The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-23 00:00:00

itening

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 23,: 1847

CABINgT COUNCIL.

Summonses were issued yesterday, from the
Foreign Office, to the Ministers, to attend a Cabinet
Council this day, at the Foreign Office, Downing-
street. All the members of the Cabinet were expected
to attend. The time for the Council was half•past
two o'clock.

More hubbub has been excited as to the scarcity
of provisions in this country than the reality justifies.
From one extremity of the kingdom to the other the
clamour has been raised that the deficiency of food
in Great Britain is perilous, if it be not altogether
unprecedented. First there was a cry about the
scantiness of the harvest, then about the deteriorated
quality of the grain, then about both failures in the
wheat crop together. To the excitement caused by
these assertions there was added the really lamentable
murrain of the potato plant ; beyond that, the alarmists
were terror-stricken at the exportation of En-
glish corn from the eastern coasts to the
markets of France, and the agitation in the
public mind reached its acme in consequence of
the steady rise in the price of wheat
from 475. a quarter to the extraordinary
amount of 70s. 3d. a quarter. The actuality of this
advance in the cost of grain soon explains itself
to the comprehension of every housekeeper
in the empire, as the quartern loaf was
enhanced in cost price from 60. to 'lid.
and so on at intervals until it reached to no less than
I lid. the four-pound loaf. There was a logic in this
that defied a merely superficial denial as to the ex •
istence of the scarcity. The arithmetic of the advance in
the cost price of the necessaries of life placed the reality
of the dearth apparently beyond dispute. And so the
clamour has gone on increasing and increasing until
the poorer classes are almost beside themselves from
apprehension. There is a perpetual storm of sup-
plication to the Legislature to prevent famine, to aid
those who are already stricken with starvation,
and so forth. As far as farinacious food is concerned
the British islands are regarded as little better than
insolvent.

Now, is this disturbance about the utter deficiency
of provisions in England, Ireland, and Scotland, cor-
rect ? Are our granaries thus emptied ? 'Was our
harvest so unconscionably meagre both in quantity
and in quality ? Must we consider ourselves, as we
are told to consider ourselves, dependent upon
the produce of foreign sickles, and the enterprise of
distant agriculturists ? To all this we answer, delibe-
rately, distinctly, and emphatically that we believe
the deficiency to have been grievously exaggerated,
and the position of the country to be alto-
gether much better (as far as our reserve
of food is concerned) than is supposed. We
impugn the judgment of those who can only trace •
the origin of the present panic to the dearth of pro-
visions in our markets. It is preposterous, absolutely
preposterous, to imagine that, within so few months
from the gathering in of the harvest for 1846, we
have actually reached the minimum of our home sup-
ply of grain. And this, moreover, simultaneously with
an unprecedented importation of corn and meal from
the United States. The Chancellor of the Ex-

only theother
grain
that we had not yet obtained a single
chequer distinctly affirmed,
of the American crop of the last harvest,
English
crop for the corresponding and
yet the are
to be assured that the
alto-
gether, or very nearly, consumed Isenaesonn i
s3erstillB
its falsity visible upon the very face of it. Notwith-
standing, therefore, the marvellous clamour about the
deficiency of provisions, we are satisfied that there is
an ample supply of grain already locked up in England,
and that a very short period will verify our belief, by
the large quantity that will be brought to market in
consequence of the recent Ministerial measures.
As rapidly as tne customs of Parliamentary routine
will allow the Ministerial proposns for the allevia-
Con (both direct and indirect) of the sufferings in 1