The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-20 00:00:00

secure our people an ample supply of food. Mr.
AusoN, and following him the Morning Post,
have insisted with much vehemence lately on
the great capabilities which the country yet pos-
sesses to supply food for a much larger popula-
tion than at present. They have enumerated
the acres tilled and the acres untilled, and they
say that there is an abundance of land on which
to grow food for the people. It is impossible,
when we look on Stowe Park, on the extensive
grounds of Goodwood, on the domains of Clumber,
and on the many hundreds and thousands of acres
parked off for the pleasure of the bread-taxing
aristocracy, to deny for one moment that the capa-
bilities of our own noble land are not yet half pro-
perly appropriated to feeding th e people. But, with
all these vast capabilities, the people are starv-
ing; the people cannot get food; the people are
ground down, by poverty and hunger, to despair
and crime. The Corn-laws, then, have failed to
call out the capabilities of the soil, if they have not
locked them up; and the co-existence of those ca-
pabilities, boasted of by the Corn-law advocates,
with the want of food, is the severest possible
condemnation of the Corn-laws.
We agree with Mr. ALISON and. the Post that
England is blessed by the ALMIGHTY beyond
other countries, and that her teeming and fertile
soil is matched by the industry and skill of her
people. We agree, too, with Mr. J. D. HumE,
that with our heaven-bestowed capabilities,
facility, and skill, England might be the most
abundantly supplied and the cheapest of all
the countries of the earth. At this moment she
is able to export horses for the supply of France.
Her climate is admirably adapted to the rearing
of cattle, and her green grass hills, never wholly
buried, for a long period in snow, subject to
no avalanches or destructive torrents, offer
advantages for this purpose which are not pos-
sessed by either Switzerland or Holland. The
skill of our breeders, too, is great. Why is
it, then, that England has not a great
abundance of meat for her own people, and
does not export horned cattle as she exports
horses? The reason is clear. To export, price
must be lower here than where the goods are to
be sent. But we pass a law expressly to. raise
price here, and to prohibit exportation. The
Corn-law raises the price of everything grown on
the soil, and is, pro Canto, a prohibition for the
farmer to export the produce of the soil. It lays
a grievous restraint on the industry of the agri•-
culturists.
We can show, too, that it prevents the capa-
bilities of the soil being called out. Those who
are engaged in cultivating the soil must make a
profit by the capital and labour employed. The
Corn-law only raises rent; and the farmer is
merely the tax-collector for the landowner. At
the same time it raises price, and consequently
places an artificial limit on profitable cul-
tivation. It makes seed corn and the food of
cattle and of the labourer dear. It en-
hances the expense of cultivation. The land-
lords' tax operates exactly like the parsons' tax
(the tithes), which, by taking something from
the farmer and something from the labourer,
makes it unprofitable, and even impossible, for
them to live by cultivating the soil, before it
would be unprofitable and impossible if they had
not to give the tax to the landlords. The Corn-
law is the cause why the admitted. capabilities of
our soil cannot be called into activity by the
skill and industry of our people.

In the Times of this morning there is a long
and laboured article on the subject of a Charter
of Incorporation sometime ago granted by her
MAJESTY to the inhabitants of the borough of
Bolton, and in which it is attempted to show that
the Government have acted with what the Times
continually calls their usual unfairness ; and after
the commission of such acts, of having resorted
to Parliament in an unworthy manner, to bolster
up and confirm such proceedings as have not
the merit of self-support. We think the
Times would do well, before it makes such

charges, to have more regard to the accuracy of
statements, and not attempt, by indecent and un-
founded representations, thus to impugn the con-
duct of the Government. The facts of the case are

these; in 1838, a public meeting was called of the
inhabitants of the borough of Bolton, which was
very numerously attended, and at which it was
resolved, with the exception of one individual,
that it was desirable Bolton should be in-
corporated. A petition for the purpose was
agreed to, and. put in the course of signature,
when another public meeting of the inhabitants
was by the opposite party convened, to recon-
sider the subject; and it was again determined
that a Charter should be applied for. The pe-
tition was then signed by an actual and consider-
able majority of the rate-payers of the borough,
and duly presented. A counter-petition was then
obtained, which was said to be signed .by more
than 3,000 rate-payers, and both these petitions
were referred by the Privy Council to a
Commissioner, who made his report, and
a Charter was granted. After the Char-
ter was granted elections of the munici-
pal body took place. In 1839 the Council
petitioned that a Court of Quarter Sessions
might be holden at Bolton, and on the state-
ments in that petition the grant was conceded
and a Recorder appointed. A contract for the
maintenance of prisoners was entered into with
the Justices of the New Bailey prison at Salford,
a distance of eleven miles, to which place of-
fenders were committed, and for a time brought
back to the borough to be tried. The decreased
costs for these prosecutions soon proved the
utility of the change, the charges in each case
being reduced from Si. odd to 5/. odd, with the
saving also of the inconvenience and expense of
Jury,iwitnesses, attorneys, &c., travelling eleven
miles to the Salford Sessions. The contract for
the maintenance of prisoners in the Salford gaol
was removed by certiorari to the Queen's Bench,
and on the rule being argued the Judges inti-
mated that inasmuch as there was no gaol in the
borough of Bolton, the law as it now stood did
not warrant the contract, and it is to remedy
that difficulty, which applies to many other bo-
roughs, that the Bill for the better administra-
tion of criminal justice has been brought in.
If the Times will refer to the Parliamentary
Reports it will find that the persons promoting
the incorporation of the new boroughs have not
required or sought the confirmation of the
charters, being satisfied they are good in law; and
it is evident that other persons, to whom the
Times has vouchsafed support, have made the
same discovery, and are now willing to abandon
their original opposition for private gain in the
nature of " compensations."

Madrid Journals of the 12th inst. have reached
us. On the previous evening Queen ISABELLA
and her sister attended the theatre of La Cruz.
Her MAJESTY was attended by the Duke of Vic-
TORY, who displayed the most marked deference
to his Royal Mistress. On the 12th a discussion
took place' in the Senate on the abdication of
Queen CHRISTINA, in the course of which the
loyalty of ESPARTERO'S conduct was admitted on
all sides. The Minister of the Interior assured
the Chamber that CHRISTINA'S resignation was
entirely voluntary, and that nothing had been
done on the part of the Cabinet to suggest to her
such a resolution. We have never heard the
Spanish Cabinet accused of compelling the ex-
Regent to abdicate. It was too well-known that
her MAJESTY'S abdication had been rendered im-
perative by her passion for MuNoz, to leave any
;I lubt about the matter. The wife or mistress of
Mu
.N oz had rendered herself physically incompe-
tent to.
,lischarge the duties of the Regency, and
she
prude► tly anticipated the expression of the
national voie. by abdicating.
In the, chan;ber of Deputies the question of
the relations between the Spanish Government
and the Court of Roue was debated on the 12th.
The Mi ister of Justice stated that the POPE had
refused. -to acknowledge Queen IsABELLA, and
that in co, nsequence no Ambassador from Spain
resided at the Holy See. He observed that the
were Malaga, and various
Goveznmer, t was aware that violent sermons
preached in Seville,
other cities, and that orders had been given to
prose ute heft). re the civil tribunals all ecclesias-
tics sg offending,'. We question whether it would