The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-30 00:00:00

but when they sendtheir corn to market, being, as we have
explained, under a compulsion to sell, then down go
prices, and the monied classes alone profit, or can profit,
by the variations in the price of wheat. Such is the
course of nature, and the poor farmers, who have been
deluded by the lying landlords into believing that they
can grow rich by defrauding other men, will find them-
selves ruined by that fine weather which makes the
hearts of all rejoice.
knowing the great interest which this sub-
ject of Corn-laws excites in the public, we have
looked day after day with some anxiety to know what
was to be said on it by the Journal which guides the
opinions of " three-fourths of the empire ;" but the
Times has been silent. It has continued to pub-
lish its usual instructive comparisons of the
price of the loaf here and abroad, which fur-
nished the materials for the celebrated Birmingham
banner; but on this question of vital interest to the
whole empire, which is stirring men up to think of the
effect of laws in the remotest corners of the land, the
leading columns of the leading Journal have not con-
tained a word. Hampered between its City con-
nections and its Tory politics, its former anathemas
against the Corn-laws and its present venera-
tion for Tory squires, the Times has been
dumb on the most interesting topic of the day. It
has written dissertations on the dissertations of Air.
ENEAS MACDONNEL, it has been beautifully elabo-
rate on the idiosyncracies of a learned Archbishop,
but has not said a word on the Corn-laws. Yet we
are indebted to it for one excellent illustration of their
effects. It yesterday noticed the sale of wool in Germany,
and informed our woollen manufacturers and the public
generally, that the most of the "purchases were made
on account of German manufacturers, the English
operations gradually diminishing every year." But even
this proof of the doubly injurious operation of the Corn-
laws, checking our trade with Germany, and promoting
the success of manufacturers there, did not louse it into a
word of comment on those devilish enactments. What
a pitiful, degraded thing has the once lordly a►td
mighty Times become I The poor vassal of the Tory
squires dare not now open his mouth on his once
favourite topic of the Corn-laws, because he knows he
must impeach their plunder. The Lady's-maid,
as it calls the Post, and Grandmarnma, as it nicknames
the Herald, are respectable Journals compared to the
once great Thundeter whose highest ambition it is now
to waddle along in the rear of his own duck-legged
drummer. Such degradation, the just consequence of
political apostacy, was never before witnessed since
Newspapers began to attract public attention.

If we may believe the Times, the country is at pre-
sent in a most perilous condition. Her shores may at
any moment be invaded, while she is unable to prevent
the " simultaneous capture or destruction of every arsenal,
every port, and every vessel of the United Kingdom." To
be sure this great danger seems the portentous offspring
of a union never very likely to be formed. The 60, or
rather 80 line-of-battle ships which belong to the three
aggressive powers in Europe—Russl7, France, and
Egypt (is Egypt in Europe ), are not at present very
likely to combine in an attack on our arsenals, ports, and
vessels. We have, too, in our immense mass of
merchant steamers, which might be very speedily
equipped for war, a force almost infinitely powerful,
and immeasurably superior to the fleets of ail the three
aggressive Powers united. We do not think so des-
picably, therefore, as our Contemporary of the physi-
cal means which the nation possesses to defend its
arsenals, ports, and vessels, were they to be seriously
threatened. At the same time the Times performs
good service to the public, in directing its attention
to the inefficiency of the Navy as compared to its im-
mense cost. We have copied from our Contemporary
both his observations and the detailed statement which
he has derived from a correspondent of the amount
and distribution of our naval force; and taking that in
conjunction with the vast expense of the Navy, the con-
sideration of the subject cannot be too strongly urged
on the public. Our Contemporary says :
" Nor can we conceive a question more vitally important to
the interests of mankind than an inquiry into the application
during the last twenty-two years of repose of the sum of
137,719,6061, exclusively devoted to a branch of our national
defence, on the efficiency of which alone repose the hopes of
peace, the balance of power, the security of commerce, or the
independence of any single state."
To have spent 137,719,6061. in 22 years on a

branch of our defence, which is admitted at present to
be altogether inefficient, is enough to make those stare
who have paid the money. When we say altogether
inefficient, we do so from remembering the statement
made in the House of Commons on the 25th of July
last, by Mr. C. WOOD, the Secretary to the Adtni-
ralty, namely, " that thirty sail of the line could be im-
mediately sent to sea,- we could get men for them."
Incomplete and inefficient as the list of ships supplied
by the Times may be, to cope with the three aggressive
Powers in Europe, there is no moral means of put-
ting above a fifth of that machinery in motion. The
fleet of Britain naustlie idle—even if Britain were at-

tacked—for want of m•n. 'With the greatest maritime
population in th• world, with millions of generous and
bold hearts, to whom enterprise is delight, to whom

the sea is a home, and the theatre of their country's
glory, the Government of Great Britain cannot man,
according to the Secretary of the Admiralty, thirty
line-of-battle ships. In fact, at this moment, and for
months and years past, the greatest difficulty has
been experienced in procuring men for the ships
that have been put into Commission. How is

this ? How is it that the maritime population of Eng-
land shrink from serving in the Navy, now when her
MAJESTY'S ships only make as it were voyages of
pleasure, and when they abound with comforts and

conveniences not to be found in any other ships of the
world ? The country possesses in her steam-ships and
in her men-of-war, ample physical means to dare all the
fleets of the world; but there are no sailors tobe found for
them. Officers abounds...he Admiralty is besieged with
them--the Navy List is crowded with them, hundreds
of them of all ranks have been, and are, begging for
employment, but there are no sailors.
.. Why is this ?
a question fully as important as the one we have bor-
rowed from the Times. It is, we answer, the neces-
sary consequence of that horrible practice—impress-
ment, which has begotten in all our maritime popula-
tion an overwhelming repugnance to the slave service
of the Navy. That abominable, that devilish practice,
stamps the service it is employed to provide men for with
all the characteristics of felony, and justly makes it
shunned by all the honourable and the free. Yet, after
twenty-two years peace, so besotted, or so brutally
negligent, have been all the Lords of the Admiralty,
that this odium remains as intense as ever, and in
case of a war the " bloody and brutal" practice
of impressment, causing mutiny, desertion, and
resistance, and again exciting even still more
intense hatred of the naval service than be-
fore in the minds of our maritime population,
will
again disgrace our country. The Government, whether
administered by Whigs or Tories, and the country,
whichever faction may have predominated, have long
ago been warned of this inevitable and natural result ;
and after 22 years confirmed and continued peace, not
effort has been made to remove from the minds of
Jr people the correct and just impression. Instead
of impressment having been for ever publicly re-
nounced and stigmatised by the Legislature as one of
the most unrighteous acts that ever disgraced a Go-
vernment, it has always been cherished at the Admi-
ralty, and maintained in Parliament, always kept
terrorent, as a means of getting men for ,
hanging UD7 in

one