The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-13 00:00:00

b-leidita

- - -
LONDON, FRIDAY. AUGUST 13, 1852,

A very marvellous calculation has been published
by one of our Conservative Contemporaries. According
to this truthful and sagacious authority, the contrast
presented by the number of votes polled respectively
rtehveeallasttearn
by the supporters of the Government and the sup-
porters of
resources or energy, of course, among
of thenn Opposition oasiidtieonof
extraordinaryand
a
choly
tsrrlakmcskof the Whig-Radicals. The sum total of
this remarkable estimatedraniaton_2isshtorwsiaclieaB,r majority of
4,4870ut
o f 261,975
electors in favour of the candi-
dates °-
f A
the 744 being
henumber
oftothe Conservatives. The statement is
sufficiently
votes
attributed to the Whig. Radicals,
and
to challenge investigation. It is
are a
startling, because we
ware that only 284 of the
new Members are decided
Derbyites, while the 368 i
remaining out of the
652 constituting the entire
ti. 3 32
31
startling
rst• Albans being disfranchised
House of Commons—L--
the constituency of
as well as Sudbury,
been returned as elected by
Liberals, or Li-
beralKnaresborougb] are either
the
consequently,
and one too many having
- Conservatives. How,
numbers polled can appear so diame
as to the calculation of the Members returned
._ce
superficial On
opposed
repre-
sentatives, baffles, of course, at thsutpriecallY
every reasonable conjecture. That 284 Derbyite
Members should be opposed to 368 who are Liberals
or Liberal-Conservatives, and yet that the anti-
Ministerial voters should number 128,744, whereas
the Ministerial voters should number 133,231 ap- 1
pears on the face of the estimate beyond all credi-
bility, because really nothing less than a glaring and
intolerable contradiction.
A little inquiry, however, reveals clearly enough I
how it is that the calculation has been thus ingeniously
" cooked" by our Contemporary. A very few illus-
trations of his method will be enough to place the
matter clearly before the judgment of the community.
Take Middlesex as an example. There our Tory
Coca E a has magnanimously
selected—who? Why
Mr. BEUNAL OSBORNE, who polled 4,390, and the
Marquis of BLINDFORD, Who polled 4,258. Not a

word about the 5,237 polled for Lord R( ,BERT
GROSVENOR ! But he insists, forsooth, that I i thus
selecting the candidates, he is acting justly 7eo !cause
he proceeds upon a similar principle in all, other
instances, however much opposed to the estima .te he
would like to make for the Government. Very good.
Let us see how be demonstrates the reality e)f this
magnanimously impartial proceeding. He sp 3cifies,
in token of his fairness—the city of London. And
how does he estimate the votes polled in the metro-
politan election? Why-6,195 are mentic ned as
polled for Mr. MASTERMAN and 5,537 as pol led for
Lord Jour; RUSSELL! Not a syllable afro ut the
5,270 additional polled for Sir JAMES Dux E, and
the 4,748 polled for Baron LIONEL DE ROTH' i( ;HILD I
Surely all this is wonderfully fair and magne
Again, our Contemporary—who, we do• sbt not,
could beat the calculating boy at a pinch— acknow-
ledges very modestly that "it may be co• zipleined
that Finsbury, the Tower Hamlets, &c,, matey no
place in the calculation." Truly. But the ,n he re-
plies by reminding us that no electors were polled in
those localities for candidates on the side of t he Con-
servatives—adding that their omission is corn pensated
by the omission of so many divisions of counties
returning Ministerialist representatives. Surely,
a marvelously pert rejoinder. So 'that a
constituency of 4,804 electors, returni og three
Conservative Members, such as Bed fordshire,
must be accepted as a counterbalance to a 'vast con-
stituency like that of the Tower Hamlets, numbering
upwards of 20,000 possessors of the franchise, end re-
turning two Liberal representatives. A wonderfully
generous mode of cooking an estimate in favour of
the wishes of the Administration.
But this constitutes by no means the whole of the
mystery of this astoundingly improbable calculation.
There is such a country as Scotland, we believe, and
there is also, we believe, such a country as Ireland.
Not a single vote from either place, however, enters
into the estimate of our Contemporary. :got one!
And why ? Simply because the mention of those
Scotch and Irish votes would have been die tressingly
inconvenient. About the elections in the north, it is
candidly remarked indeed that the polls in Scotland
are not given, because, firstly, they were few in
number ; and, secondly, because " in most co ses they
were contests between Whigs and Radicals." Pre-
cisely. The numbers polled in Scotland were in
favour of the Opposition, and, therefore, by no means
a whisper about them ; for such, we repeat, on
the part cf an organ of the Cabinet would have
been in the highest degree inconvenient. Not
a syllable about the numbers polled in favour of the
Liberals ia Ayr, in Caithness, or in Edinburgh.
Such would be only inconvenient. Not a word about
Leith, or Paisley, or Wigton. It would merely be
inconvenient. Neither is there a word, a wlaisper, or
a syllable about the numbers polled in Ireland. Ex-
cept, indeed, a wretched little rag of an
apology like
the following : " As to the Irish polls, it would of
course be an absurdity to introduce them into a table
intended to show the mind and choice of a
people themselves and not of their drivers." Their
drivers—which of them ? The Orangemen ? Alas ! can
it be seriously expected that such shabby little shuf-
fling tricks as these can " go down" with JOHN
BULL ? Estimates like the foregoing
cannot possibly,
we avow, be swallowed by any dispassionate observer
—although they are really so very nicely " cooked."
The truth is, the ultra-Conservatives—all things
considered—have made a tolerably respectable ap-
pearance at the polling booths throughout the United
Kingdom. Insomuch that the minority they are
in is not so large as might have bean expected.
Not satisfied with this, however, they want
to prove that their minority is no mino-
rity at all—but a broad, unmistakeable, and
superb majority. They adduce facts and figures to
prove this—and then, of course, comes the exposure.
It reminds one of the saying of the Italians How
does run ?—." Stava bone,
mai per stare megliore sto
qui 1" "I was pretty well off as matters were, hut
by trying to mike things better see what a pickle I
am in !" So with the Conservatives, but especially
with our Ministerialist Contemporary.

It is only by reference to verified and official sta-
tistics that foreigners, or indeed the great majority of
our own countrymen, can obtain an adequate and ac-
curate idea of toe vast extent of Britial commerce
with foreign countries and our colonial dependencies.
Free trade has greatly augmented our foreign and
colonial business, and the Legislature are not likely
we think, to make any retrogressive movement by
which our exports could be diminished. The re-
venue, increasing as the tariff has been lowered, would
very speedily show " a beggarly account of empty
bo:tes," if our imports were lessened and our exports
reduced. They depend upon each other too much to
have separate interests. The Protectionists [are
th:, re any of the class remaining ?] are aware of the
force of this argument, and carefully shirk its dis-
cussion. Their sympathies are limited to the rent-

receiving and rent-paying classes, and do not embrace
the interests of the commercialists and manufac-
turers. That the farmer should no longer get an
artificial war price for his corn grieves them ex-
ceE dingly—but that the whole population of the
United Kingdom should have two quartern loaves
for the price of one, with every other article of food
reduced also, appears to be matter for Protectionist
grief rather than rejoicing. The great aim and pur-
pose of the high-price advocates is to have corn at
80 shillings a quarter, or double what it should be.
In truth, the Protectionists cannot get on without
high :rents, or rather, will not attempt it. While
they keep up war-rents (fair enough when corn was
9G to 120 shillings a quarter), they will always want
war-prices. They alone, of all classes, have not at-
tempted to adapt themselves to the changed condition
of the time and the country. A large loaf is incom-
patible with large rents. The landocracy should,
long agc, have commenced setting their house in
order. When general taxes fell, and when untaxed

food was admitted into the country, the owners of
estates should have diminished their rents. But they
are greedy, and will not do this—they grumble and
get angry, and do everything but meet the case fairly
and wisely.
Protectionist grumbling, it is one comfort, cannot
make our commerce go back. Our export trade at
present amounts to more than 160,000,0001. sterling
every year. It is carried on principally through six
English, three Scotch, and three Irish seaports. In
the order of their foreign trade they range thus :

Liverpool, London, Hull, Southampton, Newcastle,
and Bristol; Glasgow, Leitb, and Greenock; Cork,
Belfast, and Dublin. These twelve principal sea-
ports also carry on a valuable and extensive coasting
and internal traffic. There are other ports which,
with comparatively trifling foreign commerce, have
very extensive coasting and internal trade.
In the year ending December 31, 1850, the ton-
nage which entered and cleared out from all the
ports of the United Kingdom, in the foreign, colonial,
and coasting trades, was 44,125,624 tons. Of this,
the foreign trade employed 11,441,254 tons ; the
colonial, 3,236,551 tons; the coasting or domestic
trade of the United Kingdom, 29,447,819 tons, or
more than double what was employed in our com-
merce with foreign countries and our colonies.
The tonnage of all kinds employed in the outward
and inward trade of our principal ports, during 1850,
was thus distributed :—London, 7,494,815 tons, in-
cluding 12,633 vessels employed in supplying the
capital with
3,637,878 tom of coal ; Liverpool,
6,011,870
to
vessels,
which including any of the river and canal
trade ; Sunderland,
and 600,000
the port with about 1,200,000
tons of coal
Newcastle-
on-Tyne, 3,05'49:1036000,000 tons of salt;
Hartlepool, 1,192 tons, chiefly engaged in the coal
1,174,274
Gloucester, 2,099,772)376 tons, in the same trade;
cini the coal and i
tuns;topns, also in the coal trade ;
;Cardiff,louth, 720,608 tons ;
817,0002'0,166 tons; New-
Hull,
iron
n trades
. chiefly Bristol, 962,504 tons
tradee67c6ll33
tons,
pinortth,
Glas-
gow, 1,241,234 tons; Leith, 327,993 tons; '
1,293,822 tons; Belfast, 1,089,096 ton Dublin,
681,152 tons ; Waterford, 359,562 tons • Drogheda,s ; Cork,
2:36,504 tons ; Limerick, 294,240 tons;
and,
London-
Berry, 171,268 tons.
I Liverpool precedes all our ports in the extent and
importance of its foreign and colonial trade. With
London and Hull it surpasses the other nine princi-
pal ports, but vatlY exceeds London and Hull. In
1850, from the twelve principal ports, the value of
exports to foreign countries and the colonies was
as follows: Liverpool, 34,891,847/. ; London,
. 13-,0,''71., 14, ' . Hull, 10,366,610/. ; alarm,
i

13,768,6461.; Southampton, 1,888,6471. ; Newcastle,
920,0681.; Leith, 365,5521.; Bristol, 362,0391.;
Greenock, 355,6931.; Cork, 116,268/.; Belfast,
56,5061. ; Dublin, 50,354/. Sixty years ago
Bristol was a formidable rival to Liverpool, which
now exceeds it, in exports, in nearly the propor-
tion of 100 to 1. But, the people of Liverpool threw
open their docks to the public at a very small rate
of charge, while the citizens of Bristol heaped on
heavy dock and town dues, in their greediness for
gain, which drove the Colonial trade into Liverpool.
This should have been a lesson to Protectionists, and
it has reduced Bristol from a second class to an
eighth-class port.
In 1817, the estimated value of the exports of Li-
verpool was about 17,000,000/. In the year 1839,
when the Parliamentary returns commenced, they
had advanced to 25,703,847/. In 1850, as we have
seen, they amounted to 34.891,8471., and will pro-
bably be reported for 1851, as high as 36,000,000/.
In the last twelve years, by transference to other
eaignnd Dublin
of Bristol, Greenock,
Cork, has fallen off ; but, during
tphonerrtkssimßteheletfianifsoter, there has been the following increase
taking place elsewhere :—Liverpool, 9,188,0001. ;
London, 2,550 4901. ; Hull, 1,074 449/. ; Newcastle,
230 751/. ; Southampton, 1,734,077/. ; Glasgow,
1,918,390/. ; Leith, 138,1581.
Is it probable that, iu the very face of this aug-
mented trade and commerce, the public—who are
advantaged by its prosp.rous results—can so stultify
themselves as to sanction, in any way, measures
tending to change it? Can any Ministry, setting
at defiance the indisputable facts which we have
placed before our readers, dream of a return to Pro-
tection? The country will not have it; the Mi-
nistry dare not try ft. Come what may, Free
Trade is safe.