The Sun. — 1850-01-25 (London, England)

THE EDITOR OF THE SUN. Sia,—ln expressing your just abhorrence of the audacious aid the house of Ratings is about to give to despotic Russia you have (if I mistake not) cited the excuse which is brought as an argument in favour of such aid, and have condemned it, but have not shown the distinctive difference of circumstances wherein the argument is sometimes good, or wherein, as in this instance, it is as false as it is atrocious. I refer to the argument or proposition that "Barings are not responsible for the purposes to which Russia applies their aid"—that " one person is not responsible for the evil which another commits through the means given him."  Now, Sir, you, and many of your readers, know full well that this is sometimes true and sometimes false ; but there is an important portion of your readers (the honest but illiterate) who may, in the instance before us, be misled by the vile Mammonwrought hypocritical misapplication of this argument. Let it then be distinctly set out under what circutnstances it is right and under what it is wrong. It is, I apprehend, right when it embraces the following characteristics :Ist. Whenever the aid or deed be benevolent and  more_ 2d. Whenever the agent is ignorant of, or does not suspect a bad application. ' 3d. When the act itself is in conopliance with an imperative duty. Thus, under the first, if I send or sell my afflicted neighbour " a little wine for his stomach's sake," and he drinks it to excess, I am not responsible. If under the second, I send him arsenic for his rats, and he take it himself, J am not responsible, fir I was ignorant of his intention. And if, under the third, I pay my taxes, and " render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's," and he devotes them to bloodshed, I am not responsible, for I obeyed a Divine command. Or, if in saving the life of my friend I chance to disfigure him I am not responsible, for I performed a duty. Under all such circumstances the principle is "Do right, leave 'leaven to answer for the rest ;" but reverse the circumstances, and is. man is responsible for the consequences of his deed: If the druggist knew that.. the arsenic was for the purpose cf suicide, or (what perhaps is worse) for the murder of a third innocent party, would not • the villain be responsible ? And, mark you, Sir, that so fully has the very Legislature of this country recognized this principle of responsibility, that every druggist in our land is, I believe, prohibited from selling poisons except under certain regulations, or he is held responsible for their misuse. But what, Sir, are the case and circumstances of Baring Brothers? They are lending money under a false pretence. They are aiding a despot in his suppression of truth and butchery of innocence. They are sending money abroad that their neighbours require at home. They rob this nation, and render our expensive fleet necessary, by aiding the very power that fleet is maintained to keep in check. They hold up the odious lesson, the vile example to a suffering people, that they are not responsible for the powers they possess and confer. They force a dangerous wish into every noble breast, that if this privilege be allowed to wealth, the sooner the rich be brought low the better. Ind Baring Brothers I hear it ye slaves of Mani mon and Despotism I ye do all this for the accursed selfishness of a little gain. You not responsible ? No benevolence demands this aid ; no ignorance of the purpose for which it is wanted palliates it 0:no Divine command calls it from you. Not one circumstance which frees a moral agent from responsibility belongs to your case ; but you stand out before the whole world, once and for evermore, a blackened :voluntary abettor of cruelty and oppression, hellish in its character, and universe in its object.—l am, Sir, &c., Cheltenham, Jan. 23, 1850.