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

RUMOURS OF THE DAY.

It is stated, in a country paper, that the Queen Dowager
has given another donation of 3,0001. towards the erection
of a church at Malta. This must be a wicked falsehood.
Is it at all likely that her Majesty would at present send
out of the country such a large sum for such a purpose,
when poor women in England are committing murder
and suicide from want of the necessaries of life ?

COURT CIRCULAR.
WINDSOR, TUESDAY.—The Queen and Prince
Albert walked both this morning and in the
afternoon on the Terrace and in the New Grounds
of the Little Park to Adelaide Cottage.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent also
walked to Adelaide Cottage, attended by her
Lady in Waiting, and rode back in a pony
phaeton to the Castle.

His Royal Highness the Prince enjoyed the
sport of pheasant shooting this morning in the
vicinity of Ascot Gate, attended by the Earl of
Warwick, Sir Edward Bowater, and the Hon. C.
A. Murray.
Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess
of Cambridge and the Princess Augusta of
Cambridge, arrived in town yesterday from their
residence at Kew. Theirßoyal Highnesses visited
the Duchess of Gloucester, at Gloucester House,
and in the afternoon returned to Kew.,
A Cabinet Council was held at half-past three
o'clock yesterday afternoon at the Foreign-Office.
The following Ministers were present :—Sir Ro-
bert Peel, the Lord Chancellor the Duke of
Wellington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord
Wharncliffe, the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Stan-
ley, Sir James Graham, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the Earl of Haddington, the Earl of
Ripon, Sir Henry Hardinge, and Sir Edward
Knatchbull.

The Council broke up soon after five o'clock.
His Excellency Edward Everett, Envoy Ex-
traordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the
United States to this Court, with Mrs. Everett
and family, arrived in Upper Grosvenor-street,
on Monday, from Paris.
Baron de Moncorvo, the Portuguese Minister,
transacted business yesterday, at the Foreign-
office.

The Duke of Wellington has arrived in town
from Strathfieldsaye.
Lord Stanley arrived in town on Monday
night from Knowsley Hall, Lancashire.
Despatches from the Governors of St. Helena
and Gibraltar were received yesterday at the
Colonial-office.

The Lords of the Judicial Committee of her
Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council sat
yesterday. There were present the Lord Presi-
dent, Lord . Brougham, Mr. Baron Parke, and
the Judge of the Admiralty Court. The Hon. W.
Bathurst was the Clerk of the Council in Waiting.
Mr. Baron Parke gave judgment, on the part
of their Lordships, on an appeal from Bengal,
" Rajah Deedar Hossain v. Ranee Zuhoor-oon-
Nissa," affirming the decree of the Court below
(after making some trifling alteration), with costs.
An appeal from Lower Canada, " Fraser and
Lagueux v. Murray and Fraser," was resumed
and concluded. Messrs. Kindersley, Q,C., and
Burge, Q.C., appearing for the respective parties.
Lord Brougham, on the part of their Lord-
ships, affirmed the decree of the Court below.
Mr. Burge, Q.C., was heard for the appellant,
in " John Touzel v. Philip Tilleul," from Jersey.

DISTRESS IN PAISLEY .
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sin,—May I request you to insert in your next paper
my letter to the Editor of the Paisley Advertiser, with
the resolutions of the Paisley Presbytery, published in
to• day's Advertiser?
I am, your obliged, ROBT. MACNAIR.
Abbey Manse, Paisley, Dec. 11, 1341.
" TO THE EDITOR OF THE PAISLEY ADVERTISER.
"Sir-At a meeting of the Presbytery of Paisley last
week, the state of the unemployed operatives was taken
into consideration, when certain resolutions were agreed
to. To carry them into effect a Committee was appointed,
which has since met, when it was resolved to take effec-
tive measures to give them publicity—to solicit the atten-
tion of ministers and office bearers of the Church to a circu-
lar lately addressed by ministers of various denominations
in Paisley to their brethren throughout the country, and
to recommend the adoption of its suggestions ; especially
to request that in those parishes where no contribution
has been made in aid of the funds for the unemployed,
by collections or otherwise, this should be done on as
early a day as possible.

"-Of the present distress in Paisley it is impossible to
convey an adequate idea. That it is not confined to the
humblest ranks in society any one may be satisfied by an
inspection of the articles in the shops of pawnbrokers,
such as dresses not worn by the humbler classes, gold
rings, silver spoons, silver and gold watches, valuable
books, and even expensive family Bibles. Nor are the
sufferings of the families who have reluctantly parted
with such articles the less, from their desire to conceal
their destitution. It is, therefore, hoped that the resolu-
tions of the Presbytery will meet with attention, from
their brethren in other Presbyteries, and that editors of
newspapers will lend a helping hand in giving them pub-
licity. The following are the resolutions :
" 1. That the Presbytery express their sincere and
heartfelt sympathy for the suffering and distressed poor
within their bounds.
" 2. That they express their admiration of the good
conduct and decorum of the unemployed themselves, amid
their severe and unexampled difficulties.
" a That while the .Presbytery are grateful to Chris-
tian friends, both in town and in other places, of all ranks
and classes, for, the measure of liberality displayed ; they
regret that the funds at the disposal of
,tlie Relief Com-'
mittee hinder them from extending to the distresSed an
adequate amount of relief.
•
" 4. That they resolve, as a Presbytery, to state to the
Relief Committee their readiness to co-operate with them
in the way of raising funds, and procuring a Supply of
clothing for the distressed, in so far as circumstances will .
permit, and with this view recommend to all, ministers
within their bounds to make collections ; and the Pres-
bytery, convinced of the absolute inadequacy of local
efforts to remove the evil, resolve to correspond with
other Presbyteries, so as to raise the requisite funds.
" I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
" ROBERT MACNAIR, •
" Convener of the Committee of Presbytery."

At a shop window in Holborn a paper is exhi-
bited, on which is written " A perfect blind painter
wanted." It is presumed that the blind painter must be
able to see his way in the "transparency line."

THE MIDLAND ,COUNTIES
CONFERENCE.
(From the Times.)
The mill-owners, or, as they have been not inaptly
designated, the millocrats, of the midland counties, as-
sembled on Thursday last, at Derby, in what is called by
them a "Great Conference," for the purpose of clubbing
their information respecting the influence of the Corn,
laws upon their manufactures ; and after a morning
consumed in detailing the sufferings of unemployed arti-
sans these gentlemen proceeded to celebrate the public
distress which had brought them together, in "an excel-
lent dinner, provided by the landlord of the Royal Hotel."
To expose the various fallacies, (some of them put forth
from ignorance, but some, we fear, knowingly), which
abused the public ear on that morning and afternoon
would occupy as many columns as we can spare lines.
The majority of the statements were very much of the
same nature with those which have already been given
in the House of Commons, and which were there either
disproved altogether, or explained to carry inferences
wholly at variance with the views of their utterers.
There is one lesson, a most important one in modern
politics, which the speeches at this meeting remarkably
illustrate and strongly enforce—namely, the imprudence
of ever legislating with a view to pacify the Radical
party. Their course goes regularly through the same
series of stages. First, they make a large demand.
That being resisted, they offer to accept a part in full of
the whole as a final settlement. This being conceded and
secured they instantly re-open their original demand, and
insist upon the whole, without qualification or reserve.
The expulsion of the Whigs has happily saved us, in
the present case, from such a fraud, but we have
had a very narrow escape. " There is a general cry,"
said the Melbourne Government, " for a repeal of
all protection upon agriculture. We dare not go quite
that length, because the very few respectable friends still
left to us are chiefly connected with the agricultural
classes. But we can commute the existing protection ;
and when once we get a duty fixed the question about
Corn-laws will be finally settled between the Govern-
ment and the Radicals." Just as finally, no doubt,
as the Roman Catholic questions were settled by
the Relief Act, or the constitution of Parliament
by the acts of reform. And now the Corn-law plot
is out, and the mill-owners, finding' that, their confe-
derates are displaced, and that it is no longer of any
service to conceal their own purposes, remove the
mask from their faces and the bridle from their tongues,
and call out openly and lustily for the repeal of all agri-
cultural protection whatsoever. " Gentlemen," says
Mr. Cobden, " it is the duty of. those in Parliament to
take up some defined and well-understood principle ;
and that I conceive to be the principle of no protec-
tive duties. I see very little difference between Lord
John Russell and Sir Robert Peel—between new pro-
hibitive duties and the slidins, scale." And then,
after ridiculing Lord John Russell as a friend to
half-measures, and deprecating the qualified sort of
opposition which the Whigs would be likely to make
upon any question of corn duties, he proceeds to say,
"There is no probability of any opposition, taking such
a turn as this, maintaining its ground with the public.
On the other hand, if we take up the principle of no pro-
tective duties, if we take our stand upon the principle of
free trade, that will form such a cement and bond of union
that (heterogeneous as are the elements composing the
Opposition benches) I venture to say it would be the
most powerful and complete that ever sate in the
House of Commons."—(Great cheering.) Yes, we
have no doubt there was great cheering to that. Yet,
were the whole force of the Parliamentary Opposition
to join, not in a measure for the improvement of the
existing Corn-laws, but in the absolute destruction of all
Corn-laws whatsoever—to combine, not for the mere
relief of the consumers, but for the utter overthrow of
the whole landed proprietary of England by the unre-
stricted admission of foreign corn, and you will have a
very strong party, as far as there is strength in numbers,
throughout the whole of the manufacturing districts.
Indeed, you will never want a strong party when you
offer an unlimited license of spoliation. But what is
your strong party, when thus collected, to do ? Why,
says Mr. Cobden, we must re-value all the land of
the kingdom, and impose a new land-tax according,
to that re-valuation. "There must be a total abo-
lition of all taxes upon food, and we should raise at least
twenty millions a year upon the land; and then the owners
would be richer than any other landed proprietary in the
world." Yes ; and, probably, if we were to confiscate
half the property of the cotton lords they would still be
richer than any other spinning proprietary in the world ;
but would it, therefore, be fitting that a mob should
be hallooed upon the premises of Mr. Strutt and
Mr. Evans, and half a hundred other millocrat mil-
lionaries ? " I see no reason," pursues Mr. Cobden,
" why we should not have compensation in the shape
of land•tax, which would relieve us from the whole
of our burdens." No reason It is really idle to talk
about reason with a man who deals in such monstro-
sities as these; else we might say that we can see no
reason why " the whole of our burdens," which are now
borne by the different classes of society, should hence-
forth be thrown, as he would throw them, altogether
upon one; nor why that one should be the landed class.
That is the question which it would be natural to ask,
not only in point of reason but in point of justice too: but,
as justice is a matter as little cared for as reason by many
of'these gentry, we will put the question in another way.
When you shall have impoverished the landed interests as
you propose to do by the total repeal of protection for
agriculture,—when one half of the land shall have been
driven out of cultivation, and the rents of the other half
reduced as you would fain reduce them—what will re-
main to yield you the twenty millions you mean to levy
in the way of land-tax ?
Lest our renders should imagine, from the exceeding
absurdity of the passages we have quoted, that they are
taken from some unfriendly reporter, who has had a
mind to pervert the statements of this eminent Anti-
Corn-law leaguer, we beg to assure them that all our
extracts are verbatim from the report contained in the
Morning Chronicle. Whata specimen do they convey of
the intellect and of the spirit which have guided " the
Great' Conference !"

No doubt the difficulties of legislation very speedily
vanish before a financier who proposes to relieve the
pressure of taxation upon one-half of a country by shift-
ing that taxation upon the other half, in addition to the
taxation which this other half had to bear already. This
is easy work; and at such a rate Mr. Cobden would make
as good a first Minister as Sir R. Peel. Perhaps this was
the inference which Mr. Cobden sought to establish.
But presumptuous rashness is not the worst of his
offending. He is answerable, also, for the crime, and
there can hardly be a more heinous one, of uttering
those presumptuous and rash effusions to a population
who, if his own account be true, are in a state of unex-
ampled distress, and therefore naturally in a temper of
irritation and excitability. If the evils he alleges have
any existence (and we are far from denying that amid
all the exaggeration of this subject there is still, unhap-
pily, but too large a proportion of truth), is it to a
starving multitude that a Member of the Legislature
ought to appeal upon the philosophy of taxation, and
the adjustment of the doctrines of political economy ?
Is it in such a cause that he ought to set the poor in
judgment on the rich, with a proviso that if the judg-
ment be an unfavourable one, the property of the defen-
dant shall be sequestered to the judges' use ?
The statements of the Derby sympathizers go to show
that in the manufactures of the midland districts there
has been a downward progression, or rather re-
trogression, for these five and twenty years. Does
that prove the existing distress of those districts to
be the result of the present Corn-law ? We
should rather think not, inasmuch as the present
Corn-law is only of about half that standing. A
more rational inference, we suspect, would be, that
the cause of our diminished manufactures is to be
found in the pacification of Europe, which, five and
twenty years ago, set the nations of the Continent
at liberty to pursue the arts of peace, the develop.
ment of their own resources, and the employment of
their native industry. If, then, overlooking or ne-
glecting these circumstances, our manufacturers
continued to increase their own productions, and by
invitations of fresh operatives from the country to
multiply the numbers dependent on a precarious
trade, then, however we may feel for the poor arti-
zans, however we, may regret even the disappointments
and losses of the masters themselves, yet certainly we
cannot submit our understandings to the delusion
now attempted by those masters, nor lend our-
selves to the iniquitous project for making up their
unlucky speculations at the expense of their neigh-
bours. And we say this the more stringently,
because we cannot help observing, that although the dis-
tress which they harp upon has been in progress, accord-
ing to their account, for a quarter of a century, it never
occurred to them to make the heartrending statements
which they have laid before Parliament, and to call
" great conferences together," until the deficiency of the
Whig-Radical budget and the peril of the Whig-Radical
Administration suggested this movement of political
sympathy.

IR

ELAND.

DUBLIN, DEC. 12.—1 n the Leinster Express (a Tory
journal) published yesterday, there is a report of an ap-
plication, made on Monday last, to the Magistrates, at
the
.petty sessions of Moumtmelick, Queen's County., to
receive informations for sedition against Mr. William
Connor, a respectable landholder, who resides at Inch, in
the neighbourhood of Stradbally. A Mr. Browne, from
the office of the Crown Solicitor of the Home Circuit,
attended by direction of the Attorney-General to prose-
cute the case.

The first ;ituess examined was George Stewart Hill,
Sub-Inspector of Police, who read his own information,
as follows :—" Recollects Sunday the 14th November
last. After divine service on that day saw about one
hundred persons assembled in the Market-square of
Mountmelick, and saw William Connor addressing them
in a violent and exciting tone of language. Heard Con-
nor say that the Members of Parliament were a lazy,
scurvy set of rascals, useless servants, and forgot them-
selves like other rascals—that tyrant landlords would be
murdered, and that it was not to be wondered at, for it
was nothing but the reward of tyranny, and the fault lay
nowhere but at their own doors. And Connor further
added—l tell Sir Robert Peel and the Government, that
there }lever will be peace in Ireland till these grievances
are remedied. Connor was frequently cheered by the
people, and witness has no doubt that such language, ad-
dressed to persons in the rank of life of those assembled,
would be calculated to hold up landlords to hatred, and
produce public discontent and hostility to the laws of the
country."
After a lengthened cross-examination of the Sub-In-
spector, Mr. O'Connor was held to bail, himself in 501.,
and two sureties in 251. each, to appear at the next
Assizes.

EFFECTS OF RAILROADS.—At the toll letting
on. the Sheffield and Wakefield turnpike-road, a few
days ago, there was not a single tender delivered, and
the trustees of the roads were therefore compelled to
take the tolls themselves. There was a similar scarcity
of contractors at the letting of the iron bridge tolls on
the Wakefield and Denbydale road.—Leeds Mercury.