The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-15 00:00:00

c§utt.

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1841.

The leader which weeopy from the Times, on
Conference, the Midland Counties is replete with
ignorance and malice,—ignorance both of details
and of principles, and malice that seeks to wound
by the most unblushing assertions.
That journal
speaks the language of a great
party which,
un-
happily for the moment, is the masteroi
the
State, and will make us pay a longer homage to
it than would otherwise be necessary.
The Times says that the millowners, " finding*
their confederates are displaced, and that it is no
longer of any service to conceal their
Own Pur-
poses, remove the mask from their faces and the
bridle from their tongues, and call Out openly
and lustily for the'repeal of all agricultural pro-
tection whatsoever." It quotes tile
.language used
by Mr. COBIJEN as' the proof. No man, however,
who has attended to the Corn-law controversy,
can be ignorant that Mr. COBDEN and the whole
Anti-Corn-law League have for months, and
even years, insisted on the repeal of all agri-
cultural protection, and that they have not
thrown off the mask and the bridle from their
tongues since the Whigs left office. The asser-
tion of the Times is only a proof, therefore, of
its ignorance of the details of the great
it writes about.

Its ignorance of principles is equally palpable
and striking. It follows the landlords, with
whom it now makes common cause, in ascribing
Our diminished manufactures to the progress
which the nations of the Continent have
made in developing their own industry
since the peace., It seeks, therefore, in
a peddling spirit, to make the world believe,
contrary to all experience, that the commercial
PniVerity of one nation is the injury and ruin of
another. From a poor and an idle people
nothing can be got, but the superfluities of a
rich and industrious people give opulence to all
around them. No nation in modern times has,
by the extent of its cheap productions, conferred
such vast benefits on other nations, and so
much promoted their industry and wealth, as
Great Britain. It is as tidse, therefore, as it is
diabolical, to represent the progress of other
nations as the cause of the decay and suffering
of England.

By OUT Jaws we have given a forced direction
to the industry of other countries, and made

Moreover, the language of the Times implies
that the landowners and the rnilloivners are in
collision; heretofore they were united. Ca-
pital and rent have gone hand in hand, and the
opulent manufacturers—or, as the Times calls
them, after Mr. OASTLER and the Chartists, millo-
crats—have been the firmest auxiliaries of the
landed aristocracy. It was at Manchester
and by Tory millowners that the assault was
made on the Radical Reformers which excited
general indignation. These classes are no longer
united, and the Times provokes their mutual
hostility. combined, they have found it. difficult
to subdue the labouring classes, and the admis-
sion of the Tunes that they are united no more,
is a fearful portent for the power of both.
The Duke of WELLINGTON once asked how
the country was to be ruled under the Reform
Act; but if such a question were of ominous im-
port when the " millocrats," as the Times calls
the manufacturers, and the landlords were act-

ing in concert, it becomes still more ominous
when they are in hostility; when the Reform
Act, and other similar Acts, have taken away
from our laws all the sanctity of prescription;
when, for the bulk of the people, the Rethrm Act
is a failure ; and when they are at once better
informed and more justly discontented than ever
they were before. How the country is to be
governed if the capitalists and the landlords fall
nut, is a question which may alarm the most re-
solute and puzzle the most skilful politician.

Some few days ago the Times, acting on the
suggestion of its correspondent, the " Genoese
Traveller," was disposed to cultivate friendly re-
lations with the United States. No vessel from
there has since reached this country, but our
Contemporary has received a new light from
some quarter, and yesterday called on Sir Ro..
BERT PEEL not to pass over in silence a letter
from Mr. SEWARD, the Governor of New York,
to the Secretary of the New York Irish Repeal
Association. The Irish Catholics having been
long and sorely oppressed by the Orangemen—
and more embittered by old grievances than
thankful for recent liberties grudgingly- bestowed,
have, for some time, as our readers are well
aware, entertained a project—we think an erro-
neous one—of procuring a repeal of the Legis-
lative Union. There is no treason in that, nor
any rebellion. They have as good a right to ask
for the repeal of a law as we have to ask for its
continuance. Mr. SEWARD is favourable to this
project, and, in reply to an application of the
Secretary of the Repeal Association, while he
declines to become a member of their Associa-
tion, expresses a high opinion of the Irish, and
says, " My indignation against oppression never
rose higher than when I found her Parliament-
halls in College-green converted into a bank ing,-
house, and the places of her orators and states-
men filled with money-changers." For this hei-
nous offence, or, as the Times calls it, endeavour-
ing to stimulate " her MAJESTY'S Irish subjects
to break forth in treasoned revolt," that journal
speaking, we are afraid the language and wishes
of men in office, insists on effectual interference, ;
and would have Mr. SEWARD removed from the ,
Governorship of the State of New York :

" That the American Government," it says, " pro-
fessing friendship towards this country, shall either re-
frain from removing such an incendiary from the office
which he disgraces, or shall profess a Constitutional
inability to control his indiscretions, is not to be en-
dured. The redress of this growing grievance should be
seen to immediately."

This is very silly, but at the same time
it is very mischievous. From cultivating
friendship, in one short week the Times is for
provoking war. From being the opponent of
the Corn-law, it has become the advocate of
that law. If we are to take its opinions
as an index to the Tory policy, we must infer
that our people are to be starved, and war
is to be waged with the United States, in order
to preserve the power of the Protestant Tory
aristocracy. To that end consistency, honour,
mercy, charity, and justice, are all to be sa-
crificed. Whether that will not be consi-
sidered too costly a price to pay for the
preservation of a body of Protestant landowners,
we must leavetinte and the public to decide. To
find such an article in the Times would much
alarm
did not its late inconsistencies deprive
it of allu
s:veight and authority.

e
In another part of The S insert an arti-
cle from the Berwick Advertiser, describing
particular instances, the hostility of the ia, by
nd--
owners to the progress of manufacturers, and
their resolution to keep them down.
Appended
to it is a paragraph, taken from the Morning
Chronicle, stating that the Irish landlords are
still engaged in the work of clearing their estates
of people whom they and other landlords will
not allow to find employment in manuflictures.
In truth the Cork papers contain deplorable ac_
counts of paupers sent back from England where
their services are not required, so that between
landlords clearing their estates, and landlords
prohibiting and preventing the growth of manu-
factures, in which the people might find em-
ployment, multitudes must be doomed to perish.
These united accounts reminded us of the extir-
pation of the red men of North America by the
advent and progress of a superior race. Many
were the cruelties which the whites, in their
pride, practised on their savage opponents; but
they had some justification in their own won-
derful superiority, and in the horrid cruelties

them competitors with us. At the same time,
we have deprived ourselves of their advan-
tage—abundance of cheap food, without being
able to deprive them of our advantages, skill and
knowledge. Our machinery cannot be kept to
ourselves, but we refuse to share the food
which other nations offer us. To throw the
blame, justly due to our own Corn-laws as the
Times was wont to admit, on the beneficent pro-
gress of other nations, is extremely malignant,
regularly Tory, delightful to the landlords, and
quite consistent with their theory and practice ; but
it betrays the grossest ignorance of that wise and
universal system which has made the peaceful de-
velopment of the resources of one nation. inva-
riably promotive of the development of the re-
sources of other nations.
In pointing out the wretched ignorance of the
Times, more worthy ofa plundering Arab than a
compatriot of merchants enriched by commerce,
we have also demonstrated its malice. It is,
however, worth adding, that it pours out much
rabid spite on Mr. COBDEN ; and, while it takes
care to state that the Conference retired to " an
excellent dinner at. the Royal Hotel," where no
poor were present, it represents him as appealing
to the "starving multitudes on the philosophy of
taxation and the adjustment of the doctrines of
political economy." Mr. COBDEN did that in the
same sense as the Times does, when it appeals in
its columns, day after day, to the starving multi-
tude on the question of the Poor-laws. If Mr
COBDEN'S language be influential with such per-
sons, the fault lies with those lawgivers who have
inflicted starvation on the multitude, and on those
writers who encourage them in their wicked and
mad career. If the Times is to retain its place
amongst the journals of the empire, it must get
some persons of talent to cover its vehement
abuse with the semblance of knowledge and the
appearance of truth. Such articles as the one we
refer to, stamp it with ignorance and falsehood
and expose it to supreme contempt.
At the same time, the article should be read
for its admissions. Long ago we told the land-
owners of England that they were making the
Corn-laws a question of title to their estates.
Long ago have we stated that, by deriving a por-
tion of their rent from taxation, confounding this
with property, they were bringing the existing
right of property into question, and endangering
all property. The progress of the discussion
in the public, must satisfy our readers that we
took a long and a correct view. Now, a part of
the article of the Times was employed to defend
the property of the landowners from the attacks
of the millowners, and, in turn, to insinuate at-
tacks on their property. It begins, therefore, to
feel, and tacitly to acknowledge, that all pro-
perty is endangered by the landlords' tax on the
people's bread.