The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-25 00:00:00

fea~r..~ r
N'

LONDON
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1839.

The Times took some pains on Friday last, to
demonstrate that it was the undeviating friend of
the poor, and though it did not expressly say it,
proved very clearly that the Corn•law is a poor
man's and a religious question. At the same time,
it is continually said by that Journal and other.
Tory Journals that the Church is the poor man's
Church, and the priesthood the poor man's best
friends and protectors. How far they deserve this
character will be proved by the manner in which
they go to work to get up petitions again..
Corn-laws. If they summon around
`,loem the auri-
cultural labourers in their respective parishes, and
in spite of the landlords send petitions from almost
every parish in the kiligdorn, for the abolition of the
Corn-laws, there will be some reason to believe in
the Christian sincerity of their professions ; if they
do not they will demonstrate that all the agitation
they lately got up to procure petitions against the
Ministerial plan for improving education was wholly
meant to serve themselves, though they pretended
that it was meant to serve the poor. But we tlo
not expect them to move in this matter. We know
their character, and how much higher they esti-
mate the possession of pelf than the virtues of
Christianity. They will at least take no part to
abolish the Devil's laws, and will demonstrate
that they care not one rush for the well-being of
the people.
Precisely, however, as they hang back ought to
be the forwardness of the Dissenting clergymen.
Already some of them have wisely appeared at the
hustings, and have denounced the Devil's laws in
appropriate terms. Some of them are very properly
now exerting themselves, and forming societies to
procure the abolition of Church-rates ; they may
in our opinion, most effectually accomplish that by
uniting with the Corn-law repealers first to procure
a repeal of the Corn-laws. It would operate, in
our opinion, in this manner ; and on the excellent
principle of prosecuting one object at a time, we are
disposed to recommend them in the first instance to
exert all their energies to procure an abolition of
the Corn-laws.

I the

The total abolition of nose laws, particularly
with the Presert restrictions on the trade in money,
would reduce prices here to the continental level if
not lower. Such prices would make the landlords
quail for their rent. By the Act for the commu-
tation of tithes the landlords, counting on always
continuing their present scheme for plundering the
poor, took on themselves the payment of tithes.
Whatever tithes might have been before, by that Act
they became a rent charge, and, the priesthood
and the gentry share betwixt them the sum which
the Corn-law levies on the people. We have not the
smallest doubt that the men who have robbed the
poor by law, will readily, when the time is con-
venient, rob the parsons. If the Corn-laws weze
abolished the landowners would soon Qlkii ant lb,
evangelical purity of a priesthood which
'lied no
worldly wealth, It would be at
r"
the landowners that a riel:.l .ice perceived by
ay endowed State Church
is hostile io Christianity. At least the landowners
would be quite certain that the English clergy
would perform their duties better if they were reduced
to the standard of the Scotch Kirk, even if they
did not come to the sound legislative conclusion that
the voluntary system is the only one consistent with
Christianity. To set the landowners and the
priesthood by the ears, as to which of them should
have the remaining rent of land after the corn tax be
abolished, would be a certain means of obtaining
the abolition of Church-rates, if it did not lead by
no round about road to the thorough Christian
reform of the Church, or even to procure the legis-
lative recognition of the voluntary principle.
We believe, too, the abolition would be the com-
mencement of a great moral reform, for we should
then no longer have the Legislature
sanctioning
thievery by its enactments, nor a great class of men
preaching it in the name of the Living Gop,
The whole community has been unroll shocked
Wished of Thug-
gery,confidng nclividua.'s,
by the accounts recently published
strangling, or burkingbut surely for the law-
i i
as a religious duty;
and thousands
that committed
makers, who ask obedience to pramo,e
the
public benefit, to starve hundreds
and an abominable Thuggery will
crime q
by the abolition of the Corn-laws.
:1n
by the Thugs,
of the people, is a greater
Hurrah, then Dissenters, in the name of religious
freedom, in the name of be put an end to
0, Morality, in the name of jus-
tice, hurrah for the extinction of the Devils laws.

In another place will be found a brief notice of
theou proceedings at Glasgow, which even the Tory
jrn Which we take the account, admits
al from
re not creditable to the Chartists, They appeared
to have ont.,l,lellowed if they did not out-number
the Corn-law abolitionists, and though friendly to
the abolition, they want something 1410102 and the


141015r;e1g74,10"r•,'40-
, ,

xn ression of that want, atter breaking up the meet-
ing, they fastened on to the original resolutions, and
succeeded in rendering the exert ions of the Corn-
law repealers vain.

Perhaps it may delight the Corn-law gentlemen
that the multitude rushed in and prevented the
meeting being successful ; but the multitude are
more hostile to them than to the Anti-Corn-law
men, and whenever an opportunity occurs, will
serve them in the same way or worse. That re-
flection gives us no pleasure, for we see in the exis-
tence of such an unappeasable unyielding mass who
will have their own way, a great cause of regret.
To find in our large towns as well as in the country,
a complete separation between the different classes,
who are bent on impeding each others operations,
is not pleasing to us, though it may he to the land-
owners, delighted at a temporary respite from the

expression of general indignation. 3 ):2
We cannot read of such •seenes, and cannot re-
flect on the condition of our population, without
asking who is responsible for such enormous evils?
Superficial men answer at once, the working men
—the Chartists are responsible—the wickedness of
human nature is to blame. We differ from such
r,asoners. The working men have never had any
thing to do with making the laws ; and have never
been suffered to have their own way. Laws have
been made to guide and to punish them.‘Almost
all their actions have been dictated. Education
has been provided for them, or rather neglected by
those who should have provided it for them. For
their present condition, and their evil disposition,
the rulers of society in times past are much more to
blame than they are themselves.

To those gentlemen who lay the blame on the
wickedness of human nature, let us hint that
all the rulers of society share this wickedness
with the meanest of their subjects, and when they
impose their will on the bulk of the community,
they substitute their own wickedness for the cor-
recting sense of the mass. They are exempt from
none of the common frailties, including the vast
ambition of supposing that they can improve on
nature, and bring man to virtue, who, according to
their doctrine, is created wicked and depraved.
The results of their ambition are at present palpable
in the condition of the people, which ought to cause
them, if they have any shame, and any sensibility,
to shed tears of the most bitter regret. The history
of institutions, as well as of statesmen,
read in cc the eyes," character, and behaviour of
the people ; and their present deplorable condition,
moral and physical, in every part of the empire, Is
a severe condemnation of our much boasted politi-
cal institutions. is to be

- -
The Standard has got a strange story of a dif-
ference between her MAJESTY and Lord MEL•
BOURNE, on the subject of the provision to be
made for her husband. That Journal, however,
states that it is quite incredible that the Duke of
WELLINGTON would act as he is described in d'ie
Standard to have acted, and therefore it con-
cludes, very properly and justly, that the whole is
a fabrication. On that point we cord:ially concur
with the Standard, and it must,
blame of having coined and... inserted the baseless
calumny. bear the whole

It is not
'1 one without a subtle and sinister put.
The story runs, according to the Standard,
that her MAJESTY wished td have an income of
100,0001. a-year settled on her husband, and Lord
MELBOURNE recommended 60,0001. Her MA-
JESTY was affronted, and Lord MELBOURNE ad-
vised her to consult the Duke of WELLINGTON,
who cut down the sum to 30,0001. The objects,
then, of the story is to represent her MAJESTY
to be as greedy of pelf, and as careless of the wel-
fare of her subjects, as a Tory. At the present
moment, when the people are suffering under great
distress, when the magnificentallowance she receives
from the State is the subject of much just anima&
:version, the Standard, dutifully and ioyaky.....*
though it acknowledges falsely—holds the QUEE
Out to her subjects as endowed with the very
genius of rapacity, which goes far beyond the cal-
culations of her complaisant Minister. That is
another example of the manner in which the
Tories calumniate and depreciate the QUEEN.

pose-

The Paris Journals of Sunday, which would
have reached us at an early hour yesterday but for
the stormy state of the weather in the Channel,
have arrived. The Papers of Monday are still in
arrear, and as the KING was to open the Chambers
on that day, their appearance is awaited
with more than ordinary interest. As the
opening of. the Chambers is now asso-
ciated in the public mind with regicidal at-
tempts, a double curiosity is excited by coupling
t'ic presumed matter of the Royal Speech with a
possible outrage against the safety of the Royal
Person. Europe now begins regularly to look r.-0
this event for the equal development of the
of Ministers, and the fanaticism of the 'policy
'apostles of
revolution, We do not deplore tb;is the less be-
cause we can trace it to the conduct of the French
Government since the glorioIIS Revolution of July.
The news from Alg;,ers is
gloomier than ever.
In the Commerce of. Sunday we find numerous ex-
tracts from letters to the 15th inst., in which a
frightful picture is drawn of the condition of the co-
lonists. The Moniteur of Sunday publishes the fol-
lowing telegraphic despatch from Marshal VALLxit,
which created a great sensation in the French
capital :

" MARSHAL VALLEE TO THE MINISTER OF

WAR.

"ALGIERS, DEC. 16TH-TOULON, 19TH.

" Two combats have taken place around Belidah.

" The regular infantry of the Emir were put to
the sword and dispersed. The enemy has not ap-
proached either from Koleah or from Sahel.
" The Algiers and the Neptune are in sight.
They will arrive to-day at Algiers."
Spain
This intelligence satisfied no person, and it was
gkilled an
surmised that the Government had received it in a
o f
unimportant. the men en
still less palatable foam. It was considered incre-
dible that the Marshal should announce announce two com-
libefrroaltned 2,000 of his prisoners,
gbaagtsed7iathnodutthsepleocsisfyiinn
d wounded.
CAT':
longer in
being no
rations. EsPARTERO rem
RieEnaAcchouadnts
remained in his posi-
tions
old
at Mas de las Matas. 1

The Presse of Sundaystates that Prince Louis
HBOO7,dALuPAeANfRrrs olaE largelhia lately.osnand sum received from the King of
debt to
of
his money(Prince (I 6
Louis's),oool.), anold
fa-
ther, and that Prince Louis has expended that
sum in getting up the Bonapartist plot, which
is shortly to be exposed. It is insinuated by that
Journal that one of the chiefs in Paris has received
2,0001. of that money for himself.
The allegations of the National as to the false
weight of the money sent by Mexico to the French
Government fall to the ground, in consequence of
two letters, one from his Eacellency AIAXI/4°
GA IMO, the Mexican Minister here, denying in
toto the statement ; and tho other from the money
changer, M. MONTEAV of the Palais Royal, who
bought the coin, weigned it all, and paid the full
value. This is a specimen of the style in which the
Republican and legitimate press of France attack
not only private but national reputation.
Letters from Constantinople represent all hopes
of a settlement of the Eastern question to be at an
end. The Russian Ambassador has convinced the
SULTAN that M. DE PONTOIS was sent out 13)
the French Government to hasten on somethin

,ke a settlement prior to the opening of the French