The Sun.
London, England, 1824-03-11 00:00:00

[SEW TIMES.]

The re-appointment of the Foreign Trade
Committee is a circumstance highly interesting
to the commercial world : nor will it be observed
without great satisfaction, that Mr. Wallace has
been nominated its Chairman. The valuable
labours of the Committee in a former Session are
well known to our readers ; and it is clear that
they mean to follow up their task with the
same energy as heretofore ; for they have
already ordered the attendance of witnesses,
and directed that various papers relating to
the Tonnage Duties should be laid before
them. It has been suggested as desirable
that the Committee would direct their attention,
among other objets, to the present mode of esti-
mating the value of our Exports. We have heard
that the declared value of many commodities is
rated in such a manner as to give a false impres-
sion of its real amount, by including in it the
duties which are drawn back on exportation. If
this be the case (for which however we do not pre- '
tend to vouch of our own knowledge), it is clear
that the estimates must mislead the political econo-
mist, whose object is to ascertain the actual values
exchanged against each other in foreign trade.
It might, perhaps, be more correctly stated, that
the inquiry should be directed to the relative
quantities of labour and degrees of skill as em-
bodied in the exchanged commodities ; but not
to enter into that distinction, it is sufficient to say
that a declaration of the value on an article ex-
ported should be stated clear of any augmenta-
tion which it may receive from a tax only im-
posed on it whilst in the exporting country. How
far an inquiry into this circumstance may pro-
perly fall within the functions of the Foreign
Trade Committee we know not ; but if they are
authorised to examine into it, we conceive that
they would render a service to political science
in directing to the subject their attention.

[MORNING CHRONICLE.I
Lord Althorp moves to-night for the produc.
tion of a correspondence between Mr. Gregory,
the Irish Under-Secretary, and Mr. Richard'
Newton Bennett, a respectable Protestant Bar-1

rister of Ireland, relative to a proposition made
by the Ribandrnen to surrender their arms, put
an end to the Society, and come in and take the
oaths of allegiance ; and also for a Memorial of
three Clergymen on the same subject. It will
appear from these documents that the Irish Go-
vernment might have easily suppressed that ex-
tensive Society, had it chosen, while, by failing to
take advantage of the opportunity, and encou-
raging the Orange system at the same time, these
two factions have both increased to an unprece-
dented extent. The Orangemen, on their part,
boast (and the fact accords but too well with the
boast) that their association under Mr. Plunkett's
Bill of last year has been most extensively propa-
gated, and this extension, coupled with the unjust
and machiavelian conduct 'of thelrishGovernment,
has swelled the ranks of the Ribbonmen to se-
veral hundred thousands. It is a strange fact,
arid reflects very little credit on the Irish Go-
vernment, that at the very time a Clergyman,
with its assent, was in conference with nearly
a hundred leaders of the Ribbonmen, with a
view to arrange the terms of their submission,
a spy was sent into his room at St. James's_
Chapel, Dublin, where the conference was
held. This transaction is fully detailed in a
pamphlet containing much valuable information on
the State of Ireland, published some time ago
by Mr. Ridgway. It is high time that Ireland
was governed on other principles than those of
division. It was stated in a well written petition
from Westminster, that the secret of arraying one
part of the population against the rest, is a very
costly one to this country, no less a sum being
necessary to keep up these divisions than four
millions a year beyond the Revenue of Ireland.
Well may
we prize an ascendancy for which we
pay so much.

[-MORNING HERALD.]
At a time when the priuciples of a free trade
with foreign countries have so many advocates,
and are so warmly adopted by the Government
itself, we are surprised that some-of the shackles
which still bind down certain portions of our
home trade should be suffered to exist. We
allude, on this occasion in particular, to the
system of licensing public-houses, which, viewed
in all its bearings, is one of the most galling spe-
cies of tyranny that has ever been suffered to
exist in a free country. Under the specious pre-
text of securing the morals of the people, a mo-
nopoly is kept up, which goes far to destroy
both their health and comfort, while its direc-
tion is confided to persons, many of whom have
shown themselves, both in and out of the metro-
polis, the ready instruments of partiality and
oppression, not to say of corruption and baseness.
Our reader., perhaps, are not aware that Acts
of Parliament have lately been passed to alter
the time of licensing in the principal parishes of

re metropolis from September to March, and to
erect each of these parishes into a separate
licensing division, thereby ►ecuring all the power,
patronage, &c. to a snug Committee of Local
Magistrates, who are also generally members of
the parish Vestry. None but those who have
witnessed it, would believe the canvassing,
cringing,and obsequiousness which are now going
on to secure the favour of their High Migh►tinesses,
the Licensing Justices. The Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, and Lord Liverpool himself, are nothing,
in point of consequence, to those worthy person-
ages, as the day approaches " big with the fate of
gin-shops and of beer." When we view the im-
mense increase of buildings on the north and
north-western sides of the metropolis, it must na-
turally strike one that a large increase of public-
houses must necessarily follow the wants of a new
and extended neighbourhood. But will it be
be believed that persons who have expended
enormous capitals in raising, as it were, a new
town from swamps and fields, have as much diffi-
culty in annexing the necessary accommodation
of a public-house to them, as if they were soli-
citing those worshipful persons to open their own
purse-strings to some object of distress ?
And why is th7s, but for fear some new
brewer or free house (if there could at present
Le such a thing) should break in upon the pri-
vileged district of another, or lest the old stager
should lose the harvest, which the workmen em-
ployed about the new buildings must necessarily
produce, while his monopoly is secured to him ?
We would seriously ask, why is this system to
continue ? Why should the Magistrates have it
any more in their power to say who shall deal in
beer, that► in grocery, linen drapery or any other
of the common wants of life ? Surely one trade is
as likely to find its level as another. It is very fit,
perhaps, that regulations should be formed for the
government of public-houses, and that the proper
authorities should see those regulations duly and
impartially enforced ; but "
we• can see no reason
why, after a man has, upon a fair and honest spe-
culation, expended, perhaps, 2 or 3,0001. in the
erection of a public-house upon his estate, he should
be denied the privileges of using his own property,
at the arbitrary will and pleasure of persons whose
rule it is to give no reasons for their conduct.—
Why the landed interests in particular not only so
quietly submit to a system which so materially
affects one of the staple productions of their soil,
but also submit to be the instruments of it in
their respective counties, are mysteries which
their clerks and attorneys (who are generally
solicitors to the neighbouring brewers) perhaps
know n►ore about than themselves.