The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-02 00:00:00

not a class whom a Tory Government can
afford to treat with contempt, as it treats the
starving people at Bolton, Carlisle, Stockport,
Leeds, Paisley, and Manchester ; it must attend
to their complaints, and that will add one large
item to its cares which it wot not of when it
threw over, till next Session, the gigantic sub-
ject of commercial and financial reform.
According to the old Tory plan, which is at
present much lauded by Tory scribes, of getting
one large measure through Parliament in one
Session—as the Beer Bill in 1830, Catholic
Emancipation in 1829, and the Bill with the Slid-
ing Scale inlB2B—th ere are already great questions
enough mooted in the public, to which Sir R. PEEL
and his friends must give mature consideration,
to occupy Parliament for at least a dozen years.
The registration of electors in Ireland must be,
as Lord STANLEY has asserted, attended to; the
Registration Courts of England are a nuisance,
by common accord ; the franchise, as at present
settled, is terrifically unpopular and inadequate;
the Church, in its middle state, of not enough
and too much, cannot be left as it is ; the Church
of Scotland is in a condition of quasi rebellion ;
Corn and Provision-laws, sliding scale and fixed
duties, sugar duties, timber duties—of which the
shipping interest out of London begin to com-
plain most bitterly and justly—with many other
equally great questions, pressed for consideration,
before the affair of the Exchequer bills was,
and still press for consideration after it has been,
discovered. What further calls will be made
on the Government besides this and the provi-
sion for the burnt down arsenal, time must bring
forth ; but enough has already transpired to
prove that Sir ROBERT PEEL has cut his mea-
sures too fine by postponing legislation on the
most pressing questions of finance and commerce
till February, expecting then to' have time and
opportunity calmly to discuss them.
We cannot even say that much progress is
made in giving satisfaction to the public on
the subject of the Exchequer bills. It is
perceived and said that the stamp will be no
security, for that may be imitated and forged as
Soon as seen, and will only serve to give validity
to the fictitious bills. People who hold doubtful
bills will not carry them to the Exchequer on the
chance of the bills being detained, particularly
as it is said that the adjustment of the bill with
the counterfoil is not a certain test of spurious-
ness or reality, and they will, nevertheless, make,
their claim on the Government. The process of
verification of such as are carried to the Comp-
troller's Office, is extremely slow, and no person
can foresee when, if ever, confidence in this
security will be. restored.
The public anxiously look, too, for some deci-
sion 011 the part of the Government relative to
its responsibility. ASLETT'S case, it is justly
said, throws no light whatever on Mr. SMITH'S
case, and the law regarding it is held to be ex-
tremely doubtful, which detracts from the value
of the genuine security. All the proceedings,
too, are secret, and nobody knows, except by
surmises and conjectures, who are concerned in
the extensive fraud. SuSpicion and distrust are
nourished by this mystery in conducting the in-
vestigation, so opposed to our customs; reputa-
tions are whispered away, and private credit, on
which so much depends, as well as public credit,
receives every day a severe blow. The longer
the settlement of this unexpected occurrence is
delayed, by the dilatory proceedings at the
Treasury and at the Exchequer-office, the
severer will be its influence on credit, and the
more it will add to commercial embarrassment.
Since the first issue of Exchequer bills, towards
the year 1696, no such blow has been inflicted on
this security ; and, now that they are tainted,
they infect other species of paper. -Suspicions
are whispered that shares in Joint Stock Compa-
nies, and a vaiety of other negotiable securities,
may be spurious, as well as Exchequer bills. If
the Government, with all its power and precau-
tions, could not guard against forgery, how can a
private company, whose servants are poorly
paid? If you cannot trust gentlemen, with al-
most• princely incomes, whom can you trust?
Wide-spread and deep arc the suspicions to
which Mr. SMITICS conduct has given rise; and
the whole subject, for the sake of public and
private credit, cannot be settled too soon. The
Government must hasten to make its own views
known, and it must cease to carry on its inquisi-
tions into a great offence in secresy. An open
investigation, before the ordinary tribunals, is
alike due to the public and the persons implicated.

According to au observation in the Morning
Herald on Saturday, our national policy at pre-•
sent is opposed to our population swarming off
into the United States. Our Contemporary said—
" The permanent opening of our ports would doubtless
divert the stream of emigration now flowing from the
United Kingdom to our own colonies towards the north-
western States of America, and thus beget greatly in-
creased supplies from that quarter. In this prospective
diversion of British emigration to the Un►ted States
there is another formidable argument against a free trade
in corn. Such a trade would by this means be destructive
of our colonial progression and prosperity. And it cannot
be denied that in the present position of our relations
with the republic any augmentation of its population, at
the expense of Australia or Canada, is wholly opposed to

our national policy.
"The wild and glowing descriptions lately made by a
republican orator to the goubemouches of Manchester and
Leeds of the States we have named, ought to be regarded
only as puffing advertisements for the sale of lands therein,
and crimping tricks for the emigration thereto of British
labour."

National policy of course means the policy
which is pleasing to the ruling classes, or mainly
the landlords, and, according to the Herald, they
are at present opposed to our starving people
taking refuge in republican America. To open
our ports, it is admitted, would direct emigration
to the United States, which would provide a li-
beral home for such of our population as chose to
go thither, and " beget greatly increased sup-
plies" of food for those who remained in Eng-
land. The people would not go thither, it
is clear, unless it were advantageous to them :
and it is equally clear that for some to go
thither would he advantageous to those they
left behind. Both would be provided with
food, and both those who went and those
who remained at home might rear families in
comfort. Who or what prevents this great acces-
sion of happiness and strength to two branches of
the same human family ? The landlords, who will
not open our ports. The landlords who, jealous of
some rival aristocracy, or fearful of the growth
of republican America, call- it a national polioy
to keep our people from going any where except
to Australia or Canada, where they may continue
to toil for behoof of the landlords and their sup-
porters. These distant colonies form a portion
of the territory which the landlords govern, and
ttiothtoeii-lioong plyNevoilpllte they, if they can help it, suffer,:t
o repair. This is carrying
the power of the aristocracy to a most exorbi-
t(niaeauntticolei to e:ngittihN.v It betrays a desire and a
keepdetertni-
hichthtbeeymnalsossets ilnabao
isirtateasofifd depen-
dence,
serf-
dom still. '-
prevailed, regardless of their own hap-
piness, to promote the wealth and greatness of
the
Butlan havedlords
*those who maintain system
considered
this
The considered its consequences? statement of
the Herald implies that a great mutual benefit
would accrue to England and America from
permanently opening our ports. It would give
her a supply of labour, which is here a surplus
commodity. It would establish a most bene-
ficial exchange. For what purpose have the
Red men been chased from the prairiesp raonvid-
the forests, if the hand of the white man is not
to till and use those bounteous gifts of
deuce ? In the United States there are immense
tracts of fertile lands wooing the industry of our,
civilized people ; in England there is an immense
number of ingenious, clever men, thirsting;
panting, and, with their families, dying for
land to cultivate. ' They are invited to go to
America; they would willingly go, but our na-
tional policy, which means the proud and self-
willed determination of the landlords to keep
the population enslaved, or their hatred of re-
publicanism, prohibits them from going. _By
what right does the Government thus act ?
How can it answer to Goa or its own
subjects for extinguishing so much happiness
or causing so much misery? With one voice