty mover of
this dreadful sacrifice, but also against the monster
system—namely, that of her military Algerian occupa-
tion—under which only could he have ventured on such
an outrage, or French soldiers been found to be the
willing instruments of its commission.

We believe that the voice of the French nation will
continue to insist on a signal exposition of this execrable
infamy, and we hope that PELISSIEI will be brought
home immediately from Algeria, and put on a fair but
searching trial. If he be innocent, he will no doubt be
able to fix the blame on the guilty parties. If he be
guilty, the mute but intelligible voices of the more than
600 murdered Arabs cry out for the doom of retributive
justice on his head.

The intelligence which appeared in part of our
impression yesterday, from New Zealand, is of a
most distressing character, not so much on ac-
count of the lives already lost, which all sin-
cerely deplore, as the dismal prospects which this col-
lision holds out for that fine colony. It is admitted on
all hands that never was any settlement made
by Englishmen so favonr•d by climate, soil,and
locality. It is within a few weeks' sail of British
colonies in Van Diemen's Land and New Hol-
land, increasing every day in wealth, population, and im-
portance to the mother country; it is capable of pro-
ducing all the necessaries as well as the luxuries of life,
and from its comparative short distance from populous
islands in the Chinese seas might in time become a
great mart of commerce. All these bright prospects are
blighted for the present, because we fear this unfortunate
collision will only make the natives more hostile, and
render peaceable occupation next to impossible. Much,
however, may be done by wise and conciliatory measures
on the part of the Colonial Government and the Legis-
lature. Lord STANLEY has now a fine field for the dis-
play of his abilities as Colonial Minister ; but should he
not improve the opportunity, and still adhere to the