Star.
London, England, 1830-06-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE JOURNALS.

CH RON IC L E.—We understand that much inconvenience haa been
experienced during the last month, in consequence of the slow, or
rather the uncertain progress of Scotch Judicial business in the
House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor, in bringing forward his
Equity Bill, some time ago, engaged to extinguish the arrear of
appeals, before the close of the present Session of Parliament.
That arrear, we believe, consisted of sixty.four Scotch appeals ;
of which only twenty-seven cases have been yet completely
beard ; and of these, only seventeen have received the final,
judgment of the House. Whether their Lordships mean to pro-
ceed further this Session we know not. Recent circumstances, no
doubt, have thrown an unexpected pressure of other business on the
Chancellor ; and delay has also been occasioned by Lord Wynford's
indisposition. But if. as generally supposed, the Session is to be a
long one, we can see no reason why the Lord Chancellor should not
redeem—we do not say the whole, but a moiety of the pledge which
he has given. At all events the parties should not be kept in a
'este of uncertainty and suspense. Several Advocates and agents
trom Scotland are, we hear, detained in London, not only with much
,nconvenience to themselves, but at a grievous expense to the liti.
gams who employ them. This evil may easily be remedied by the
Lord Chancellor announcing his intentions distinctly to the public.
HERALD.-111r. Sheridan's celebrated sarcasm upon the Whigs,
that they " built a wall to run their own heads against," has been in
some measure realised by Sir R. Peel, in the case of his Forgery Bill.
What earthly occasion there could he to render that a party question,
and issue pressing Treasury circulars, only as preludes to a defeat,
.re have not the smallest conception. Besides, Sir Robert Peel must
know, we should imagine, that the Government is not so over-bur-
timed with strength as to make it advisable that it should be called
forth upon doubtful occasions; and yet here is a defeat sus-
tained, after every effort has in vain been tried to secure a vie-
wry. These are mortifying matters, and arc felt, we have no doubt,
by the head of the Administration more keenly than his Grace would
have the world believe. Indeed, the Duke is well known to be un.
usually sensitive on the subject of these untoward divisions. The
other night, in the House of Lords, on a question whether the
mast Retford, or a Divorce Bill, should take the precedence, a
division ensued, in which the Duke and five other Cabinet Mi-
nisters were left in a minority. Though the affair was in no
respect a Ministerial one, his Grace's mortification upon the
occasion is represented to have been marked and extreme, and
shows how feelingly alive those are who are used to give the
word of command, when called upon in their turn to obey.
But all these sources of mortification the Duke of Welling.
ton has brought upon himself. No man was ever placed at the head
of affairs with more decided means of commanding popularity than
the Duke. No man ever brought to office so high a previous re.
putation. lirhy is the Duke not the popular Minister he might
have been ? Why, as a general election aporoaches do even the
willing satellites of any Administration shrink front supporting
hint ? Shall we tell his Grace ? It is because he has not shown
that decision in the Cabinet which the world had witnessed front
him in the field.

Tirers.—The currency question is so settled, in point of fact
Ind practice, as well as in reason, that Mr. Attwood's motion attracts
no attention either in or out of the House. Ile preaches to the
winds ; and it is certainly highly honourable to this country
to find itself in the same situation, with respect to the circu-
lating medium, as before the war began, and before the Bank
stopped payment. How many prophecies were rung into our
ears, that it was totally impossible either to resume payments
in cash, or to recall the small notes ! Both have been ef.
tected, and that without corn sinking to nothing in price, or
any great misery inflicted on the various classes of society.—
What any one can mean, except mischief, by asking for the re-issue
of small notes, we cannot understand. It is asking for a state of
danger to the country, and for fresh panics. Gold, discharging as It
does now the office of small notes, supplies a fund which would be
easily attainable in case there were a run upon the Bank. But
were small notes to appear again, gold would vanish, and then,
should a run take place, there would be nothing to meet it--
at least till after an importation from the continent—but the
specie preserved in the Bank coffers, be that more or less.
The public may not generally be aware that silver is a
much more perishable article than gold, not only because it is
more worn when coined Into specie, but also because its specific
gravity is less. Surely, therefore, it is rational to assume the more
fixed and unvarying substance as the standard. When the silver
coinage is worn light, a fresh issue should take place, but gold
should always be the criterion to which it should be referred. But
the great objection to Mr. Attwood's proposition is, that it is, in
fact, a direct attempt to change the common standard of pro-
perty throughout the realm, which would have been equivalent
to a disturbance of every contract made by the possessors of
property since paper ceased to be the circulating medium
of Great Britain. The best possible way of describing the hopeless
attitude of the paper schemers, was taken by Mr. Herries in his
reply; when, alluding to the thin attendance of the House of Com-
mons, he assured the honourable mover that if ever so remote an
idea had gone abroad that his motion stood the least chance of being
carried, members would have flocked in from every quarter to op.
pose it. " The two honourable members" (the mover and seconder,)
said Mr. Herries, " might depend upon it, that if the majority of
the House thought there was the slightest probability of this motion
ending in an alteration of the currency, the House would be crowded
by the fullest possible attendance of members, who would be drawn
down for the express purpose of preventing such alteration." The plan
of the two standards, viz. gold and silver, being compelled by act of
Parliament to circulate at fixed proportions to each other, viz. as in
the year 1798, such proportions being essentially different from
those which they now actually bear to each other, from the extraor.
dinary changes which have occurred in the supply and management
of the respective metals--that plan, we say, resembles no other
in history but the immortal one of poor Mr. Vansittart, for vote
ing "truth to be a liar," and a paper guinea and a golden one
of precisely the same value! Enough, and more than enough,
an this wearisome theme, which is worth about as much as a
fiddlestick by way of a text for dissertation.
DUBLIN MORNING REortrna.....Every time we look into the
compilation that purports to give an accurate and detailed state-
ment of the " finances of the United Kingdom, we make a new
discovery as to the delusions, no doubt interuionatfy, practiced re-
garding the amount of the Irish revenue. We have over and over
rgain alluded to the omission of the tea tax in making up the totals
of the year's income. We know not what this tax now produces,
but we have guessed it at half a million, and we have ascer.
'aincd that in 1819, it produced 610,3911 and in 1822, 511,3741. a
',MI which forms so considerable a portion as the onc-ninik of what
they put down as the entire amount of our annual income. Now, to
this important item we find there is to be added the leather duty ; the
•:eal tax; a sum of 81,7481. arising annually from monies funded
out of the proceeds of sales of quit and crown rents, between 1822
and 1827 ; and smaller sums, including about 8,0001. a-year, pay.
able to the Crown by our \Vide-street Board. Tire leather tax (which
is to be repealed) was, of course, like all the other taxes, lower in the
last year than in the year preceding, but it produced 46,0001----
We know not what the produce of the coal tax might have been,
but seven years ago it yielded 01,8261. Say it is now 56,0001. and
adding it to the other gains spoken of, there is a total of nearly
;00.0001. for which we get no credit in the public accounts, credit-
s.se of the huge load of taxes payable in England on articles of
British and foreign produce exported to Ireland, and which
:nerefore ultimately fall on the Irish consumer. No doubt there
have been many other material omissions, and yet it is upon
the figures set forth in these precious accounts that the goodly
minister of finance chiefly founds his project of loading us
Leith additional taxes! ,See, he says, the revenue yielded by a
country inhabited by eight millions of people. It amounts to little
more than four millions, or ten shillings head for each individual.
A country so little in etton ahead
by fiscal burdens can well afford to pay
mote. This is the strain of the argumentation both in and out of
the honourable house. This is the commentary, the text being the
noes in the " finance accounts." Now when we come to
more closely examine the figures, we And that they are
much greater than their assumed amount, and that they
do not at all include a sixth or seventh part of the ascer-
tained taxation. We find, in fact, that instead of jam millions,
they arc nearly five millions and a half, to which, be it always re-
nklebered, there is to be added the amount of the taxes on articles
onsuined in Ireland, but on which the Exchequer has its dues be.
ore they leave the British ports. Surely the upright and liberal
lit. Goulburn ought to assume new grounds for his notable project.
Surely he ought not, without a better justification than the ocnia-
s•ons and falsifications of the " (Odor accounts, go, at all events,
the length of utterly destroying valuable and indispensable chari-
ties, which lit never did any thing, either as a man or a minister, to
•Tcuurage or assist.

The king of Naples was seriously indisposed at Paris,
and a consultation of his physicians has been held. His complaint
one hr Jim been suffering more or less under for twenty years.
Fur some months back a person of genteel appear-
411CA has appeared in the public streets, in various parts of this city,
preaching to the people, and, according to his notions, following the
example of the first preachers of the GospeL He has y
held a small edition of the Bible in his hand, read a
:erne front it and commented on his reading. In th inof-
fensive pursuit he has been frequently attacked by mobs; but
the most dreadful we yet have heard of took place on Saturday
evening, near the Four Courts. The mob not only attacked him
with stones and dust, but attempted to throw him over the Liffey
wall. Some humane persons, at the risk of their lives, brought the
',lamellate man to the Head Office for protection, where be re-
mained for some time until the mob was dispersed. Of what reli-
gious denomination can those persons be who thus behaved to a
really unoffending being ? Is it possible with reference to the coon-
h7, that they were Irishmen ?—Sounders's News Letters.