The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 29, 183*

drawn from the House of Commons a declaration " that
no means are to be omitted which can tend to secure to
the negro population of her Majesty's Colonies the privi-
leges to which they are entitled under the Act for the
abolition of Slavery." If Ministers had in the first
instance proposed some resolution of that kind, and had
shown a disposition voluntarily to ensure jus:ice for the
slaves, rather than to side with the planters ; and if they
had openly stated that the present system, having been
established, to last till 1840, all their plans, and all the
plans of the Colonial Legislatures, had been adopted with
a view to that period, they would have prevented much
of that agitation, which has not tended, in eonjunction
with their conduct, to augment their influence in the
country. But when they put forward the compro-
mises entered into between the Ministers of 1833
and the West India interest, and between the several
parties in Parliament, as an effectual bar to the
progress of humanity and justice, they compelled their best
friends to oppose them, and excited that agitation which
has given them both trouble and alarm. What has been
gained, however, is an encouragement for the friends of the
negroes to persevere, and the chance victory of the 3 is an
assurance that perseverance is certain, at some time or
other, to obtain the advantage.
The Times says " the Tories rescued the Ministers from
the mire ;" in fact the Tories were before wallowing in it
and stepping on them, the Ministers reached the dry-ground
of a majority. We can almost rejoice at the success which
keeps the Tories deep in their own slough. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL did avow respect for some of the agitators—Sir
ROBERT PEEL disdained to Sill/Wit to Exeter Hall. Formerly
the Tories called public meetings a farce, and now Exeter
Hall, backed by 3,000 petitions, a ith upwards of a million
signatures, is usurping the power of Parliament. We have
looked of late with sonic anxiety to see the Eight Hon.
Baronet notice certain proceedings at Exeter Hall, by dis-
countenancing which he would have earned the approbation
of all good men ; but as long as it was occupied by the
champions of intolerance, as long as they were inflaming
religious bigotry in order to place political power in the
hands of the Tories, Sir ROBERT PEEL silently approved.
When its diseussionswent to keep alivenational and religious
animosities, he was dumb ; but he derides them the instant
they are directed to promote the good of mankind, to
nourish Christian feelings and brotherly love, and chain up
the arm of the oppressor. The mire then out of which
the Tories have so condescendingly helped the Ministers, is
that in which the Tories have wallowed all their political
lives, contempt for the public ; and having now again
fixed the Tories in it chin deep, ,ve hope that the Ministers
will not once more plunge in it to keep them company.
We see in the debate another evidence of a great advan-
tage gained for the people. Driven to defence, the Tories
are obliged to propound sound doctrines, though in behalf
of a race of oppressors. Sir ROBERT PEEL argued against
giving the apprentices immediate freedom, because that
would be a punishment for some just and indulgent masters.
He could not consent to a penalty from which all the innocent
were not excluded, and in which all the guilty were not
comprehended. How nicely careful was this legislator
for the planters, though he condemned the whole of the in-
nocent apprentices to suffering ; and. when lie next advo-
cates a Coercion Law for Ireland, a suspension of the
Habceas Corpus, or any other favourite Tory scheme, to
diminish the public liberties, or punish a whole nation for
the faults or crimes of few, we shall remind him and the
whole of his party of his last night's doctrines : we shall
insist—on his principle that it is wrong to make a law ap-
plicable to all the planters, because only a great majority of
them have been oppressors and tyrants—that it is monstrous
to propose an oppressive law for a whole nation, because a
very small minority have been foolish or criminal,

Dire must be the apprehensions of the Orange landed
aristocracy of Ireland, respecting the effects of the proposed
Poor-law for that country, if sve may infer the extent of
their fears from the rancour of their denunciations of that
measure in the House of Lords last night. Lord Ronaa's
iterror of the POPE is nothing compared with the shrinking
horror with which he contemplates the future state and
dignity of a Poor-law Commissioner-seated in College-green,
as potent for good as the magnates of the land are for evil.
Their Lordships looked aghast when the Noble Earl cor-
roborated the discovery made by Lord LYNDHURST, that
!she Bill gave the Commissioners an unlimited power of
taxing property for the relief of the destitute ; forgetful of
'the fact that such a power is claimed and exercised by
four-fifths of the landlords of Ireland in the shape of rack-
rent exactions, not to relieve distress, but to support extra-
vagance, and to foster vice. The power of the rich to grind
the faces of the poor, in order that they may spend their
lives in one round of heartless dissipation, in a country where
their cars cannot be pained with the groans of their victims,
excites no indignation in the breasts of our hereditary Legis-
lators ; but the instant it is proposed to establish the right
of the starving poor to a morsel of bread and a temporary
shelter from the inclemency of the weather, they are up
in arms, astounded at the wickedness of an age cpable of
sanctioning such an invasion of what they are pleased to
call the inviolability of property. The death of 'a poor
family of starvation is nothing compared with the terrible
idea of compelling a lady of rank to give up her box at the
opera, and her attendance at the morning concerts of all the
musical amateurs of a fashionable metropolis. Lord RoDEN
all but melted his noble audience into tears by citing the case
of an Irish gentleman reduced to the necessity of subsisting
on five hundred a year, although his rent-roll was equal to as
many thousands. Were the poor the causes of so large a
defalcation ? Did the tenantry withhold their rents, or
the gentleman in question expend them in providing for the
wants of the destitute ? Not at all. The property was
mortgaged—one of the usual consequences of bad manage-
ment and extravagance. It would have been easy to cite
the cases of half a million of honest peasants in Ireland
who, for more than thirty weeks in the year are without
two regular meals a clay of potatoes and salt ; but we doubt
much whether the recital of their unmerited priva-
tions, would touch the hearts of the Peers so forcibly as the
poor gentleman with the long rent roll and the lank purse.
At all events, we are persuaded that it would be an easier
task to induce them to legislate for the augmentation of
the five hundred a-year for the individual, than for increasing
by another meal of potatoes the physical comforts of half a
million of their starving fellow countrymen.
There must be something radically vicious in the state of
a society capable of tolerating such glaring perversions of the
principles of justice as were exhibited in the House of Lords
last night. To hear the right of the conmunity to preserve the
lives its members by taxation called in question by indi=
viduals claiming for themselves the privilege of oppressing
them by precisely the same process, is to witness the de-
plorable extent to which the idea of hereditary distinc-
tion is capable of warping and impairing the judgment.,
It seems never to have occurred to Lords RODEN am_
WICK-LOW, that the right of the labourer to the means of
comfortable subsistence is the strongest of all rights—a right
which in a wholesome state of society would take
precedence of all others. The proposed Poor-law
Bill—supposing it to be as bad as Lords Loa-
DONDERRY, WICKLOW, RODEN, FITZWILLIASI, and
FITZGERALD, last night represented it to be—confers no
more power upon the Poor-law Commissioners than is
claimed for their own sole benefit by all the Landlords in
Ireland ; and it is precisely because the Irish landlords
have exercised this power, in a manner the most tyrannical
and oppressive, that they now cry out against the esta-
blishment of a merciful counteracting principle.
We are far from being satisfied with the conduct of the
supporters of this Bill in the Upper House. They have
not taken any high ground in their advocacy of the right
of tile people of Ireland to the protection of a Poor-law.
They seem to shrink from admitting the principle in its
fullest extent ; and are consequently driven to defend their
own measure on the plea of expediency alone. But even
here they are weaker than we deemed it possible for them
to be—supposing them to have paid due regard to the
information furnished by the Commissioners. They
appear not to be sensible of tile stimulus which
the first operation of a Poor-law would give to
industry in a country so abounding in unexplored
mines of wealth as Ireland. The Peers on all
sides, with the sole exception of Lord Meaßooltar, have
taken a narrow and imperfect view of this question. They
see not an inch beyond their own pockets, and consequently
they are blind even to their personal interests. A good
itnhteoliotc;al rate ; the value of
Poor Law would do more to tranquillize Ireland than a
standing army fifty thousand strong. Ireevlaenryddoinsctreitertaun,oquulidl,
would be bene-
linancrde,aasned,property, would rapidly,
ecanpeoituarlaigneabinudnudsatnryc,etwo oduirnldirfl,ioswh
se
themselves
fitted in an almost equal ratio with the people.
andee every other
the descriptionlandlord st ef m

The whole of the Paris Journals of Sunday have been
received, but their contents are of no political interest. In
the Chamber of Deputies on Saturday a very warm debate
took place on the presentation of a petition from the editor
of the Echo du Peuple, a Journal published at Poitiers,
complaining of a violation of his personal liberty. The
petition set forth that the editor had been the subject of
twenty-four Government prosecutions for violations of the
laws relating to the Press, and that on every occasion a
Jury had solemnly adjudged him innocent ; that the last
time he was imprisoned six months before trial, and that no
redress was offered him when his innocence was established.
He therefore prayed the Chamber for redress and protec-
tion. If the statements set forth in this petition be proved
correct, they will not fail to have a serious effect upon the
popularity of the Government.
The following are extracts from the Journals :

We have received the following from Algiers, of May 19 :--" Marshal
Vallee, whose health seemed to be sensibly improved, is dangerously ill.
It is feared that at all events he will be obliged to return to France."

The Phare de 13a.yonme of the :4th says :—" Munagorri arrived yes.

terday at Bayonne, coming from Sare on the eastern frontier."—Coz-
stitntionn cl.

A letter from Sarragossa of the 21st informs us that a Carlist expe-
dition of twelve battalions and eight squadrons had arrived at Verdun
in Upper Arraion on the 19t h In the evening. According to this letter
Don Carlos and the Infant Don Sebastian were with this column, and
on the other hand we learn from Jaca that the Carlists have plunder ed
Salvatierra, Villa Heal, Majoris, and Gionstala. They carried
off whatever they could find, and committed odious excesses. The
unfortunate inhabitants have to regret the loss of the principal persons
among them, whom the Carlists have taken away with them.
The Phare de Bayonne of the 24th inst. has the following letter :
" BMW:3A, Ma,: 25.—The inhabitants of Biscay, who arc under the
power of the Carlists, are treated with extreme rigour, in order to ex-
tort from them the payment of the forced loan which has lately been
imposed on them by the Pretemler to satisfy his troops. Several inha-
bitants of Elorrio, taxed at sums of 10,000 to 20,000 francs, and who
cannot now realize the trifle of 50 francs, have been thrown into dun-
geons and loaded with ill treatment."—Le Commerce, May 27.
According to our letters from the frontiers of Spain, it appears that
the Chrlstinos are going to send a great part of their force into Arragon.
Their intention is supposed to be to besiege Morella and Cantavieja, but
we have already stated Cabrera is manoeuvring to protect those two
places. This is doubtless the ground of the movement which he has
lately made, and which was mentioned in the last telegraphic dispatch.
—Gazette de France.

EPSOM RACES.

(THIS DAY.)

The Craven Stakes of 10 sous. each ; three years old, 6st. : four,
Bst ; five, Bst. 91b. ; six, 9st. 21b. ; and aged, 9st. 51b. The lass
mile and a quarter.
LOrd Suffield's Caravan
Marquis of Westminster's Richard Roe
Lord G. Bentinek's Seth
Mr. Rayner's Quo Minus
Mr. Bond's Young Kean
Lord Exeter's Hybiscus

..Pavis

Won cleverly.
The Woodcote Stakes of 30 sovs. each, h. ft. ; two yrs old colts,
Bst. 61b. ; fillies, Sit. 31b. Last half mile.
Mr. Worrall's Peon
Captain Gardnoes Actaeon
The Shirley Stakes of 25 sovs. each, for three years old; colts
Bst. 71b ; fillies, Sst. 41b. One mile.
Sir G. lieathcote's Tawney Owl
Lord Stradbroke's Beggarman
Won easy.
RESTORATION OF CHARLES II

Chapple

This being the day appointed—for the commemoration of the Restora-
tion of King Charles the Second to the throne of these kingdoms, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, accompanied by several Members,
the Sergeant-at-Arms, and other officers of the House, attended divine
service at St Margaret's, Westminster, where an excellent sermon was
preached by the Right Hon. Gentleman Chaplain, from the 139th
Psalm, 3d verse :—" Thou compassest my path, and my lying down, and
art acquainted with all my ways."

ELECTION COMMITTEES.
(THIS DAY.)