The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-26 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE TO-MORROW.
()thing. 35 minutes atter 101 Evening ll minutes after 11

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE ROMANS.
Juat ready, in 3 vols. post Bvo.
GALLUS; or, THE AGE of AUGUSTUS,
A ROMANCE.

Illustrative of the Life of the Roman people.
Richard Bentley, New Burlington-street.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The communication from Newcastle, received on Monday,
with some other correspondence, shall be attended to in a
day or two.

The publication of THE SUN NEWSPAPER commenced this day
at 10 minutes past Three o'clock.

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WITH WHICH
THE " TRUE SUN" 1S NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
EDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 26, 1838.

The citizens of London are at length beginning to
exhibit signs of discontent with the Corn-laws. The
two wards of Bread-street and Langbourn have both
taken the subject into consideration, and agreed to
resolutions favourable to the repeal. Next the Com-
mon Council, it is to be presumed, will take the matter
up, though that body is so bound up with a nefarious
and corrupt system, which is almost as bad as the Corn-
laws, that we doubt whether much may be expected
from it. Like Mr. DrxoN at the Langbourn ward,
and like the President of the Board of Trade, the Com-
mon Council will probably assert, under the influeNce
of a. similar interest, that there are many difficulties
on the subject, and will hesitate or stand still. Every
body who has examined the question, is well aware
that difficulties exist ; but they are augmented every
day, and the longer the Corn-laws are suffered to re-
main, the more enormous will they become. Those
who made the scoundrel laws, and those who support
them, ought to have found out that before. 'They
ought to have foreseen these consequences, or where-
fore did they deliberate when they made the laws ? It
is, however, only when an act of justice is proposed
to the suffering people, that difficulties are ever
heard of ; and none are suffered, for one moment,
to stop the gratification of the landowner's ava-
rice, or the statesman's love of coercion. The
admirers of restriction, the advocates of bounties, the
anti-free-trade men, have got the nation into a fix ;
and we have only to choose between national ruin and
the abolition of the Corn-laws.

That the Londoners begin to move is the best sign
we have yet seen. The metropolis being the seat of
the Court, of the pampered Bank of England, and its
connected monied classes, who are the landlord's mort-
gagees, being the spot where the chief of the landed
gentry spend a great portion of their income, where
the members of the Episcopal Bench reside for a con-
siderable part of the year, it suffers far less from
the comparative decay of our trade than other
towns and cities. It feels only at a long inter-
val the reflux of the wave that swallows up the
Nottingham hosiery and the Birmingham hardwares.
Now, therefore, that it begins to move, we may be
sure that the agitation of the distant towns has a good
cause, and will be effectual.

We copy another piece of rhodomontade from the
Herald to-day, of which the assertion that the specu-
lators engaged in certain branches of our foreign trade,
have proclaimed war to the knife against the farmers
and landowners of Great Britain, is of a piece with
its assertions that PEEL'S Bill was the work of the
free-traders, and that the hand-loom weavers have been
starved by what has never yet had any existence. The
Manchester manufacturers have declared war against
robbery by law, and they are well convinced that to put
an end to such an atrocious system must be equally
beneficial to every part of the community, except the
robbers, and will be especially beneficial to the pining
farmers and the half-starved agricultural labourers.

The public will be delighted to learn that the Coal
Monopoly, by- which the inhabitants of London have
been robbed for many years, is in a fair way of meeting
the fate which monopolies deserve—dissolution.
What with the exertions, we are sorry to say, of but
a small portion of the Press, the indefatigable zeal of
Mr. BRADFIELD, the inquiry before a Committee of
the House of Commons. and last and best, the decided
energy of the present LORD MAYOR, directed both
by words and deeds against the " tricks" and " wicked
,combinations" of the monopolists, those who can cor-
rect the evil are now compelled to act with something
like sincerity and good faith. The LORD MAYOR
yesterday stated that he had received a letter from the
Navigation Con?mitteee informing him that they were
most anxious to give every encouragement to those who
labour to break up the combination. Perhaps these
,gentlemen can tell why this anxiety has been so long
in manifesting itself—why the Gas Companies have
been allowed to import their coals without any of those
restrictions which raise the price paid by the helpless
inhabitants some fifteen per cent. above that paid by
the Companies, and why every species of obstruction
.has been thrown in the way of Mr. YOUNG, who has
been combatting for years the regulations by which
vessels are unnecessarily detained in the river to the
injury of the ship-owners, and the still greater injury
of the consumers. We do not assert that there has
been any collusion between any members of the Com-
inittee and the monopolists and the Gas Companies,
because, on the authority of Messrs. COPELAND and
DtxoN, they are all honourable men, and the regula-
tions are the best that can be devised for the public
good; but still we must come to the conclusion that the
Navigation Committee, till the LORD MAYOR took
up the subject has been worse than useless, and that
their best possible regulations have had the effect of
!limiting the number of voyages a-year to eight instead
of eleven, thereby increasing the freight alone nearly
one-third, and putting an utter stop to free competi-
tion. The Committee could not be ignorant of the
fact. The system has been carried on for several years,
and from this system alone has the monopoly derived
its existence.
We see in the Mansion-house report
a calculation, that by allowing competition, a saving
may be made to the public equal to the value of
360,000 tons a-year, or the small sum of half-a-mu_
lion ! On a former occasion we reckoned the saving
at 800,0001. a-year, and we are confident that is nearer
the mark. The inhabitants of London robbed of
nearly a million a-year on one article alone by those
who should protect their interests ! Could there be a
better argument for Corporation Reform ?
Since the above was written, another scene has
taken place at the Mansion-House, which proves, be-
yond doubt, the gross negligence or something worse, of
the City functionaries, and confirms the worst suspi-
cions entertained against the monopolists and their
abettors. Mr. ROaINSON, the Chairman of the Na-
vigation Committee, waited on the LORD MAYOR,
and informed him that it was no fault of the Committee,

but the fault of the Board of Trade, that vessels were

*2s/4 allowed to remain fifteen days in the Pool to unload, and
14,314
that he considered five days, or seven at most, amply
sufficient. Fifteen days, he considered quite prepos-
trA.. terous, and this preposterous regulation is the work of
4.***.:J;v the Board of Trade, over which, Mr. POULETT
,43:
--K.770 THOMSON presides. He also stated, that while for-
f