The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-14 00:00:00

and relieving the landlords only by laying a burden on
other classes.

Mr. GROTE was followed by the Earl of DARLING-
TON, who made a rigmarole speech, but delivered one
sentence worthy of being remembered. He would give
up the Corn-laws, if the people demanded it, but not
while four-fifths of the people were in favour of them.
That is a lesson for the people, who must petition
strongly, and they will secure the votes of the Earl of
DARLINGTON and his friends.
Mr. CLAY followed the Earl of DARLINGTON, and
made, as he always does on this question, a plain, sen-
sible speech, full of good matter.
Mr WODEUOUSE worked his flail on the side of the
landowners.
Viscount Howicx followed, and made a very long
and useful speech, advocating the principles of free trade
and calling on the landowners seriously to consider their
situation and the effects which the Corn-laws had bad
on their interests. At the close of his Lordship's
speech, which was heard with considerable impatience,
the debate was again adjourned.

The Tories and the Landlords seem determined
not to hear arguments against their mischievous
career. They are resolved to keep up the system
of starvation, and therefore they will not listen to
objections lest their firm resolve might be shaken,
or some compunctions might make their own conduct
less agreeable in their own eyes. The night before
last they groaned at Sir G. STRICKLAND for re-
minding them of their extorting the bread from the
poor by law ; and they did what they could to make
Mr. POULETT THOMSON, who complained
of indisposition, put an end to his speech.
Last night they followed a similar course of
proceeding, and feeling galled by the home
truths uttered by Lord lowicx, sou„aht to
drown his voice by unseemly noises. Several
times the SPEAKER had to interfere to preserve
order and obtain a hearing for the Noble Lord. At
length he was obliged to make an appeal to his
opponents, but unfortunately detected one of
the gentlemen on the Opposition Benches, who
was not, he said, guilty of the unseemly in-
terruption. The appeal, however, sufficed to
procure the Noble Lord a hearing for some
time longer, though the impatience of the House
frequently broke out into cries of " Adjourn,
adjourn," " Oh, oh." At length, when the Noble
Lord had begun to make a very important
statement as to the effects of abolishing the duty
on wool, Sir ROBERT PEEL rose, and walked
out of the House. He was immediately
followed by Sir G. CLERK, and a considerable
number of those who dog at the heels of the great
man, and seem to have no other business in Parlia-
ment than to vote as he bids them, and cheer him
when he wants a cheer. We conjecture that about
twenty at least of the gentlemen who will to-mor-
row or next day vote to continue the tax on
the people's bread, and vote to continue the bounty
on foreign manufactures, and the severe tax on our
own, walked away and refused to hear one of the
most important arguments against their injustice.
We do not complain of the manner in which they
treated one of her MAJESTY'S Ministers, though
the insult was marked and decided, but we do com-
plain, and we think all the bread-eaters have a good
right to complain, of those gentlemen who
persist in a most unjust course, and who are so in
love with their own tyranny, and are so arrogant
that they will not listen to what can be said against
their conduct. As to the little squad of " claqueurs"
who followed the lead of Sir ROBERT PEEL, be-
cause they have no will of their own, and like a
parcel of automatons, move as he move s
we can scarcely complain of their not listening to
arguments they are not born to comprehend ; but
it does appear like an insult to all the industrious
classes, that such persons should have the power
to vote for the public starvation. The retirement
in a body has one good effect, it makes the matter
known to the public ; and allows us to inform the
nation, that the landed Aristocracy and the Tories
insult as well as oppress.

The full and sated leech drops contented from
its prey, the drained and famished reptile bites hard
and must be cut in pieces to make it quit its hold.
Our landlords cling to the Corn-laws much more
like the drained and famished, than like the sated
leech, and cannot be easily removed from their prey.
Does. the analogy betwixt them hold throughout ?
We think it does. We are sure that the landlords
have never derived any benefit from the Corn-laws;
that instead of being full of opulence to satiety, they
are all drained and famished, aid gripe hard now not
from having already got any thing, but from being
eager to get much. Since the law was passed in 1828,
the prices have never been very high tin the present
year, and the farmers have never ceased to complain
of distress. The average of the ten years has not
been quite .555. Now only do the landords
forsee the halcyon days of wheat being
at 705., and now is their cupidity excited, and
their hopes of opulence, and like famished leeches
they cannot be shaken off. Their hopes, however,
let us inform them, will be disappointed. Though
they cannot raise food up to the population, as long
as the community submits to their law they can
starve the population down to the supply of food.
The instrument of effecting the object is high
price. High prices, it has been observed in all
times, curtail the supply of the necessaries of life.
They thin the ranks of the poor by sickness and
death, put a partial stop to marriage, and reduce
the population, by an almost endless variety of both
acute and chronic misery, down to the supply. The
high prices of the present season we may be sure
will have the accustomed effect of high prices. The
population on the one hand will be starved down to
the present supply—and on the other, additional
production will be stimulated. If our information
be not erroneous, next year will see an unusual
breadth of land bearing bread corn in England.
The supply will be for the time equal
to tho effective demand of the starved-down and
hanc.4-tied population ; and, if not this year, the
risen.neet
w.
year, prices will fall as rapidly as they have
We have no doubt whatever, therefore, that
the present hopes of the hungry leeches will be
completely disappointed, and they will earn for
themselves all the additioitgl odium of upholding
the Corn-laws, and nothing more, They will add
prodigiously to the hatred which is justly borne to
them," an idle, an opulent, a well-protected avd
hitherto a cherished Mass, for levying a poll-tax on
the bread of the poor and the industrious ; and they
will not get, we rejoice to believe, the pit' fg which
they most degradedly barter the respect and attach-
ment of society.

The declaration of the Autt.Corn-Jaw Delegates
(yesterday), that the question with them is not one
of price, but of exchange, will have a most favoura-
ble influence for their cause. " They cared not,"
said Mr, COBDEN, " what the price was, it would
not matter even if the prices rose permanently, all
that they wanted was that they should have the
privilege of exchanging the manufactures of Shef-
field, of Derby. of Manchester, of Nottingham,
for that which other countries could alone give for
them." Ins places their cause fairly before the
punc- •

In the debate on the Corn-iazr.a the night before
last, the chosen leader of the landowners said in
reply to Mr. VILLIERS' statement, that the agri-
cultural labourers had never been more distrsed
and more discontented than since the Corn-laws were
passed ; that it was the low price of produce which
had made the farmer unable to pay and employ their
labourers, and that the labourers had become con-
tented as the farmers had been enabled by the ad-
vance of prices to employ them. That was the
substance of Mr. CAYLEY'S statement; the words
of the Report are these :
" Now, what had the Hon. Member stated with regard
to the insubordination of the labourers in 1830 ? It was
notorious that the farmers bad been depressed for a long
time after the war, but the farmers had never reduced the
wages of the labourers as quickly as they might have done,
in proportion as food became dear. The farmers had been
for a long period in a state of distress, and at last they
were reduced to the condition of being unable to keep
their labourers employed. That pressure upon the farmer
arose from the low price of corn, and that alone was the
cause of the insubordination that had been adverted to."
Now, as everybody knows, there sat a Committee
of the House of Commons in 1833 to inquire into
agricultural distress ; and none can know this better
than Mr. CAYLEY, for he was an active, inquiring,
cross-questioning Member of the Committee. That
Committee reported, and this part of the report ex-
cited at the time much attention, and has frequently
since been commented on, that—
" Amidst the numerous difficulties to which the agricul-
ture in this country is .exposed, and amidst the distress
which unhappily exists, it is a consolation to your Com-
mittee to fin 4 that the general condition of the agricultural
labourer in full employment is better now than at any former
period, his money wages giving him a gTet4er command
over the necessaries of life."
The Committee also reported, and this part of the

report was in like manner frequently drawn under
the notice of the public—
" The Committee of 1821 arrived at the conclusion that
the returns of farming capital were considerably below the
ordinary rate of profit, and no evidence adduced before
our Committee of diminished outgoings contrasted with
the change of prices in the intervals would warrant at this
moment a different conclusion."

The Committee added, that " the farmer's savings
are gone or greatly diminished, his credit failing,
and his sources generally exhausted."
In the year 1830, when the agricultural labourers
were riotous, the average price of corn was 645.
In the year 1833, when they were contented and
well off, the average price was 535. ld. Here, then,
we have it distinctly proved that the labourers were
well off and contented with comparatively low
prices, and badly off and riotous with comparatively
high prices. Here, also, we have it distinctly stated,
by a Committee of which Mr. CAYLEY was a
member, that while the farmers were in distress in
1833, the labourers were prosperous, and that
the condition of the labourer was improved by
those same low prices, which were complained of as
injurious to the farmer. Here also we have it
proved that the increasing contentment of the
labourer was not caused by increasing power in the
farmers to employ him by increased prices, for their
distress was greater in 1833 than in 1821, and prices
were lower in 1833 than 1830. Now, what must
we think of a gentleman who, knowing the co-
existence of these facts—who in 1835 made
the continued decay of the farmers a ground
of serious lamentation, has the impudence
to stand up in the House of Commons and say
that the condition of the labourers only became im-
proved as the farmers got high prices and could
give them employment ? And what must we think
of the impudence of the surrounding squires who,
knowing these facts just as well as Mr. CAYLEY,
and just as well as we do, cheered Mr. CAyLEY's
statement as an unanswerable truth ? And what
must the public think of the cause which its de-
fenders support by such impudent, off-hand falsifi-
cations ? This statement concerns facts known, or
which may be known, to all the public; they are
within the cognizance of daily life ; and
what opinion then wilt the rublic form
of the numerous statistical facts relating to foreign
countries and our own country, many of them, like
the future relative prices of corn here and abroad,
depending more than half on wild conjectures ? For
our part, we judge of the lot by the sample, arid,
seeing that they are all brought together with the
same for-planned design of deluding the people
and bolstering up wrong, we have no hesitation in
declaring that the great majority of the statements
of the landlords are—like this statement of Mr.
CAYLEY we have referred to—wholly devoid of truth.

The Ministers, we regret to say, seem to have
put themselves in what Sam Slick calls a fix. The
Anti-Corn-law Delegates and the Agricultural
Association have both passed resolutions expressing
want of confidence in the Ministry. Thus they
are slighted, if not forsaken, by the two leading,
interests of the empire. It may be good in gal-
lantry, but not in politics, to be " off with the old
love before you are on with the new," and it would
have been only prudent in the Ministers to have
insured themselves the support of the agriculturists
before they had cut with the manufacturing and
town population. We regret a line of conduct
which leaves the Ministers without the support of
any great national interest.

The merchants, shipowners, and traders of the
City of London, have addressed a long and ener-
getic petition to the House of Commons, complain-
ing of the injury done to commerce by the French
blockade of Mexico, and praying Parliament to
take measures for the due protection of the foreign
trade of this country. The petitioners represent
that several millions of British capital are vested in
commercial and mining establishments in the re-
publics of Mexico and Buenos Ayres ; that in these
establishments many British subjects are personally
employed ; that the imports of bullion and specie
from Mexico to Great Britain and her colonies
amount to from eight to ten millions of
dollars, while the imports of produce from
Buenos Ayres are equal in value to 700,0001.
annually ; and as a climax, startling to a com-
mercial people, " that the whole of this inter-
course has been violently," and, in the opinion of
the petitioners, " unjustly and illegally suspended
by blockades declared by the Government of France,
occasioning thereby ruinous injury to all parties
engaged in traffic with these States." The peti-
tioners go on to represent, that they would not feel
themselves justified in complaining of embarrass-
ments occasioned to commerce, by the "unavoidable
occurrence of hostile collisions," but the matter in
dispute between France and iVlexioo, having be-
come known to every person, by the publication of
the documents connected therewith, the petitioners
take leave to represent to Parliament, " that these
proceedings disclose, on the part of France, a
course of dealing towards these States, not only of
the most severe and coercive character, but calcu-

lated, if acquiesced in by those States, entirely to
destroy their independence, in the maintenance of
which England has a deep interest." This is cer-
tainly strong and decided language ; but to justify
its employment in a petition to Parliament, the pe-
titioners direct the attention •f the Legislature to
the following unquestionable facts :-
1. That Mexico did offer to submit all differences be-
tween France and herself to the arbitration of Great Bri-
tain, or any other independent Power.
2. That Great Britain expressed her readiness to act as
mediator.

13. That this proposal was rejected by France, who in-
sisted, for herself, on the right of being the sole judge of
her own claims, and affixing her own valuation thereto.
4. That, at a subsequent period, when, on the arrival of
the French fleet on the Mexican coast, the Mexican Go-
ternment conceded the whole of the original pecuniary
demand of France, a further pecuniary demand was
brought forward by the latter Power • which demand, how-
ever, she offered to relinquish, on condition that the right of
carrying on retail trade in Mexico should be conceded
to bee.

5. That even this increased pecuniary demand the
Mexican Government offered to submit to the decision ,f
Great Britain.

That this proposal was also rejected by the French
Commander, who thereupon proceeded to active hostilities
against Mexico.
7. That, in the case of Buenos Ayres, the blockade has
been continued after every substantial ground of difflrence
had been removed between France and herself, and after
the Government of Buenos Ayres had, in like manner with
that of Mexico, offered to refer all matters in difference iu
Great Britain.

A.nd as another ground of complaint equally in-
contestible

That during the maritime wars in which this country
hag been engaged, it was distinctly established that the
right to declare any port under blockade must be main-
tained by the presence of a naval force.
That Prance, on the contrary, has declared all the ports
of Mexico under blockade, when, in the case of some
of them, not a single French vessel bas been present to
enforce it.

That the port of Tampico has been for many weeks to-
gether without any French ship before it ; while, in the
case of the port of Laguna de Terminos, at which many
British ships annually load, there has not been a single
French ship present from the month of May down to the
last advices in December, notwithstanding which, British
subjects have been compelled to respect this blockade.
That it will be evident to your Honourable House that
this principle, if• acquesced in by the British Govern.
ment, places it in the power of any State to cut off the
commercial intercourse of this country with any part of
,be world, on the mere announcement of a blockade, even
without a previous declaration of war.
In maintaining in a subsequent paragraph of the
Petitimi that England, as a great commercial
tion, ought not to ,suffer her trade to be stopped or
impeded on loose and untenable grounds, the yeti,
tioners quote the example of France herself, who,
while blockading Mexico in June last, would not
admit the right of a Chilian blockading squadron,
to interfere with the trade of neutrals in Peru.

This is the substance of this very important
petition—with the exception of a single paragraph,
which will form the subject of a separate article ;
and we take this prominent notice of it, rather to
make our Gallic Contemporaries acquainted with
the real state of public opinion England upon
this subject, than to impress the House of Com,
mons with the necessity of any immediate resolution
upon it. The Cabinet on the eve of appointment
in France, is well disposed towards this country,
and we have reason to believe will avail itself
of the good offices of England to correct the
series of blunders committed by the late Adminis-
tration relative to Mexico. M. THIERS desires
nothing more heartily than the maintaining of
friendly relations with Great Britain ; and he is
quite sensible how impossible this would be Wela
tie to persist in inflicting injuries upon our com-
merce on grounds inconsistent with the principles
of international law and the dignity of this pountry,
But the necessary time to correct these errors must
be allowed him. Something must be conceded to
;.4q9nal vanity in the negociation of measures,
which, however delicately proposed, roust necessa-