The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-17 00:00:00

stantial advantage. Their present wages would, with
a lower price of corn, purchase a considerably larger quantity
of bread. And why should wages afterwards be lowered ? If
the profits of the masters should increase, as they would by an
extended trade, there would be no necessity for lowering
wages. Nay, the extension of the trade, by increasing the
demand for labour, would keep up the price ; so that the
masters could not lower wages if they would. There are
always two parties to the reduction of wages; the work-
men are one of those parties, and we scarcely need say that
they would not submit to a reduction unless they found it ne-
cessary. Now, an increasing trade would prevent this neces-
sity. It would improve the profits of the masters, and better
enable them to pay fair wages.
" If we were to admit the argument of the agricultural ad-
vocates in its fullest extent, it would only go to this, that the
workmen would not gain by a repeal of the Corn-laws. No
one pretends that they could possibly lose iv that measure.
But we do not admit the argument as valid. If our foreign
trade yields a good profit, surely there is a larger loaf to divide
between the master and the workman than when the trade

yields a scanty profit. There is no pretence for say-
ing that the master would or could secure the whole
benefit to himself. On the contrary, the workmen would
stand on the vantage ground of established wages—a most im-
portant advantage, from which it would be extremely difficult
to remove them, even if there were any motive for so doing.
But the master would not have this motive so long as he was
enjoying the profit of an extended trade. It is possible that
ultimately, when the number of manufacturing operatives be-
came equal to the demand, there rn;ght be some reduction of
wages ; but this is not certain ; whilst it is certain that the
immediate effect of the repeal of the Corn-laws would be to
increase the real wages of the labourer, that is, to make his
wages go further in purchasing the necessaries of life ; and it
is equally certain that whatever tends to increase and to secure
the trade of the country must tend permanently to the advan-
tage of the operatives who live by that trade."
However, we are not much afraid of the sophistries of
the landlord while the loaf is at its present price.—lllorn-
ing Chronicle. . .

To the preservation of Authority in a Constitutiona
Government, the first essential is the support of Public
Opinion. Without this, laws may be passed by the ruling
powers, coercive agencies may be employed to enforce their
operation, tyranny may cast its victims into prison, or
slaughter them in the field or on the scaffold, and, for the
day, even freedom of thought may be punished as a crime,
but in vain ! There is inherent in truth, justice, and liberty,
a recuperative power, invincible alike to force and fraud,
which, though prostrate for a time, sooner or later de-
veloping itself in proportion to the oppression which would
crush it, rescues humanity from degradation and thraldom.
The history of all countries, but especially of Great
Britain, furnishes abundant evidences of the truth of
this position. In the struggles of States amongst them-
selves, victory, influenced by a multiplicity of causes,
may declare indifferently_ for any of the hostile powers ;
but in the struggles of Authority with Opinion, when a
State—its component parts revolting against each other—
wars, as it were, with itself, however protracted the con-
flict, the result is never dubious, the will of the people—
Puhlic Opinion—has ever been, and will ever be, trium-
phant. When a contrary issue appears to have taken
place, it will be found on examination that what might be
presumel to he Public Opinion had either from theigoorance
or apathy of the people in reality no effective existence.
But what we assert is, that Public Opinion, guided by in-
tellect and urged on by activity, is as irresistible as the fiat
of destiny itself. Aaainst this it is madness for Authority,
with whatever prestige surrounded, with whatever associ-
ations recommended, or whatever external agencies
supported, it is rna Incas for Authority to dare a col-
liston. A fearful warning to all future time, and to all
Governrue.et-s, of the consequences of thie madness
was furnished at the close of the last century in the
French revolution. At that time, Authority had many
opportunities of malting a favourable compromise with
Opinion ; but inebriated with long indulged excesses, it
teemed concession, or coecedei only when Opinion, pro-
-d by opposition, had put forth fresh claims. It con
to-day what would have contented yesterday, and
red till the morrow what would hive been sufficient
:r to-day. And thus never giving satisraction, differences
t first of comparatiely easy ad;ustreent, at length became
nreeoneilsble, the " mighty Opposites" came into deadly
coelet, and, as might have been foreseen, Authority was
annihilated. Noe let Opinion alone be blamed for the
horrors which marked her triumph ; on the contrary, they
may be regarded almost as the necessary result of over-
strained and oppressive Authority. Freed from tile
shackles of ages, the human rniad ran wild iu its newly
recovered freedom, it coated to the utmost heights and
sunk to the lowest depths of its faculties ; for in justice to
man's nature be it ever borne in mind, that if the horrors of
the French revolution were appalling, in no other phase of its
existence did the human mind ever exhibit more elevated and
go:ilike attributes. The horrors of the revolution were an
acci(lent, its glories were inherent in itself. At present,
letoever, we merely refer to it as an instance of the incom-
petency of Authority to oppose effectual opposition to
Opinion. Similar instances of a less marked, but not less
conclusive character are to be found at home. Without
reverting to former times let us adduce occurrences fresh
in the memory of all. Authority for years refused Catholic
emancipation, for years kept the country oscillating on the
verge of civil commotion, till at length in its extremity seek-
ing to strengthen its position by an oath, which it had
not the power to keep, it only made the impotence of its
malevolence ludicrous, when irresistible Opinion enforced
a compliance With the demands of justice. Authority
for years, too, opposed a Reform of the representation,
threw those who questioned its supremacy into dun-
geons, even brought some to the scaffold, and massacred
others—as at Peterloo and elsewhere—without the
formality of law ; yet Opinion ultimately exacted even
greater concessions than these cruelties were per-
petrated to oppose. But why enumerate instances,
when every political good which we enjoy has
been at one time or another wrested from Authority by
the force of Opinion ? We allude to the past only, that
the circumstances of the present may be the better under-
stood. Authority and Opinion are now arrayed in mina-
tory opposition, and the first duty of every citizen is to
effect their reconciliation, and bring them into friendly and
harmonious action. We intend not to play the sycophant
to either party, but to examine impartially the exigencies
of the time, and guard against the evil consequences of
having two principles, which should be auxiliary to each
other, acting in perpetual opposition. Fortunately, we
need not now fear the interruption of social order, how-
ever Mr. Oastler and the Times may labour to excite the
masses to violence. The people of England have too
much experience of their moral influence, to which they are
already indebted for so many blessings, to be betrayed into
violent action by the rabid declamation of fanaticism, or
the incendiary suggestions of those seeking an opportunity
or a pretext to exclude them from their rights, and perpe-
tuate their bondage. The advantage of peaceful over vio-
lent appliances in the improvement of political systems can-
not be better exemplified than by a contrast between this
country and France. Great Britain, by the judicious and
peaceful application of that mighty engine—Opinion, has
effected more for the right of her citizens and for the in-
terests of liberty, without the sacrifice of a single life, than
has France through the whole series of her sanguinary re-
volutions. But apart from the danger of violence, there
are many points of resemblance between the present con-
dition of Great Britain and that of France prior to its first
revolution, the most striking of which is the relative posi-
tions of the aristocracy, the Church, and the people. Ex-
clusion, aggression, spoliation, and hypocrisy, supported by
ancient prestige on one side, a sense of wrong, intelligence
revolting against injustice and cant, and supported by
million numbers on the other. Different as may be
the consequences and the mode of conflict, the victory
can in neither case be doubtful. Looking thus on
the success of the people as secure, we are more
anxious to impress on the public the necessity of modera-
tion in the hour of triumph, than to urge them to enforce
to their utmost limits those abstract rights which, how-
ever indisputeble in theory, and from the progres of in-
telligence and politiCal enfranchisement for the last few
years, we might add, certain of ultimate accomplishment,
could not be immediately consummated without causing a con-
cussion of existing interests which it might be more desirable,
and undoubtedly safer, to avoid. We arc not, nor are the
British people, so anxious for great and rapid strides in the
movement of reform, as for safe, sure, and steady progres-
sion ; nor do we believe that the mighty manifestations
now making in all parts of the kingdom would ever have
had existence, if even a moderate share of justice had
been conceded to the people in the last four sessions.
Had even the Ballot been conceded, which would have
given opportunity to the present constituency to give ex-
pression to their real sentiments in the election of repro,
sentatives, the people would for years have been contented
with the partial effect which would thus he given to
their wishes in the legislature. But the delay of justice
has merely enlarged the limits to which it will now be en-
forced. Still we should prefer taking a position that may
be practically sustaieed; to one which expediency may ren-
der of uncertain stability. Public opinion will this day
proclgirri itself in Westminster, Palace-yard will send forth a
voice which will make St. Stephen's ring with a reluctant echo,
asel Rven the Lords themselves, though the precaution we
believe has Keen taken to prevent public meetings in their
Luieity during the of Parliament, will be compelled
ilea's Assembly, to re-
' by the reeerberation from this
fromtheir wont, the
neo assemble. We have no
ceive in. a manner fee different
besides Ike reasons already
lamasepinion when they
Be the result, however, what
apprehension of viole.nce, for,
tvitl
a feeetioes actor obsers es of
the fair claims of the
we
duel--" there
saihl nn fear
withheldre
it may, it is those o
be no oect::!
se .
or °messed them
and either cajoled, betray.
...1 , . by
Pi •-• • _ .• ,-;10, who arc solely reepense--.7 for itc‘
mere Ineel'E.lL
--,-4.•stotion.-111erning Adpcidiser.
irreseettuis Leen s
present
• •' of eineer-Leer, which is typified in
The peletteas botae

vV c

c, cte

the meeting of the Working Men's Association, will be
this day opened in Palace Yard. To legalize the pro-
ceedings, the High Bailiff of Westminster is to draw the
cork—all England is to be startled by the pop--and among
the people (we can at least credit this part of the mani-
festo) the froth is to run over in exuberant abundance.
We can easily imagine the whirring, and spitting, and
fizzing, that is likely to ensue, for the stuff is well fer-
mented, the bottle is fairly up, and has made sufficient.
noise previous to the cutting of the string to allow of the
inference that it will not go off without a moderate explo-
sion. In the result, however, we do not precisely see any-
thing alarming, although Government Papers are writing
about it in a visible spirit of trembling,and although some of
their Correspondents would persuade us that the Tories are
trembling too. For instance, a writer in the Globe says—
" The approaching congregation of the Radicals in Palace-
yard on Monday next, is looked forward to with feelings of
the most opposite kind by the Radicals themselves, and by the
Tories. The Radicals look forward to it with joy—tbe Tories
with grief. The Radicals think it will be a glorious triumph
for their party, and the Tories think that it will be a bittfr
discomfiture to theirs." '
With all deference to the sapience of Cupid's Corres-
pondent, we beg to assume that the- Tories are exactly the
parties who not only do not think of it with grief and dis-
comfiture, but who do not think of it at alb L--or if they do,
regardit just as a'sort of collision of mob versus Ministers,
which the latter g,entry, ;have brought upon themselves.
The Tories have nothing to do with the, affair.. They have
never taken part in oridentified themselves with any mea-
sure to set up a democracy, and destroy the existing insti-
tutions of the country ; and, therefore, they have nothing
to fear from, or care about, a demonstration avowedly got
up for the hastening of such purposes. But Cupid's im-
partial friend, in pourtraying an imaginary state of mind
for Tories and Radicals upon the occasion, ingeniously
from hinting at the feelings of the Whig Minis-
ters. Now, we confess, it occurs to us that these are the
most implicated of all—and if with the fear and jealousy
inspired within them by the " demonstration" are not
blended some consciousness of crime and folly, and some
twingings of self-reproach—the materials of their political
heart must be hard in proportion to the softness of the
head. They found among the lowest and most ignorant of
the community a festerirg spirit of insubordination and re-
bellion against not only our wisest laws, but against the
essential spirit of our Government, and the principles of
our limited monarchy—for years they encouraged it to
serve party purposes, and novr they begin to discover that
the poultices they have been from time to time applying
have brought things to a bead which they are weak enough
to regard as ernim•nt:y dangerous. The Tories—with all
the terrors of Palace-yard in their mind's-eye at pre-
sent—think no such thing ; but they vie not the less
assured that Ministers deserve all the consummation
which they fear. They have been mob-worshippers
for power, and they have no right to complain of
finding themselves mob-slaves. Formerly they were always
telling the people that their mob-meetings, or, as they then
used to call them, " their glorious displays of moral and
and physical power," could and would carry all the boons
which the Whigs (could they but become Ministers), were
anxious to bestow upon them. Now, when they have got
place and are ready to make any sacrifice to keep it, but
when they find themselves inconvenienced in it by an out-
cry on the part of the lower orders for more than they bar-
gained to give them, they change their tone, and declare
(in the words of the Globe's correspondent) that although
to meet in such assemblies" it is their privilege—it is their
right—there may be circumstances which make the exer-
eiS3 of that privilege, or that right, not only extremely
injudicious, but exceedingly wrong"—they put it,
" whether the Radical meeting, on Monday next, be
not a case in paint." And they ask "by this meeting, by
the late liirmin4hdin meeting, or by any other meeting
they may choose to boll, will the success of their cause be
advanced one jot nearer to the goal for which they are
aiming ?' When we reflect that such ram has avowedly
for its ultimatum the establishment of a democracy and
the active operation of measures and principles subversive
of monarchy and social order. We say " God forbid !"
hut we are not the less certain that, were such means as
these meetings to produce such mischiefs as they are in-
tended to produce, the guilt and the responsibility would
lie, with a bitter though well-deserved retribution, at the
door of the Wuig place-seekers, who organised and encou-
raged that system of agitation, and taught the people
absurdly to think that the only mode of vindicating their
moral paver was by displaying their physical force. We
must rep-at, however, that we do not partake of the
anxiety which the Globe and other Ministerial organs vainly
attempt to conceal under an affected fearlessness and indif-
ference—anxiety which, however, has less reference to the
one meeting which takes place to-day in Palace-yard than
to the organised system cf agitation which seems to threaten
the Ministers with the loss of their places if they do not
accede to the preposterous demands of those who would
long crc this have turned them out—with the peculiar gra-
titude of mobs and mob leaders—if the Conservatives had
not interposed to preserve them in seats which the Morn-
ing Chronicle is alike boastful and admiring that they still
co.:tinue to occupy. Au resle, when the meeting has trans-
pired we may have more to say on the subject.—Morning
-Post.

A short time since Lord Lewisham, the eldest son
of Earl Dartmouth, on attaining his seventeenth year, gave a
trsat to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and the oppor-
tunity was seized upon to send forth to the world a good deal
of Conserrative talk. Every cock, says an old English adage,
can crow upon his own dungheap ; and the truth of the adage
was proved at Bromwich on this occasion.-13ri9hton Herald.
A few days ago a gentleman, whilst on an excur-
sion in the mountains at a few leagues' distance from Cler-
mont Ferrand, made a providential discovery of a young
female child, deserted by its inhuman parents, and left to
perish in a state of complete nudity in an excavation among
some rocks. He immediately proceeded with the object- of
his solicitude to the nest village, and made his declaration tc
the authorities. The strictest inquiries have been set on foot
by the Procureur du Roi of Clermont to discover the barbarous
parents of the child, but hitherto all the attempts made to
bring them to justice have proved unavailing.
PIRACY AND MURDfR.—The sailors whom we
stated to have been arrested at Emden, in Hanover, after
the wreck of their vessel off Borkum, have confessed that the
ship was the Braganza, of Norfolk, whose captain, it will be
recollected, was murdered by the crew, who afterwards robbed
the passengers, and embarked them in the longboat, from wkich
situation they were released by a vessel belonging to Scar-
borough. A full account of this act of piracy and murder was
given on the Ist instant, under our shipping head.
A general commercial agent in Bordeaux, named
Serafen, was assassinated in the streets of that city on Sun-
day night, from motives, it is believed, of private vengeance.
He was stabbed several times in the back with a poniard. A
young man, hearing his cries, came to his assistance, but the
unfortunate man expired aeon after being conveyed to the
Hospital. His assassin has not been discovered.
An interesting discovery has been recently made by
M. Ernest Alby, while examining the 900 folio volumes of
manuscripts of the Deputy collection, preserved in the Royal
Library, of the autographic and unpublished correspondence
between Catherine of Bourbon, Princess of Navarre, and her
brother, henry IV. These letters are said to be full of inte-
resting details of the private life of that Princess, and of her
resistance to the religious zeal of her brother, who endea-
voured to induce her to abjure the reformed religion. The
Minister of Public Instruction has authorised M. Alby to
publish these documents, which throw quite a new light on
parts of the history of the 16th century.
ROYALTY AND LONGEVITY.—The Bon Sens
rweimilai,rks tha
t, on
attained
thhies
66th8 t h oyf October,
ear,being tbKeinfigni t Loufuis
the Philippeorlea
us
famAilyftehwat
daysever laivgeud,tao that a
beautifulge milk-white jay was shot
at Woodlands, near this town, and a rose coloured thrush was
also killed at Bawtry.--,Doneaster Gazette.

LIGHTNING.---On the evening of the sth instant
th;lingeehts o
lightning struck
and Fort L
havingagar thrown d et, raotPn dratozwdn
part of a wall,
au
eA I o 11 o ,int he
prn,
entered a room in the barracks, were seven men of the sth
Light Infantry were asleep, each on his own bed, killed three
cf them instantaneously, and deprived one of his sight, and
otherwise seriously affected him. The rest were injured, but
more slightly. The fluid passed down through the floor, and
in the room beneath wounded a sergeant. This is the fur-
thest point south at which we have heard of anything like the
storm which affected the north of France at the same moment
agweesa,,earst tilnte
town
nte
being felt.
onl f Saturdaylt .
per
their
rthwe
An all,:ct.'aist ipoani
paid
to. table,
SUPERB SPECTACLE.--There was to be seen this
shilling,
nanbdoanstotoaf,sivi:;.l,e
salifieavfeled till it
week, at Wheatley, near Gainsborough, a sight which perhaps
antrose Review.
hundred
vacerr
was all down. It is called Wheatley field; there arc two
others, each containing five hundred acres one sown with
ye
fieldfew counties,o%v h eat ,i f
all any,
sh shorn,
buns, the other is in fallow. —Hull Advertiser.
THE WIT OF A SCHOOLBOY.---A short time
since, as a well-known English master in a Grammar School
was censuricg his pupil for the dullness of his comprehen-
sion, and conenting to instruct him in a sum in Practice ; he
said—" Is not the price of a penny
.loaf always a penny y
when the buy innocently answered— ' No, Si*, the bakers
vll them two for three halfpence when they are stale."
Many persons, who have lived all their lives in Li-
vapocl, are not aware that Snowdon and the Isle of Man are
frequently visible with the naked eye from Everton and the
neighbourhood of the town ; yet such is the fact.
The Devizes Gazelle slates, that on the day of the
exrcuticn tin.re, last v
ceek, of the man named Mastic, no-
,. a:ds of I,CGO persons were drank in I,ln, townwho had, corile
in to witness the execution. The same journal says, f` Silci
:7C; nra of drunkenness and thhauchei,y we have scarcely before
witnessed.!?
INSECTS Or Tqr. GOLD cOAST.--A new s„e_
t.
cies (.4 the Polt;ltb!.2.s beetle is an object of commercial as well
las entomological vahle, as much as 0 i. haviog heent;iyo foi-
a F,pecinis.n. Formerly 201. to 25/. was an ordinary price.