The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-07 00:00:00

Me W 44-111

LONDON :
THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 7, 1330>

The House of Lords only met yesterday to carry up

the'r Address

Mr, 'WALLACE, in the Commons, took the opportu-
nity of presenting a petition to claim his right to make
a speech on presenting petitions whenever be thinks
Other Members will insist on the same
xnd the tacit resolution of the House not

proper

tight

to allow speaking on petitions was at once
Icrvcked on the head, and the right to speak
ved. How many minor Members have acquiesced
:le privation, and have suffered themselves
ed of their dearest right, that for which
the House, is a curious pht-nomenon for
philosophers to explain. The Speaker indeed seems to
think the matter yet operi to decision, but he will be
sure to have the great majority against him.

3 Int

b

I.'etitions against the Corn-laws were ,presented
frty,n Greenock, nrightoq, and Edinburgh.
Mr. PALMER, as if the Government and the Legis-
Lture had n'Jt enough to do, was anxious that they
:should taltr., on themselves the care of loading timber
ships, which Mr. POULLTT THOMSON thought the
shipowners would not allow.
In answer to an inquiry, Lord JOHN RUSSELL stated
that he could give ?lb information as to when the Mili-
tary Commission will make a Report. Who can ?

Notices were given to bring .in Bills to amend the
Registration Act, the Highways Act, which is amended,
we believe, every year .by the country gentlemen, and
for assimilating the registration of voters in Ireland to
that of voters i s England.

The Sessional Orders, with their reiterated absurdities,
occasioned a snarling kind of discussion quite worthy of
the subject,, but they were passed without amendment,
though n at without a division.

Mr. WYNN, the vigilant guardian of privilege,
took notice of Mr. Harvey:s case, which is to be
brought under the notice of the House. It would be
curious if he were compelled to vacate his seat, notwith-
standing his resignation of office and salary.
The bringing up the report of the Address served
Mr. O'Connell for an occasion of making another speech
4011 Belgium. The Hon. and Learned Member, whose
"delight is wordly strife made a severe attack on the
Xing of Prussia and an ex-Lord Chancellor, and gave
a smart slap to one of the "ornamented things," who in
military co fume last night moved and seconded the
Address. 31r. O'Connell's attack on an ex-Chancellor
woos felt by the Speaker to be an invasion of the privi-
leges of another Assembly, and Mr. O'Connell was
obliged to cut short the yarn of his vituperative
oratory. it does ncithes the 1121141 es of Parliament, nor
the individual Members credinben vehement and scur-
rilous assaults are made in one House on Members of
the other, though, if anything can justify Mr. O'CoN-
NELL for; openly attacking the Lords, it was the pro-
digious. applause which their Lordships gave the evening
before to a severe castigation inflicted on Mr. O'CON•
NELL. Such unseemly conduct should have been laid aside
when the Parliament was reformed ; it was proper
enough for rival boroughmongers, but not for patriots.
We cannot appreciate the merit of the abuse, and
therefore refer our readers to it, to judge for themselves.
A good deal of desultory talking, chiefly relative to
Mr: O'Connell ; Ireland, and its social condition,
to India, and papers ; to Canada, and Lord
Durham's report, ensued. The principal speakers
were Mr. Shaw, Mr. Plumptre, Lord John Russell,
Viscount Palmerston, and Sir Robert Peel, but nothing
worthy of particular notice was said or done. The
Report on the Address was agreed to, and the House
is to meet at half-past one o'clock to-morrow to carry it
to her Majesty. At half-past seven the House adjourned.

We expected that Mr. WOOD'S speech in the House
of Commons, and Sir ROBERT PEEL'S comment, would
excite a great deal of attention, and wo are not disap-
pointed. They formed nearly the sole subjects of dis-
cussion at the meeting of the Corn-law Delegates yes-
terday, and are likely to be re-echoed from all the towns
in the kingdom. At the meeting the Chairman began
and remarked, that though the export of cotton
yarn, the raw material of cloth, had increased,
the export of" cotton cloth had diminished. " The
fact is," said Mr. SMITH, "we are exporting the
means of manufacturing to " other countries ; the value
of the coal exported was 180,0001. of copper, 136,0001.
of tin blocks .52,0001., of tin plate 83,0001. There had
been an increase of above fifty per cent., an increase of
180,000/., in the exportation of coals."
Properly did Mr. SMITH say that-had Mr. Woon done
his duty, he would have expressed the feelings of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, of which he is a
most unworthy representative. Mr. GREG followed,
and Mr. ItAwsoN, Mr. A SIIWORTII, Mr. JOHNSON,
411(1 others, followed Mr. GREG, and all attacked poor
WOOD, who will never, apparently, know peace
in Manchester again. It is necessary to observe, before
We say another word on his statistics, that every month,
nay, ci,ery mek, tends to give a somewhat different
character to facts from that given to them by Mr.
Wool), and we should have better known what confi-
dence to place in his statements, had he mentioned the
days on which his quoted years respectively begin
and end.

Letting that obscurity, however, pass, ghat is the
amount of Mr. WOOD'S statements, that they should
be considered an argument in favour of the Corn-laws?
I.le tells us that the export of our woollen manufactures
Is decreasing, 385,000/. in 1838 ; while the quantity of
wool exported is increasing to the extent of 158,0001.
lie proves, too, that our cutlery and hardware, ere-
while the great staples of England, are fulling off
2322000/. in 18353 ; while the amount of iron exported,
of which cutlery is made, is increasing. Now, such
fitets as these—and obviously Mr. Wool), and who-
ever (-rammed him, did not select those most

favourable to the decay of our manufactures—may well-
be set off against the increase in cotton twist and yarn
exported. But these are merely half-wrought mate-
rials, and, by being exported, give a great deal of em-
ployment to industry, which is not native. It is almost
exclusively, too, the produce of mills, requiring to com-
plete it a comparatively small quantity of labour, while, to
make it into eloth or hosiery, sets many human beings
at work. Though we protest loudly and determinedly
against the restrictive system, in all its branches, those
who advocate it and will not, allow our people to eat
cheap bread, ought in consistency and honour to pro-
hibit the exportation of yarn and twist and wool and
iron, that our people may reserve to themselves the
privilege of manufacturing them into cloth and cutlery.
Admitting the great increase in prosperity in 1838
which Mr. WOOD sought to establish, how does it prove
the benefit of that system which the cotton-spinner's
son, now a rich landlord, said should not be lightly
meddled with ? The people multiply—no thanks
to the Corn-laws. They emigrate and spread
themselves all over the world—but not from
loving the Corn-laws. They export their property
and extend the trade of the country. As the people in-
c.:Tease, both at home and abroad, experts and imports
increase ; and all that can he said for the Corn-laws is,
that mischievous as they arc, they are not so powerful
as wholly to crush the natural ever-welling spring of
hu:nan prosperity. As the people multiply, they require
more accommodation, more carriages, mere vessels, more
houses ; and hence that increase in the number of ships
which Sir RosEter PEEL assumes as an index of benefit
conferred on the community by a profligate system of
legislative plunder.
It is plain, too, fr,)m Mr. WooD's statistics, that it
is the produce, not of untutored art, but of consummate
mechanical ingenuity, which is chiefly exported. By
its contrivances, which have been as little caused by
the Ccrn-laws, as the rain which fell to-clay, our skLful
people have been enabled to bear up against the extra-
ordinary burdens heaped on them by the landlords ; and
because they have not altogether sunk under them, and
have staggered and struggled on, we are aetually called on
to admire the burden, which is slowly crushing the na-
tiorad industry, and told on no account to remove it,
We lately called attention to a new locomotive engine,
invented by a Mr.KOLLMANN, of which one great merit
is to allow of vehicles, carrying passengers on the
railroads, to be flexible and light, whereby from ten to
twenty tons dead-weight is got rid of in one train. But
if he were to go into the House of Commons, and tell
Mr. WOOD and Sir ROBERT PEEL of the many advan-
tages to be obtained by thus diminishing thee weight to be
dragged, of the lessened friction and decreased expense,
and if they were to carry into mechanics the philosophy
by which they make laws, they would answer, " Tell
us not of these evils, do you not see that the locomo-
tive goes a-head, and even performs its journey with
considerable rapidity ?" What do they care for the
enormous friction caused by the unnecessary weight ?
What is it to them that the furnaces are quickly
burnt out by the heat necessary to drive the
ponderous machine ; that the rails arc always out of
order ; that the train is sometimes upset ; that the ex-
treme prersure now and then blows up an engine ; that
the whole work is scarcely profitable, and is continually
carried on amidst uneasiness and danger, all which
might be avoided by lessening the weight ;—what
aro all these to mechanics of the calibre of Sir R.
PEEL and Mr. WOOD, as long as the machine can be
drawn from one end of the rail to the other ? The
nation does not stand still ; the Corn-laws have not yet
brought it to a dead lock ; and though it groans under
their weight, and the friction threaten it with destruc-
tion, Sir BOBBY and Mr. WOOD exult in its progress.
The moral lesson these politicians teach mankind is
quite on a par with what we have supposed to be their
skill in mechanics. " More than a million and a half of
pounds sterling," says the benevolent and righteous
Earl FITZWILLIAM, " have been taken out of the
pockets of the people of England in the short period
of two months. Really fellow-citizens this is too bad."
Too bad indeed ; why, the devastation of a barbarian
conqueror, the invasions of an ATTILA or a BUONA-
PARTE, or even the more destructive progress of a French
Revolution, preseat no such gigantic and rapid scheme
of plunder and destruction ! Yet Sir ROBERT PEEL
thinks it ought on no account to be meddled with. Street
prigs, or burglars, pointin to their blowens and their kids,
may say " See how therlive in'elover by our labour ;
sec, too, what a colony of friends in Field-lane we
maintain by what we prig ; see, also, how we employ
policemen, Bow-street runners, constables, gaolers, &e.,
&c., and acknowled4, at once that for the State ours is
a most profitable inatry." And if Sir ROBERT PEEL
and the rest of our Legislators dare to stand up in the
Houses of Parliament and defend the Corn-law robbery,
because the landlords and farmers are enriched, and
have something to sell, something to pawn, and something
to give away, why may not prigs and burglars
with equal justice defend their own equally honourable
occupation to that of plundering one part of the com-
munity by law ? Much as we hate and detest the Corn-
laws as restrictions on industry, as impediments to na-
tional wealth, as inflicting slow and painful death on
multitudes of people, we hate them less on these
accounts than on account of their perverting the
moral sense of the community, as exemplified by
Sir ROBERT PEEL, after the example of some Journals,
standing up in the House of Commons and de-
fending an acknowledged legislative robbery, because it
does not wholly arrest the natural and commanded pro-
gress of society. If the nation, however, continues be-
sotted, the Corn-laws will, ere long, effect even that.

Had the opinions of Mr. O'CONNELL any weight on
the Continent, we should exceedingly regret the random
observations which he made last night relative to
the dispute between Holland and Belgium. Mr.
O'CONNELL professes to have the greatest hor-
ror of war, and yet he scruples not to indulge in
language which, if ad-opted by the House of Commons,
would spread the flames of war throughout Europe. The
recklessness with which he attacked the King of HOL-
LAND was only equalled by the extent of his misconception
of the real merits of the question which has so long en-
gaged the attention of the London Conference. The estab-
lishment of a Constitutional Monarchy in the very heart
of Europe, without the instrumentality of the sword,
is the crowning effect of that policy which Mr. °Vox-
NELL affects to regard as wanting in zeal for the civil
and religious liberties of the Belgian people. But this
is a view too comprehensive for Mr. O'CorotELL's
powers of political vision.

The country will learn, with all the pleasure which
so amusing an announcement cannot fail to convey, that
the Hon. and Gallant Member for Lincoln, Colonel
Stirlloar, has charged himself with bringing before
the House of Commons a motion for the return of the
cork-screw expenses of the Earl of DURHAM'S mission
to Canada. As the Gallant Colonel enjoys the reputa-
tion of being a toast-and-water drinker, the friends of
the Noble Earl may object to his being properly quali-
fied to test the extravagance of the uncorking system ;
but it may he confidently pleaded, in answer to such an
objection, that there is not another Member of the House
of Commons whose genius would have suggested so
very original a ground for attacking the administration
of a Lord High Commissioner. The CHANCELLOR of
the EXCHEQUER, it appears, is of opinion that Lord
DURHAM having received no salary for his services, the
length of his Lordship's wine-merchant's bill is not a
proper subject for Parliamentary investigation. Colonel
SIBTHORP thinks differently, and that is a sufficient
reason for much grave deliberation on our part
before coming to any decision upon the subject.
The only thing in the shape of a rational ob-
jection that can be urged agejnst the Hon. and
Gallant Gentleman's motion, exclusive of the CHANCEL-
LOr of the ExcnvauEa's explanation, is, that it does
not go far enough. Why limit inquiry to the cork-
screw expenses of the Noble Earl ? Why make a dis-
tinction between the eatables and the drinkables ? The
Gallant Gentleman gave it as his own opinion, " that
means should be taken to submit to the consideration of
the House all the expenses connected with his Lordship's
mission." We trust, if inquiry take place at all, the ad-
mirable suggestion which we have just quoted will
not be lost sight of. With the cork-screw and
fur-cloak expenses, let us have a clear account
of the ham and beef, tea and coffee, and bed
and blanket costs of the Canadian mission. The items
will, of course, supply all the information that such Con-
servative statesmen as Colonel SIBTHORP want, to qua-
lify them for framing a new Constitution for Canada.

Our readers will find in another column a reply to
the letter of Mr. Cumuli, inserted in The Sun of
Saturday, from the Auditors of the Church-rate Abo-
lition Society. We must candidly confess that it does