The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-16 00:00:00

we cannot help believing that they indicate a speedy
dissolution of the Ministry.

Before our paper goes to press Lord MEL-
BOURNE must be convinced that he has made a
fatal mistake, and become the object of pity to his
friends, and derision to his enemies. The obser-
vations of Mr. HUME in the House of Commons,
and of Mr. COBDEN at the meeting of Delegates,
to which respectively we refer, show distinctly
wherein Lord MELBOURNE has failed. Not con-
tented with giving a silent, and in so far a discreet
vote against the bulk of his own friends and sup-
porters, he must needs explain at some length the
grounds of his conduct, and in doing that he cha-
racterised their proceedings as wild and mad.
Having earnestly, and with all our might, advocated
that which Lord MELBOUNE calls wild and mad,

we must in justice to our own views retort the
epithets, and pronounce the plan of up-
holding the present scheme of annual plunder,
under the misnomer of protection to agriculture,
long after it has been proved to be equally injurious
to the agriculturists and the manufacturers, after
it has smitten the people with poverty, and their
extraordinary toils with barrenness, as the most
insensate and wicked that ever entered the heart of

a statesman. There is but one opinion of Lord
MELBOURNE'S speech ; it was excessively foolish,
and has deprived him for ever of the confidence and
respect of the Liberal party.
We can scarcely imagine what caused the con-
temptible outbreak. Was it a desire to demon-
strate that he was above being guided by the subor-
dinate Members of his Cabinet, and that he was
resolved while he allowed them to frisk a little at
liberty, and prate about freedom of trade, to
show that he was still their arrogant and in-
sulting chief ? Else why did he so stigma-
tize the agitation which one of them has avow-
edly encouraged ? His desire to show his supe-
riority, was the ground-work, probably, of his
departure from his usual coolness, and his private
resolve was much strengthened by the passionate
ardour of his old colleague, Lord RIPON, and the
rapturous applause with which the Lords received his
proofs that the Corn-laws had worked wonders.
Lord MELBOURNE, we are afraid, was envious of
Lord RIPON, and sought to gain, by equal folly,
an equal share of the applause of fools. The bub-
ble-jock arguments of that Nobleman, made an
impression on Lord MELBOURNE, and having
neither knowledge nor skill to detect Lord ittPoN's
mistakes, he could do no better than adopt them,
and run a race with him to win their Lordship's
cheers.

And what was Lord RIPON'S statement ?
We answer, a dishonest one ; and one which
the Noble Lord knew to be unfair, for in esti-
mating the fluctuations caused by the present
Corn-laws, he actually excluded from his calcula•
tions the only very bad harvest which has yet oc•
curred since they were passed. The intensity 0.
the national suffering, and the excess of nations
agitation are caused by the last bad harvest, and
that year Lord RIPON excluded from his calcu-
lations. He left out the part of HAMLET.
He ought, too, if he meant to argue the question
as a statesman, not as a hired lawyer, to have told
their Lordships that the fluctuations in the price of
food were necessarily diminished in proportion
as an exclusive commerce made all the world
tributaries to our skill and regulated our mar-
kets by the equalized seasons of the whole
globe, and that fluctuation ought to be less now
than twenty years ago ; and consequently it was
not enough to prove that the price of corn had not
varied latterly more than formerly, and more than
other commodities. He should also have shown
that as our commerce was extended, and the world
had been at peace, fluctuations in the price of corn
had become less and less. Corn, or taking it in its
widest sense, food—for when wheat fails potatoes
may be plentiful, and when potatoes do not yield
as much as usual, rice may be abundant—food is
the production of every part of the globe, and when
a dearth or scarcity occurs in one place, may
be procured from another. As our commerce,
therefore, extends, so should the price of food
become steady in our markets. To prove Lord
ItunoN's case, he ought to have shown that corn
had been, as compared to hemp and silk, in price,
stability itself. The market for it extends over the
whole empire, and all are buyers of food. The market
for silk, cotton, or hemp, is confined to a few ports,
and all are not buyers of them. Cotton is hardly im-
ported into any place except Liverpool and Glas-
gow. China-silk probably comes only into Glas-
gow, Liverpool, and London. These articles are in
the hands of a few merchants, and may be the objects
of the speculation of a few rich individuals. Corn,
as Mr. BURKE said, as quoted last night by Lord
BROUGHAM, in, the universal market of the world
has no tendency to fluctuate, and the proofs quoted
by Lord RIPON of its great fluctuation, though
excused by him in a comparison with other things,
are in fact proofs of the injury inflicted on the com-
munity by the Corn-laws. The price of corn, in a
community where the peculiarities of one place or
one season may be corrected by another, ought not
to fluctuate. If that were true in Mr. BURKE'S
time, it is still more applicable to our time ; and the
tables quoted by Lord RIPON, though they deluded
Lord MELBOURNE, were the condemnation of the
Corn-laws.
Moreover several of the articles quoted by Lord
RIPON—as cotton, on which a duty has been
laid since 1830, and a duty (that on printed
cottons) removed—have been subject to fis-
cal regulations, which wheat has not. An honest
reasoner would have observed that, and not wilfully
have led the Lords into error. Cotton, hemp,
and silk are the products also of almost single
countries, and nine-tenths of our hemp comes from
Russia, and nine-tenths of our cotton from the
United States. Further, fluctuations in the price
of them have no tendency to make the price of corn
fluctuate, but fluctuations iii the price of corn
make the prices of other commodities fluctuate.
The plentiful years of 1822 and 1823, and of 1831
and 1835, led to the speculations and great rise
of prices in 1825 and in 1836, which rises
made a part of Lord RIPON'S case. In fact,
fluctuations in -the price of corn are the
great parents of fluctuations in the prices of other
commodities ; while fluctuations in the prices of
these have little or no influence over the price of
food. Naturally, then, the price of corn in a com-
mercial country is comparatively steady and uni-
form ; while other articles, from being the produc-
tion of limited spaces, and affected by fluctuations
in the price of corn, are naturally much more liable
to fluctuation than corn. An honest' reasoner'
would have pointed out these differences ;
Lord RIPON only sought to make the worse
appear the better season. His success was small,
for he merely proved that the Corn-law had made
the price of food as fluctuating as that of hemp or
China silk. Whether hemp fluctuates or not in
price is not of much importance, but extensive
fluctuations in the price of Corn are ruinous to all
classes. The dishonest and weak reasoning how-
ever of Lord RIPON seems to have. confounded
Lord MELBOURNE, and led him to run a muck
against his own party.
Being now so completely forsaken by Lord
MELBOURNE,' we are reluctantly compelled to go
backs and ask what there ever was in his career, to
make him the chosen leader of the Liberal party ?
With the exception of having united himself with
Lord GREY, there was nothing in his previous life
to warrant the confidence of the friends of freedom.
A careless lover of pleasure, he was ill-fitted to be
the champion of a severe contest. A high-flown
Whig, verging on Toryism, he was never the cor-
dial friend of the people. His accepting the office
did as little honour to him as to the Liberal party ;
for if they thought of choosing him, to win the
support of a Court and Tory party, he seems to
have accepted the high trust only to betray it.