The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-30 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN POLITICAL

SUMMARY.

The Morning Chronicle of this day, ailuding, to Mr.
O'Connell's speech on the question of repeal at the
Dublin Corn Exchange, on Wednesday last, observes
as follows :—" Mr. O'Connell may rest assured that
Britain will resist to the last any attempt to introduce
a state of things pregnant with danger to her indepen-
dence. A separate domestic legislature for Ireland
supposes the responsibility of men in office to that legis-
lature ; and it is quite certain that at critical conjec-
tures an Irish Parliament might not force the Execu-
tive to pursue a course of conduct detrimental to the
sakty of the larger island. There can be no more
reason for separating Ireland from England than for
separating the north from the south of the
Trent, and Scotland from both. If distance
from the capital of England is to be a reason,
Scotland is more remote than Ireland. But in
this age of rapid communication, the two islands are
not, taken another, of too large dimensions for one legis-
lature. It is true the English legislature, from its en-
cumbering itself with judicial and other incongruous
business—by attempting, in short, everything, does
nothing well ; but this evil must soon cure itself. But
be this as it may, the two countries are united for better
or worse ; and it is to be hoped that the very idea of a
possibility of separation will soon be thought as Quixotic
as, to borrow Mr. Canning's words, a return to the
Heptarchy."
The Morning Herald, in a leading article on the
subject of Mr. ‘Vyse's recent appointment, thus inci-
dentally refers to the Ministerial National Education
scheme :—" The scheme of National Education which
Lord Palmerston and his colleagues have conspired
with the enemies of the reformed religion to endeavour
to force through the agency of a servile House of Com-
mons on the people of England, is a rank Jesuitical
scheme. Mr. Wyse, whom those faithful Ministers of
the Protestant Crown have resolved upon making a
Lord of the Treasury, if not the originator of that
scheme, was one of its early concoctors. It came from
what is called the Central Board of Education to the
Jesuit-ridden Whig Cabinet. There never ema-
nated from the crafty children of Loyola a more
ingenious device for sliding into national patronage
a Popish plan of education under the pretence of
universal liberality. The mode by which it was
to be put into action, was also perfectly Jesuitical.
An honest Protestant Government would have invited
discussion upon a question so momentous as a scheme
of national education by bringing a Bill into Parlia-
ment. The Jesuit advisers of our accommodating
Ministry knew the scheme would not bear discussion,
and that it would have no chance of adoption except
where the votes of Government placemen, combined
with those of O'Connell and the tail, could overbear
public opinion. It was, therefore, that Lord John
Russell was advised to ask for a grant of money to set
the thing a going. Thirty thousand pounds could not go
very far in the work of national education. Yet this was
the golden hammer with which the point of the wedge
was to be driven in, and the point once in, it was thought
the rest would soon follow."

and the speculations of the corn-jobbers, says,
harvest,Vedo not want that any
speaking of the prospects of the
restrictions should be put
upon ter al ,noingthia'toasty such thing as the old decrees
for compulsory sales at a certain price should be re-
vived ; but we think it very reasonable that in so im-
portant a matter as the first necessary of life the people
should not suffer from ignorance—that they should not
he led to pay a very large price for their food upon
the vague terror of scarcity—the appearance of that
scarcity being produced by the operations of enor-
mously rich men, whose subtlety and activity are
only to be exceeded by their prodigious and insa-
tiable greediness of further gain to themselves, not
caring one jot who, or how many, may suffer in the
process. There is a great parade made now-a-days
about such statistical inquiries as are thought likely to
aid the arguments of speculative economists. The sta-
tistical inquiry we suggest is of immediate practical im-
portance to all who eat bread, and to whom the sum to
be paid for it is a consideration. We believe that in a
great many things—of which corn is the most important
—the effect of the operations of enormous capital in the
hands of a few persons is to inflict very great injury upon
the general consumer, and to swell the gains of those
who have already too much. The effect to which we
refer is the antagonist one to that of competition. The
huge dealers are cunning enough to see that com-
petition, however good for the public, would be by
no means good for them, and, therefore, they sub-
stitute combination."

The Times thus speaks of the intended co-operation
of the Christian Knowledge Society, with the New Zea-
land Land Company :—" The co-operation which the
company have received from the Society for Propa-
gating Christian Knowledge has struck us with astonish-
ment. We had always imagined that the conductors
of that society were stanch sticklers, not only for the
principle of a church establishment, but for the exclu-
sive right of the Episcopal Protestant communion, to be
legally recognized and alimented throughout the British
colonies. Surely, they must be aware of the fact that
the New Zealand Association, though craftily stipu-
lating that an English bishop and clergy should be
settled in their proposed dominions, and supported
by voluntary contribution, distinctly intimated that all
sects of Christians carrying out with them a pastor of
their own choice should meet with equal encouragement.
On what principle, then, the venerable society can have
agreed to contribute to the voluntary maintenance of a
New Zealand clergyman, whose supplementary income
is guaranteed by the company for only three years, we
are wholly at a loss to imagine. At all events, before
giving their high moral sanction to such an unaccredited
adventure, it would have been infinitely more judicious
and dignified had they waited for the legal establishment
of the colony." _