The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-15 00:00:00

S:';1,11' OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Nothing can more strikingly show the beneficial
tendency of free discussion, under an enlightened
and docile Government, disposed to watch the pro-
gress of, opinion, and to embody the results of
ascertained truth in official or legislative acts, than
the :Bill now in progress through Parliament for
openlsr the beer-trade. The barefaced and shame-
le,:s jobbing of the licensing justices,--their alternate
pa tiality and oppression in awarding or reftising
their corrupt favours,—the vassalage in which they
kept the publicans, and the injustice which they in-
lbeted on the community by interfering with the na-
tural course of trade, arid establishing a monopoly
which enabled the brewers to deteriorate the qua-
-I:ty or to heighten the price of their beer,—were as
fLigrant, notorious, and easily demonstrable, ten or
t %verily years ago, as at the present moment, but the
comer), was not equally prepared to believe them,
or to support those who endeavoured to reform the
abuse. Cant, hypocrisy, and affectation having
passed into our Acts of Parliament, and been erected
into a privilege of the quorum, had interested so
many people in their favour by pretending a regard
for the morals of the poor, that they could be only
overthrown by repeated assaults. Hence, only
a few years ago, Mr. Brougham could only
obtain a small minority for a measure which Mr.
Calcraft cirried in the House of Commons on a
triumphant majority of about 200 to 28. The argu-
ments by which the framers and the supporters
of the Beer Bill have maintained their position
against the honest though mistaken attacks of the
publican,, and the more doubtful objections of. the
magistrates, seem to us irresistible. It would have
been not only useless but injurious to have removed
the :,:upervision of the Excise over the manufacture
of beer, without at the same time destroying the
monopoly of .the brewer exercised through the
licnising, power of the magistrate. If we required
any additional support on this subject, we should
ihni it in a very sensible pamphlet published by Mr.
Cullen, entitled, A Letter on the Arbitrary Licence
AS:ystem, addressed to Mr. Calcraft. Mr. Cullen,
who e.wected to be called as a witness on the Sale
of Beer Committee of which Mr. Calcraft was
Chairmen, has, in this letter, embodied the substance
of the evidence which he intended to have given
I:ad he been examined. Being a lawyer, the chief
interest of his pamphlet consists in the full enume-
ration and correct description of those Acts by which
the Magistrates have hitherto been empowered to
interfere with the sale of liquors or the regulation of
public-houses. The Acts of Parliament on -this
subject prior to the Revolution, while directed
chiefly to the preservation of the popular morals and
tie public peace, included provisions against mono-
poly, and were not particularly liable to abuse.
Since that era the two Acts which are the founda-
tion of the present system, are the 2d Geo. 11., in
1729, for licensing common ions and alehouses, and
the 2d. Geo. 111., c. 14. On the former Mr. Cul-
len remarks, that

Before this Act, the justices in any part of the country
might license persons in any part of the country. Parti-
ality in the granting of licenses, therefore, could not pre-.
vail. This Act teems to have kid the legal foundation of
that monopoly which was deemed illegal, censured, and
meant to lie repressed by the 12th of Edward IV., and by
the hostile proceedings against monopolies and patents of
that King's reign; and of James the First's reign, fur he
too granted patents to persons to grant licences. This
Act, too, limited the licence to a year, and one day in the
year, and altogether created a patronage, which never ex-
isted till then. &on afterwards the value of the patron-
age and monopoly was discovered."
The latter, together with Mr. Cullen's observa-
tion upon it, is as follows :
<, Whereas brewers, innkeepers, victuallers, -or other
retailers of strong beer or ale, have been threatened with,
aid may be subject to, vexatious prosecutioni, for ad-
vancing, or having advanced, the price of strong beer or
ale, however justly and reasonably,—enacts, that no !newer,
innkeeper, victualler, or other retailer of strong beer or
ale, shall at any time hereafter be sued, hnpleaded, or mo-
lested by indictment, information, popular action, or other-
Irises for advancing or having advanced the price of strong
beer or ale in a reasonable degree, any law or statute to
the contrary notwithstanding.'
" The assizes and other regulations for protection of the
',wiz! were in this century, after the revolution, aban-
dont-L. The patent of patronage was granted to the
justice's by the Act of Geo. 11. ; and then, by this Act of
(ten. 111., the brewers, innkeepers, victuallers, and retailers
were freed from the laws against monopoly, extortion,
combination, &e., and left at liberty to conspire, as they
have since successfully done, to impose as bad and as dear
Leer on the public as they found profitable or prudent."
Now that beer is to be allowed to be brewed with-
out duty,—that any person can set up for a brewer
without the superintendence of an excieeman,—that
nil the world is to be permitted to make beer for
themselves, their neighbourhood, or the public,—a
small remnant of the jobbing Magistrates, backed
with a body of the alarmed publicans, insist on the
rieeessity of enacting that shops for the sale of beer
shall not permit beer to be drunk on their premises.
The publicans, apprehending as they do, a diminu-
tion of their trade, or afraid that their " vested
rights" in monopoly are about to eease, may be ex-
cused for resisting a measure which may establish a
rival in the green-grocer at their door; but we can-
not so well understand on what grounds parties pre-
tending to be disinterested can stake their character
in opposing a change obviously so reasonable and
expedient. The pretence which they put forward,
we are aware, 13 a regard to the " morals" of the
general body of the community, and particularly the •
lower orders. The morals of the poor as well as :of
the rich (except in so far as they may be affected
by laws applicable to all) are best left in their own
keeping. But even though we admitted in the latter
case a -greater latitude of interference, we might still
ask how the good conduct or sobriety of the poor
can be promoted by driving them to a tavern
instead of a beer shop,—by compelling them
to drink bad ale in a house licensed by a
Magistrate, instead . of good ale in a house li-
censed by the Excise—or by sending them half a
mile from their families to avoid being poisoned
with a monopoly liquor, instead of allowing them
the choice of wholesome " homeebrewed" at their
next door? Are the morals of the lower orders or
the public peace to be best preserved by potronis-
inz tap-rooms, where all liquors are found, and dis-
couraging the consumption of beer where no temp-
tation but beer exists—by making the poor man
swallow his pint of malt liquor amid the tempting
fumes of rum-pimeh, or by placing him side by side
with those who indulge in higher and more costly
excitements than his purse east obtain, instead of
slowing him to enjoy his bumble refreshment with
sills neighbours? But it is said that if an excise
licence is to be the Dilly requisite for selling (Aar,
beer-shops will be multiplied to an alarming extent,
wed the danger of intoxication and riot will be pro-
portionably inereaaed. Such an apprehension be-
trays a total ignorance of the usual course of trade,
or of the motives of action in that class of society -
to which the opponents of the Deer Bill are desirous
of extending their unsolicited pateotiege. Beer-
drinkers will not frequent the houses of deelere, be-
cause they are near at hand, but because they want
refreshment, because they can find good beer, and
can afford to pay for it. If the object of the Le-
gislature had been to prevent them from indulging
in this taste, or to discourage the use of bear (as
the friends of monopoly must assume), why abolish
the beer-duty ? Nothing less than higher duties, or
even severe penalties, would suit such reaacners. If
Leer-drinking is criminal in itself, we should no more
licence a house to sell beer than to receive stolen
goods. If it is not criminal, no more reason can be
given for prohibiting a poor man from drinking his
pint of ale on the premises of a brewer, than
fromeating his penny loaf in the shop of
a baker. Nor are the beer-shops likely to be
multiplied beyond the demands of the neighbour-
hood by the mere permission to open them. Beer-
sellers, like bakers or any other class of tradesmen,
must live by the profits of their business. If the
demand for the article which they supply is thought
sufficient to enable them to earn their livelihood by
the extent of their custom, they will establish or
continue time sale of beer. In this case it is evident

•
that their interest is identified with the public con,
venience. If their profits are too high, or their
business too extensive, competition will reduce the
former and narrow the latter: If, on the other
hand, they do not find beer-drinkers in sufficient
number to pay their licence, and to support their
families, it is self-evident that they must discontinue
their trade, without any warning from the self-
erected patrons of morals or enemies of drinking.
In all cases it ought to be recollected that none of
the magisterial powers exercised over public-houses
for the protection of the public peace have been di-
minished or abolished by this measure; that the
beer-sellers must shut their doors at the proper hours
as well as the publicans, but (what is more ques-
tionable policy to some, but what ought to
satisfy the scruples of all) that the licence of
the former may be taken away on account of
misconduct as well as that of the latter. Let us,
then, hear no more of that interested sophistry
which justifies the abridgment of the humble en-
joyments and acknowledged rights of the poor on
pretence of protecting their morals, but with the
real design of profiting by their necessities. While
the wealthy bacchanal is permitted to regale himself
as long as he pleases at the tavern, without hindrance
or admonition, singing appropriately
" Mihi est propositum in taberni mori,"
and may have when dead drunk, like the jolly friar,
a choir of magistrates, if not of "angels to chant
over him

"Deus sit propitius huic potatori,"
it is really insulting to common sense to hear our
pretended guardians of popular sobriety object to
the permission granted to the poor of enjoying their
own humble beverage in a convenient beer-shop.—

Sir James Graham's motion last night was de-
feated by a majority of 84. lie made an admirable
speech, full of just and pungent observations. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer presented, however, a
very gallant defence. The result is such as may be
expected when the party concerned are really in
earnest to protect their own interests.—Times.

The announcement of a meeting of the Anti-
Slavery Society this day reminds us of a speech de-
livered by Henry Pownall, at the anniversary meet-
ing of the Anti-Slavery Association of Chelmsford,
on Friday, the 30th of April last, in which he
pointed out an evil which the slaves have been sub-
jected to in consequence of passing from a Catholic
to a Protestant Government. We suspect, how-
ever, that Mr. Pownall has gone too far when he
states, without qualification, that the slaves in the
British Colonies were worse off than in islands be-
longing to other Powers.
" He recollected (he said) that in 1823, a resolution was
passed, and an Order in Council, he believed, issued, to
the effect, that the slaves should be allowed the Sunday to
cultivate their own provision ground and to go to market.
But in what situation were the slaves placed by this?
Why, by this very enactment, they were placed in a worse
situation than they were before ; for mark the injustice of
this—the slaves being allowed to work on the Sunday
were compelled to work for their employers. The slaves
in the British Colonies were, in fact, worse off than in
islands belonging to other Powers. He would instance
the case of the island of Trinidad. When this colony
was taken by General Picton, it belonged to the Spa-
niards, who, being Roman Catholics, kept the Saints'
days set apart by that religion—amounting to 85. The
slaves were entitled to these 85 days to go where they
liked, in addition to the Sundays, and by this means
many of them were enabled to purchase their freedom by
their own industry. But the English, considering that
these f“rms ought not to be kept up, abolished all the
Saints' days, and the poor negroes were obliged to go to
market on the Sunday."

The world owes, no doubt, much to the honest
and conscientious men who effected the Reforma-
tion in the sixteenth century; but it is, at the same
time, greatly to be lamented, that, in their hostility
to the Catholic Church, they too often abandoned
usages which contributed much to the happiness of
the people, and their views were narrow and gloomy.
Among the usages, the abolition of which has added
so much to the gloom of the lower orders, not
merely in Protestant countries, but in Catholic
countries, we may name holidays. The labourer
gains nothing by working so many more days, be-
cause the principle of population will always re-
duce his earnings to the amount necessary to the
subsistence of himself and family, and he would
have had the subsistence whether the number of
holidays had been one or sfry. The first Refor-
mers were honest men, and did not intend to add
to the sufferings of the lower orders; but selfishness
and avarice have availed themselves of their work
to make life a gloomy business to the mass of the
people. In most Protestant countries, it has be-
come but too common to think only of the lower
orders as beasts of burden—as instruments necessary
to production, but whose happiness or enjoyment are
undeserving of a moment's consideration. As an in-
stance we may mention a number of pamphlets which
have been sent to us on the subject of Temperance
Societies. In one of them, " A Letter to a Member
of the Dublin Temperance Society on the sup-
posed value of ardent spirits in relation to national
wealth, government, revenue, rent, and agricultural
profits," it seems to be taken for granted, that a
human being ought to be considered as an appen-
dage to a cotton machine, or some other piece of
mechanism. " The amount of productive labour
(says this sage) is not necessarily in proportion to
the number of labourers, because any circutn-
stances, not unavoidable, such as a multitude of
holidays, may prevent the labourer doing all he
could in a given time, and to that extent he is an
idler; if by his own fault, a criminal one. The
effect upon national wealth is, however, the same,
from whatever cause the idleness may proceed, be-
cause the capital designed to employ these labourers
is dormant so long as they are idle. The idleness of
a professed labourer or mechanic is more mischievous
than it may at first seem. He is generally a part of
a system of productive labour, upon which a large
amount of capital is employed, and his idleness is like
stopping one of the wheels of a machine—the whole
work mu-t be suspended for a time. The capitalist can-
not employ his idle funds on new labourers, nor direct
them to any other profitable occupation ; because,
though the whole period of the forced stagnation of
capital is often very great; it occurs at irregular in-
tervals ; or, if they be regular, the periods of idle-
ness, though frequent, are but of one or two days
eac." What a pity that the capital expended on
machinery shouhl be unproductive even during one
day of the week—the Sebbath ! In truth, we sus-
pect the Christian religion would be in some danger
in this country, if another were to start up offering
to our mm eyed men the advantage of no Sabbaths
and no holidays, so that the machinery might work
every day in the year. !and what is the end of all
this' straining—all this eyerlasting tell ? Is it not
to minister to the wants and enjoyment of human
beings ? What is the object of the man who em-
barks his capital in machinery, but to obtain the
means of more extended enjoyment ? And why
should the working man be degraded to a mere
piece of machinery ? Why should it be made a
crime in burn that he wiehrs occasionally to stop in
the path of life to pluck the flowers with which it is
strewed ? He has his feelings, his aspirations, as
well as his employers—why should he never be
allowed to forgat his cares, and to taste the cup of
pleasure ? Man requirea something more than merely
eating and sleeping ; and the ideas which dictated
the above passage, however common in this ava-
ricious and unfeeling age, are not the less to
be reprehended. The Marquis de Mirabeau,
though an economist, in Ilia Anti des Ilomnies,
takes a much more philosophical view of holi-
days :—" The Reformation (lie observes) beasts
of having increased the sum of labour in the
Static which have embraced it, by the suppres-
sion of festivaia, Let it, however, always be borne in
mind, that a festival suppressed is but 'nine hours, et
most, added to the year ; whereas ono hour of sleep
makes 36.5. Besides, we must not believe that
holiday.; are a pure loss. Man requires relaxation,
and it is so necessary to him that God ordained, in
the first institution, one day of repose in seven. This
day recruits the strength of man, bent down under
the weight of weekly labour. But besides repose

we must also' have joy, and merry meetings,
and society. Examine our festivals in their institu-
tion, and in joining to them the usages and habitual
practices added to them by an ant►que simplicity,
you will see that there is a truly wise policy in them.
The views of the Church are all spiritual in the
worship which she prescribes' to us; but she has, in
her condescension, made allowance for the relaxa-
tions which the union of the soul with our machine
has rendered necessary, and has permitted order and
civil usages to introduce into them a variety and an
action calculated to interest us. This deference has
even had an influence on her own ceremonies; for,
with the exception of half a week in the year, quite
consecrated to prayer and meditation, and the ob-
servance of which is not even obligatory on working
people, all the rest has for object occasions for joy
and merriment. The festivals of Christmas, of
Twelfth Night, Easter, Whitsuntide, all the grand
festivals, in a word, are of this kind. Let us exa-
mine, next, what the customs of our fathers added
to these solemnities. At Eater the heads of fami-
lies distributed eggs to all the household, even to
the lowest medal. I am often, tempted to sit at
table with my servants, to cut their bread, to drink
of the same cup, to remind myself that we were all
of one stock, that I ought to consider them as such,
and constrain them to love me. These sorts of as-
semblies, these revolutions at stated times, create
society and establish confidence. Whatever is a re-
medy against exhaustion is a spur to industry.—
Whatever inspires us with a desire of conviviality,
and renders us necessary to each other, is a fresh
encouragement. I have said enough to show that
holidays do not interfere with labour. If we could
go incessantly like machines, time would have to
be calculated by the inch and the line, that we might
not lose a minute of time." In a recent Treatise on
Festivals by a Catholic writer, he observes, " The
Protestant theologians and the financiers adopted
the sordid notion, that the production of wealth was
to be considered as the chief object in this life,
without reflecting that man and his enjoyment,
which evidently gain by a moderate number of fes-
tivals, ought to be the chief aim of all economical
production; and nature yields enough to the labour
of man for his necessities without abridging him of

festivals." The Prelates of the Protestant-Church
are men of the world, who chime in admirably with
the notion that man ought to be considered as a
mere piece of mechanism. Hence the cold-hearted
proscription of all innocent relaxation to the poor by
the Bishop of London. The Puritans were honest
men, and really meant well to the people. Richard
Baxter, who thought that the Sunday should be
spent in religious exercises and meditation, did not
wish that the poor should be kept to incessant toil.
" Let landlords," he says is his book on the Sab-
bath, "abate their tenants as much rent as one
day's vacancy from labour in a month or a fortnight
will amount to—or let the common Saints' days,
which of the two are more at man's disposal, be
made their sporting days, and rob not their souls of
that one weekly day which God hath separated for
his worship." The heads of the Protestant Church,
in the present (lay, are too knowing in their genera-
tion to interpose between the rich and the poor—

they abandon the latter to his task-master for six
days of the week, and seem to have no other care
than that he may have no more comfort on the re-
maining day than on the other six.—Morn. Chron.

It will be seen, from our Parliamentary report,
that a most important petition, praying for the aboli-
tion of the punishment of death for forgery, was last
night presented by Mr. J. Smith, to the House of
Commons. The Hon. Member stated that it was
from three individuals, whose names and character
need but be named to be known as among the
highest in time commercial world. The first name
was that of M. Rothschild, whom he described as

the greatest merchant in the world, and one through
whose hands more Bills of Exchange passed than
through those of any twenty firms in London. The
second was that of the firm of Overeat:l, Gurney,
and Co., through whose hands bills of exchange to
the amount of 300,0001. passed last year; and the
third was that of Mr. Sanderson, a bill-broker, and
also a Member of the House. After this we hope
we shall hear no more of the cruel and disgraceful
law of forgery being preserved in compliance with
the wishes of commercial men, and for _the purnose
of affording proticetiori to (tie preiperty'of baidera.
We trust Sir Robert Peel will now be satisfied that
to retain the punishment of death in cases of forgery
of negotiable securities for money, as he proposes to
do by his new Bill, can only do violence to the
feelings, and injury to the interests, of those very
persons for whose advantage he represents the bar-
barous enactment as especially intended. The Hon.
Member who presented the petition expressed his
conviction of the impolicy of the punishment of death
fOr this crime, and declared that, with respect to
himself, many instances had occurred on which
he would not prosecute, because of the penalty of
death. He, however' was of opinion that transpor-
tation to New South Wales was no adequate pu-
nishment, because the man who could defraud the
public of 8,0001. or 10,0001. might have that trans-
mitted there, and live in luxury. The punishment
ought to be one infamous, degrading, and uniformly
applied.—We agree with him as to what the prin-
ciple of the punishment ought to be, but its precise
nature is matter of detail on which we need not at
present enter. WTe understand that M. Rothschild, it
as well as many others, has had to bear with many
losses rather than be instrumental to the shedding
of human blood by prosecuting the offenders to con-
viction. This is as creditable to his character as it
is disgraceful to the existing law. We have beard
of one house that some time ago put up with a
similar loss of 5,0001. rather than prosecute. Thus
injurious is the law to the interests of bankers
It will be seen that three other petitions of great
importance on this question were presented last
night, concurring in the necessity of abolishing the
punishment of death—the one by Sir John New-
port, from the Directors of the provincial bank at
Waterford ; the .other by Mr. S. Rice, from the
Directors of the provincial bank of Limerick ; and
the third by Mr. Latouche from the Directors of
the provincial bank of Sligo. The Hon. Members
by whom those petitions were presented, advocated
their principle, and concurred in expressing their
opinion that the existing law was detrimental to the
banking interest by tending to increase, rather than
diminish, the crime of forgery.—Morning Herald.
The castigation which the Honourable Member
for Clare is represented to have received at the
hands of Mr. North, appears to have been admi-
nistered with • ability and effect; -judging.fron2 the
tameness of his reply, the former seems to have
quailed under the caustic severity of his new anta-
gonist, and to have almost kissed the rod which had
so severely scourged him. Though we are far
from finding fault ourselves with the subdued tone
which distinguishes Mr. O'Connell's speeches in
Parliament, compared with those imputed to him
elsewhere, we very much doubt how far his ad-
mirers on the other side of the channel are prepared
for such a total change of tone and of manner as the
Learned Member's short Parliamentary career has
exhibited. Never were mighty promises and por-
tentous expectations doomed to be so miserably
falsified. On the occasion in question the Learned
Member for Clare undertook one of the most impor-
tant and doubtful tasks a Member of the Legislature
can engage in—that of rendering the House of
Commons a Coort of Appealagainst the ordinary de-
cisions and proceedings of the Courts of Law
—a power which it can and ought, indeed,
very rarely to exercise, and which, if brought
yf may prove the
and a grievous hin-
drance severest operation
injury uon nye
acretsiseasr,i
of public justice. We would not, of course,
impute to Mr. O'Connell any such unworthy motives
as professional pique or political malevolence in the
task which he undertook; at the same time it is
impossible to have witnessed the complete answer
given to the charge, first by Mr. Doherty, and then
to the still more triumphant one which it elicited
from Mr. North, and not feel that it was an occa-
sion on which the Hon. Member for Clare had put

himself in what the French call a " false position,"
from which he could neither advance with honour
nor retreat without disgrace. If any proof were
wanting of .the truth of these observations, it would
be found, we should think, in the smallness of the
minority which were found to support Mr. O'Con-
nell's motion. It affords but poor and ominous tes-
timony to the force of Mr. O'Connell's judgment
arid talents, that on his first division the selection
of his subject was so unfortunate, and his oratory so
ineffective, that only twelve persons could be found
to agree with him. When things come to the worst
they mend—we hope to see the Member for Clare
improving--there is room for it. Hitherto his Par-
liamentary career has only exemplified the insigni-
ficance into which the idol of a multitude may sink
when he happens to find himself in that higher
region of ambition were true genius only rises to
the full measure of its fame.—ltforning Herald.