The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-22 00:00:00

WITH WHICH

THE ~ TRUE SUN " IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 22, 1839.

The Corn-law agitation at length works well ; one
of the most sure signs of the interest it excites being
that the Tory Journalists make a party question of it,

and write on it daily. We will not dispute with them
on the point ; it is a party question. The Tories
have always been the patrons of wrong, the upholders
of oppression, the authors of robbery under the name
of patriotism, the enemies of freedom, the encouragers
of cruelty, the promoters of crime, who have ever pre-
ferred starving the people to giving them liberty ; and the
Corn-laws are just such a system of robbery and wrong as
they delight to uphold. The abolition of the Corn-
laws is a vital party question, all the advocates of free-
dom, humanity, and righteousness being on one side,
and all the defenders of slavery, cruelty, and starvation
on the other, calling themselves Tories.
A more pleasing symptom of the agitation working
as it ought, is the meeting of the Coffee-house Keepers of

the metropolis, some of the statements made at which,
are well worthy of the reader's atttention. At Aberdeen
an Anti-Corn-law Association has been formed, to co-
operate with the Manchester and Glasgow Corn-law
Associations in their efforts to obtain a hearing at the
bar of Parliament. Mr. THOMAS BANNERMAN was
in the Chair, and was elected President ; and Mr.
BA.NNERmAN, M.P., addressed the meeting. We
must, however, add, that the working people stood
aloof, and held a meeting of their own, to declare that it
was of no use petitioning the present Legislature, and that
they would use all their exertions to make the Char-
ter the law of the land. The borough of Finsbury is

to meet on Wednesday week, and the parish of Cler-

kenwell will meet to-morrow. On all sides, then, the
people are now making a long pull, a strong pull, and
a pull altogether ; and we have no doubt that, in the
end, they will pull down the laws.
Several points of the case of the Abolitionists are
well put hi an address to the manufacturers and work-
men of Yorkshire, which appeared in the Leeds Mer-

curl of Saturday. For example, the following shows
that these laws are a gross violation of the liberty of the

subject :
" Manufacturers must buy food by selling cloth. Common
sense and common justice dictate that you should be allowed
to sell your cloth in any market where you can get the most
food in return.

" But the bread-tax says you SHALL NOT. It forbids you
to buy your food where you can get it cheapest ; and, as the
necessary effect, it prevents you from selling your cloth where
you can get the best price. Is not this an act of monstrous
injustice and folly ? What right has Government to burden
you and injure trade, in order to increase the rent of the
landlords ?"
The laws lay a restraint on industry ; they prohibit
trade ; they declare that food shall not be produced
for our. hungry artizans in Germany and Poland. The
putting an end to the restriction—to the prohibition—
would be a return to freedom, as well as a multiplica-
tion of food ; and the Legislature, •which maintains
such laws, is unworthy of being obeyed.

It will be seen from our report that the Association
of Coffee and Eating-house-keepers in London, last
evening agreed to petition Parliament for the imme-
diate and total repeal of the Corn-laws. This is a
very numerous class now in the metropolis, and from
the nature of their business, and the intercourse they
have daily with a large portion of the inhabitants, pro-
bably not less than three hundred thousand, all in-
terested in the repeal of the obnoxious tax, this resolu-
tion cannot fail to be regarded as one of great impor-
tance. The meeting, however, had reference to
another subject, not less affecting them, and all
the middle and poorer classes, than even the Corn-
laws—we mean the cruel and nefarious combina-
tion in the coal trade ; and this Association has
the honour of being the first public body to come
forward and pass an unanimous vote of thanks to
the LORD MAYOR for his disinterested, persevering,
and effective exertions to abate one of the greatest nui-
sances, and the most iniquitous tax that ever oppressed
a civilized community. This is the first, but we are
convinced it will not be the last vote of thanks to the
Chief Magistrate, who prefers the interests of his
fellow-citizens, and chiefly those who have none to
help them, to the favour of many of his colleagues—
of coal-owners in the North—and of all the rich and
powerful parties who have been plundering the public

at the rate of a million sterling a-year. The Chair-
man said, properly, injurious as the tax was to the
body whom he represented, it was infinitely more in-
jurious to the starving poor, and gave a striking in-
stance, which ought to harrow the feelings of those mo-
nopolists who call themselves Christians, and friends
of the needy. During the severity of last season, be
had been a member of a relief committee, for distri-
buting cheap coals amourt, the poor, and in the dis-
charge of his duty bad occasion to witness the most
distressing scenes. In one district be found fourteen
or fifteen persons huddled together in one room, to pre-
serve animal heat ! And he could have added that he
saw thousands suffering under fevers and other diseases,
brought on by cold and damp ; solely owing to the
starvation price of one of the great necessaries of life.
Bu this is an evil which cannot now be long endured.
Companies are forming to supply the metropolis with
with coals, at a moderate rate. Sentence has been
pronounced on the conspirators, and we cordially con-
cur in the wish half-expressed by one of the speakers,
that if one year is not sufficient, the Lord Mayor may
have two to carry it into execution.

We direct the attention of our readers to a case of as
flagrant Tory oppression as ever yet came under our notice.
The particulars of this case—which we gather from a
printed statement that has been sent us—are as follow:
In the year 1827, Mr. BARNES, a gentleman " bearing
the highest testimonials of character and ability from
many of the principal bankers, merchants, and clergy-
men, in the county of Warwick," was appointed by
the Trustees, most of whom, it seems, are " Tories, and
self-elected," to the Head Mastership of the Helston
Commercial Academy. In this situation, Mr. BARNES
gave such general satisfaction, that men of all parties
combined in bearing testimony to his merits—the Tory
Trustees, in particular, who, in " their own resolution
books, recorded from year to year their unqualified ac-
knowledgements of his talents as a teacher." Thus
stood matters up to 1837 ; in the summer of which
year, an election for the borough of Helston took
place, when Mr. BARNES, from a conscientious con-
viction of duty, voted for Mr. BULLER, the Liberal
candidate. From that moment his ruin was resolved
on by the Tories, who, with that fiery zeal for perse-
cution which has ever formed their chief characteristic,
lost not an hour in setting all their engines, open and
secret, actively to work against him. First, they
trumped up a charge that he had violated a " promise
of neutrality" made to the Tory candidate ; and finding
him guilty—a result to have been expected, considering,
that Tories were his judges, Tories his jury, and To-
ries his accusers !--they proceeded to pass on him a
" vote of censure," in the hope that such a vote might
he attended with serious injury to his character. Their
cunning, however, in this instance, overshot its mark,
for the parents of Mr. BARNES'S pupils called a
meeting ; inquired into the grounds on which the vote
of censure had been passed ; and after a full, impartial
investigation, not only exculpated, and expressed un-
abated confidence in him—but went still farther, and
unanimously passed resolutions denouncing the conduct
of the Tories in the most unqualified terms of indigna-
tion ! Foiled in this, their first direct attack, the
Trustees next " brought forward a claim of a balance
on a ten years' account as due to them ;" but failing
in this manoeuvre also, yet resolved at all hazards on
crushing their victim, they at length stood upon their
legal right, as Trustees, to elect their own Master.
Accordingly, in the spring of last year, they gave Mr.
BARNES notice to quit the school at midsummer, anti,
on his declining to comply, commenced an action of
ejectment against him, which so disgusted the parents
of his pupils, that they called a second meeting, when
—the whole correspondence between Mr. BARNES
and the Trustees, together with other documents,
having been laid before them—they passed a resolution
to the effect, that the charges brought against that
gentleman were not only unfounded, but evidently the
offspring of political rancour I Despite, however, this
strong declaration in his favour, the Tories have so far
succeeded in their darling object of crushing Mr.
BARNES, that they have deprived him of his post,
and appointed their own Master ; and will even be the
means, as they fondly hope, of utterly ruining him, if
his friends do not carry out with spirit their projected
scheme of building him a new school-house.
We have given this case at greater length than is
our wont, because the mere details put the necessity
of the Ballot in a stronger light than it was ever put
even by Mr. GROTE in Parliament. Here we find a
gentleman, moving in the most respectable sphere in
Helston—well conducted, well educated, and on
whose character there are neither spot nor stain—who
has for years and years together acquitted himself as
schoolmaster to the satisfaction of all the Tory Trus-
tees—who, on more than one occasion, has publicly
received the thanks of his fellow-townsmen, and raised
his establishment to a degree scarcely to have been
anticipated on its first institution :—here, we say, we
have an instance of a gentleman, thus beneficially em-
ployed in the most valuable of all services, the service
of education, subjected to the cruellest persecution,
blackened by calumny, and deprived even of the means
of subsistence, for no worse crime than that of acting
according to the dictates of his conscience, and refusing
to become the mere abject—reckless—unpt ilicipled tool
of the Tories ! Had Mr. BARNES played the part of
a scoundrel, rather than that of an honest man, who
doubts that he would at this moment have been the
thriving Head Master of the Helston Commercial
Academy, praised by Tories, and upheld by them
against all opposition ? But he chose to think—to
decide for himself, and is consequently the martyr of his
sense of integrity. So has it ever been—so will it
ever continue to be—till the Ballot become the law of
the land, and the Tories be deprived of the power of
persecution. Till you pare the claws, and draw the
teeth of these monsters, never will you have any thing
like adequate security for good government. _ Ministers,
whether Whig or Tory, may be honest by fits and
starts, but the Ballot is the only way to keep them
uniformly so. The case of oppression we have just
quoted, and which we shall not lose sight of, is
another grievance added to the hundreds already
exposed, that calls trumpet-tongued for that only
efficient remedy—the Ballot.

After twelve days debate in the French Chamber
of Deputies, the Address in answer to the Speech
from the Throne was finally adopted on Saturday
evening by a majority of 13 votes on a division of
429 Members. The Ministerial amendment upon the
last paragraph was only carried by a majority of nine
votes—so that upon the whole of the divisions upon
this Address Ministers have not averaged more than
six votes of a clear majority, exclusive of their signal
defeat on Wednesday last. M. THIERS did not
suffer the debate to close without having another
blow at the Cabinet. He enumerated its defeats to
prove that it was not Parliamentary—that it
was solely sustained by the KING ; and he
retorted an attack directed by Count MoNTALIVET
against M. GulzoT, by reminding that Minister, that
when he held office under him (M. THIERS), he was
as ardent a Spanish interventionist as he is now the
contrary. The debate was brought to a close by Count
MOLE, who, however, did not attempt to extend the
shield of his rotection to M. MoNTALIVET.
barely contended that the Cabinet was strictly Parlia-
mentary, and that if it had sustained various defeats
during the last Session, and one in this, it was solely
owing to an unnatural coalition against the Ministry.
Count MOLE'S arguments frequently remind us of