The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-18 00:00:00

LIT A T

ALISON'S .111.97101? Y OF EUROPE. VoI,VII.

Illustrated

Our great English Refortner—Charles J.imes Fox
—whose political principles wee more akin with
those of the Radicals than with those of the i'Vhigs
of our gcneration —is represewed in the preseiit
volume in an en graving taken by W. 11. Eg,letoci,
from the celebrated portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The embellishment is appropriate to the current por-
tion of Mr. Alison's History of Europe, seeing that
that portion is descriptive of the clo,ing scenes of the
life of the illustrious orator and statesman. Apart
from his memorable eloquence, and the glorious libe-
rality of his views as to the cove ntnent of the United
Kingdom, Fox would always be entitled to remem-
brance and admiration as the friend at once of Eng-
land and of Napoleon. liad he, however, possessed
the courage to utter, as Minister of this country, the
noble words delivered before the House of Commons
in 1848 by Lord Palmerston—" What is it to Eng-
land whether France chooses to be governed by a
President, a Consul, a King, or an Emperor ?"—these
islands and the whole continent might have been saved
from a long and bloody war, the English people might
have been spared a vast portion of that national in-
cubus, the debt of 800,000,0001., and the great soldier
might have died in his Imperial Palace of the
Tuileries, leaving France powerful, happy, and pros-
perous. As it is, what has England or Europe
gained by the wars undertaken at the behest of the
Allied Sovereigns ? A series of tremendous revolu-
tions. While, in 1849, the representative of Na-
poleon's dynasty, in spite of all the wars, of all the
expenditure of blood and money, in spite of the exe-
crable cruelties perpetrated at St. Helena, presides
over the French nation—the ashes of the august
Dead reposing meanwhile "on the banks of the
Seine, in the midst of the people he loved so well I"
Behold the passive vengeance of that people. . .
The splendid Atlas accompanying this beautiful edi-
tion of " Alison" is, as a matter of course, continued
with due regularity.

THE ECLECTIC REVIEW.
The Eclectic for October opens with a paper which
we recommend to the serious attention of those
Protectionists who make such a parade of their
religion and of their love for the poor.
They surely cannot be aware that the restoration of
that protection for which they so loudly call
would be inevitably attended with an in-
crease in the number of our criminals, exactly,
proportioned to the increase in the price of food occa-
sioned by the restoration of that protection ; but
here we have it proved, demonstrated mathe-
matically, that dear food means increase of crime,
and cheap food means decrease of crime ; that
whenever food is dear the inmates of our gaols
are increased in number, that whenever it
is cheap the number of our criminals
is decreased ; that protective duties, therefore, which
tend to raise the price of food are as
immoral as impolitic, and that an increase
in our criminal population is part of the
price we pay for the supposed benefits to be
derived from the existence of a territorial aristo-
cracy, always supposing, as the Protectionists contend,
that the reimposition of import duties on articles of
food is necessary to its support. We hope that this
ar:icla will be reprinted in the form of a tract and
extensively circulated. It cannot but do much good
in E xposing those Protecticnist fallacies, which are
generally at this season of the year brought out for
ventilation at agricultural meetings. The following
extract will give our readers some idea of the admi-
rable manner in which the writer conducts his argu-
ment :

" Why, after all, it may be asked, should variations in
the quantity of food produce so great a difference in the
condition of the people, as to engender so fearful an
augmentation of crime? The answer lies in a nutshell.
The essential condition of all production is, that the
producer shall be fed. Fed on any diet—plain or luxu-
rious—but so fed that the cravings of hunger arc satis-
fied, and health and strength are maintained. Food, too,
is the largest portion of a working man's expenditure.
A deficient harvest places him on short allowance—it
does more, it limits his employment. If the sole conse-
quence of a deficient harvest were that the food pro-
ducers took a larger share of what all the other classes
produce—if, in one word, a part of that portion of a
weaver's earnings which, in a full supply and a low price
of food, he spent in clothing, or in foreign and colonial
produce, were taken by the toed producer, in the shape
of increased price for his wheat and other grain, all that
happened would be this, that production of all kinds
(apart from agriculture) would go on as before, and the
difference to those other producers would be, that they
would have fewer new garments, less beer and spirits,
tobacco and sugar, &c. But this is an impossible case.
A rise in the price of food checks the consumption of all
other commodities by the mass of the people; hence the
stock of all commodities, apart from food, accumulates,
production is at once contracted, imports are checked,
and wages diminish in absolute amount at one end of the
working man's income, whilst at the other, more goes
for food. Prices fall of course. Engagements are with
difficulty met; credit narrows; and, in one word, all the
phenomena of what is currently denominated a collapse
in trade, take place. And let it be observed that all
this may take place, even though there may not be an
actual deficiency in the quantity of food to carry the
nation through the harvest year. It is enough that the
supply leaves no margin, or a small one, and these re-
sults are inevitable. And what is the pecuniary incidence
of a deficient harvest? It is a rough guess, but far from
an extravagant one, that every bushel per acre, on all
kinds of grain, less than the average, is equivalent to a
million pounds sterling. Suppose, then, a deficiency of
five bushels, the loss to the producers is five millions; but
the effect of that deficiency is to enhance prices far more
than in the direct ratio of price. Mr. Tooke maintains
that a deficiency of one-fourth of the grain crop raises
prices above fifty per cent. Now, in 1838, the deficiency
of the crop of wheat was estimated at one-fourth, or
about four million quarters. The direct loss at the
prices of 1837 would be upwards of 12,000,0001., and
then follows the rise in price of the smaller quantity, and
its mischievous action on the demands for all articles of
clothing, and of colonial produce, the ultimate results of
which have been already noticed."
The publication of Mr. Whiteside's work on Rome
has afforded the reviewer an opportunity of discussing
at large the question of the Roman revolution, and of
the French intervention. With regard to the Roman
revolution, the reviewer says—
"lt is no part of our case to deny or palliate the ex-
cesses at Rome in November, 1848. We unhesitatingly
9ondemn the murder of Rossi, haughty as Caesar though
he may have been. Though the friend-assassin, Brutus,
has always been lauded in the themes of every pupil in
our classical schools, wo can allow of no plausible apology
for
the base Italian crime of assassination. Brutus never
heard the sound of the sublime and blessed Gospel of
Jesus Christ. The murder of the Minister of Pius IX.,
howaver, is not, as we understand, traceable to conspi-
racy; but even if it were, the members of the Govern-
ment of Rome, in April last, have never been proved to
have been participators in the crime. The insurrection
of the 16th of November, 1848, was, upon the whole, a
ithgeloirmrtiopuhsrial
revolution;' and as such it will be recorded by
pen of the future historian. We not only
do not blame, we applaud, the conduct of the English
Government in offering to the venerable and unfortunate
Pontiff all courtesy and personal protectiqn. But the
people had a right to depose him, as they did, from his
temporal power, and afterwards to proclaim Rome again
a republic. It well connects the time present with the
past ages of Rome's imperishable glory. On the 24th
of November, the Pontiff quitted, perhaps for ever, the
sacred city, though it does not appear that he was in
actual personal danger. He flies to Gaeta, and puts
himself under the protection of the base Sicilian Bour-
bon, just reeking fresh from the bloody ma-sacro of his
own Neapolitan subjects. The Pope makes a public
appeal to Europe, and more especially to the Catholic
powers. They promised assistance, and at first intended
to act together; but Austria, having regained her power
in Italy, excites the sateless pride and Jealousy of the
would-be masters of the world."
With regard to the right of the Roman Catholic
Powers to intervene by force of arms for the restora-
tion of the Pope, the reviewer says—
" The Pope, as a temporal sovereign, or as the head
of the Church even, is no more entitled to be restored,
with force of arms, by what are called the Catholic
powers of 'trope, than have the Protestant powers is
right, availing themselves of the flight of the Pope, to
send an armed expedition to establish a republic at
Rome, in the interests of Protestantism. It may be, as
Lord Brougham and others think and say, that it is quite
ridiculous to suppose that the Pope; denuded of his tem-
poral sovereignty, no longer sitting as a king among
kings, would be a Pope at all. We aro much of the
same opinion. What then is the inference? That
Popery is essentially and necessarily inimical to political
liberty and the law of nations. Is Europe never to
escape from priestly thraldom? Are the Papal deerees
and political doctrines of Gregory VII. and 1.3 niface
VIII. to be admitted as a part of the public law of
Europe in the nineteenth century? We dislike and
abominate—as by a strange a • dox of terminology,
they have been called—religious wars. But the principle
assumed by the republicanth cabinet f France, is, that
they have, or at least assume the right, as
Catholics, to restore to hisey throne and temporal sove-
reignty a Pope, against the will of the people of. the
Roman States. We know not all that our ministers
may have said and done, and we will not utterly con-
demn them, hastily. But we have no hesitation in say-
ing, that they are unworthy to guide the destinies of the
country of Elizabeth, Cromwell, and William 111., if
they have not distinctly protested against the pro-papal
principle assumed by France, as if it were a permanent
and necessary part of the law of nations. It may have
been politic, on the part of this country, not to interfere
by force to resist the evident breach of international law
committed by the republican government of Eraece. It
is a special moral duty of England, at the present time,
to do that which no power can afford to do so well and so
gracefully, set a noble Christian example of the utmost
possible forbearance in order to avoid the unimaginable
calamities of war. Yet we have never, after having
given the question our very best consideration, been able
to see, either upon scriptural or other grounds, the cor-
rectness of what is called the extreme peace-principle of
non-resistance, or, in other words, the unlawfulness of
defensive war. We arc bound, therefore, in candour to
admit, that if we expect our statesmen to maintain, in
their foreign policy, the principles favourable to the
liberty and independence of nations, we must be pre-
Pared to justify and oven to support them, in vindicating