The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF SATURDAY.
CHRONICLE.—The saying of Talleyrand, that speech
was given to man to hide his thoughts, was never better
exemplified than by Sir Robert Peel on Tuesday night.
The object of the orator was evidently to put forward
just such a show of argument against the Ministerial
measure as would afford his followers a plausible excuse
for the vote they were about to give, without committing
himself to any one principle or position which could en-
danger a Tory seat at the next election : in a word, to
make such a speech that Lord Sandon may go down to
Liverpool and talk of Sir Robert Peel's attachment to
the principles of Huskisson, while Sir E. Knatchbull
assures the Kentish farmers of his unalterable attach-
ment to the Corn-laws and the cause of monopoly.
Is this a man to guide the helm of State in times
like these ? A man who, in the mighty interests of this
vast empire, in questions involving the welfare and
happiness of so many millions of his fellow-countrymen,
can see nothing but so many sorry clap-traps to be
played off against each other, in a miserable electioneer-
ing juggle ? Can cunning save the country in the death-
struggle of foreign competition ?—can plausibility find
food for the thousands who will be deprived of their
daily bread if the Brazils treaty be suffered to expire ?
• can Parliamentary jesuitry raise two millions and a
half of money, or stave off the necessity of re-
sorting to new taxes if we refuse to admit foreign corn
and sugar ? No one knows better than Sir R. Peel that the
time has come when circumstances imperatively demand
a decision between the opposing principles of monopoly
and free-trade. The choice cannot possibly be many
months postponed, between breaking with the monopo-
lists and adopting such measures as those which have
been proposed by Ministers, or sacrificing the foreign
commerce of the country and making good the deficiency
of the revenue by direct taxation. By staving off this
decision, by throwing out plausible, ambiguous state-
ments, to hide from the country the real nature of the
question, no single interest is served except that of the
Tory party. It enables the Tories to go the hustings,
and wear free trade or anti-free trade colours, according
to the complexion of the constituency.
TlMES.—Nothing can be stronger than the contrast
between the calm, quiet, and cheerful confidence with
which the whole Conservative party is looking forward to
the approaching general election, and the frothy fidgetty,
buzz-and-bubbl agitation of their politically-expiring
opponents. They remind us of the scene which is apt to
terminate a good day's sport at the dragging of a fish-
pond, when the fish begin to discover themselves pent
up in shallows where they have not sufficient water to
move or live. Incontinently there is a violent spurting
and spluttering, and flapping of tails in the mud, which
frightens all the ladies and little children, and splashes
them with dirt ; and if-some cockney greenhorn happens
to be near, he opines in his sapient mind that, with so
much tossing and jumping about, some of the finny
tribe must inevitably succeed in finding their way back
into the pond. The event, however, convinces him of
his mistake; the nets keep their place, not a with the
less effectually because they make no noise ; in due time
the spluttering subsides, the fish are quietly taken out
and killed, and the cockney has the pleasure of eating
some of them for dinner. Such, at this moment, is the
position of the Melbourne Cabinet, in Parliament and
in the country. The net of public opinion, having long
since enclosed them round with meshes woven of their
-own misdeeds, has at last been drawn to land by strong
- and skilful hands. They lie gasping out of water, shut
out from the confidence of the House of Commons, the
vital element of their official existence, and are now
making desperate but futile efforts to overleap the
barrier.
ADVERTISER.—So far as matters have proceeded,
they certainly auguur well for the eventual triumph of
anti-monopoly movement. The Ministry and the people
go hand-in-hand. We do not doubt that the announce-
ment of the Cabinet's intention to appeal to the general
sense of the nation upon the important change which
they have undertaken in our commercial policy, will be
received everywhere with enthusiasm. Now that the
die is cast, and all indecision as to a dissolution of Par-
liament is at an end, the efforts of the people will be re-
doubled to reinforce Ministers. The great Westminster
meeting gives cheering augury of devotion and unanimity
in all classes of Reformers, and proves that Lord John
Russell has at last hit upon the magical chord that is to
soothe their jarrings, and allay their differences.
With such a rallying word he cannot fail.
We rejoice to see that, as the Abolitionist diversion
in favour of the Tories was stifled, so is the Tory pros-
pect of help from the Chartists. It has said much for
the Chartists, and although some infatuated persons have
endeavoured to neutralise the effects of Anti-Corn-law
meetings, by moving amendments in favour of the Char-
ter, yet not a man has been found willing to stand up in
support of the bread tax. One man, it is said, was heard
of by Mr. Cobden, of Manchester, bold enough to do
so, and we recommend that he should be cherished as a
curiosity, and sent to the congenial society of the last of
the pigtails. But apart from this worthy (Dix is the
name of him), east, west, north, and south, the people
have the sagacity to perceive that cheap sugar, cheap
timber, cheap coffee, and cheap bread, are more sub-
stantial and indispensable benefits than the " five points,"
nay, that their opposites are so combined with the power
of their oppressors, that if they succeed in getting these
they stand a better chance than before of getting en-
larged liberties. Cheap bread is indeed like the king-
dual of righteousness—seek it first, and all the rest will
- be given to us.
POST.—The Ministerial Journals, in a most ranting
and. ridiculous strain, give the country to understand
that a dissolution of Parliament is fully resolved upon.
If it be, it is an unconstitutional and unprecedented
course. The Government is beaten in a Parliament
chosen under its own auspices, and then it resolves to
dissolve the Parliament instead of dissolving itself ! This,
indeed, is somethins, new, and furnishes a charming indi-
cation of the views of national freedom and constitutional
practice which the Whig-Radicals have drawn from their
Palace experience. But, notwithstanding all the fantastical
flourishes of the Ministerial Journals—notwithstanding
the palpitation and convulsive hurry and earnestness
with which they exhort the people to agitate for the
coming election—we do not at present believe that a
dissolution has been resolved upon. We consider that all
this is a mere trick to turn away public attention from
the disgraceful circumstance of Ministers remaining in
office without support from any quarter but that of the
Court. Both Houses of Parliament are now decidedly
against the Ministers, and the single elections which
have now and then taken place within the last three
months indicate with unmistakeable force and distinct-
ness that the country also is against the Ministers.
And yet thEy stay in office ! What wonder is it that
any sort of stratagem should be resorted to—any source
of public excitement—to divert public attention from
a state of things so dangerous to the working of our
free Constitution, and so utterly disgraceful to the mean
persons who, spurned and spit upon as they are, still
cling to official advantage and emolument ? What Mi-
nisters may be driven to in the further course of their
desperation, it would be in vain to attempt to conjecture,
but we believe they are too well aware of the probable
result to attempt a dissolution, so long as any other ex-
pedient remains possible. A dissolution ! The news is
we fear too good to be true. We wish they would dis-
solve, at least so far as it may be lawful to wish for any-
thing which we consider to be a dangerous innovation
upon precedent and constitutional practice. But as to
the party interest of the Conservatives, we have no he-
sitation in saying that a dissolution would be greatly for
their advantage.
GLOBE.—The public were prepared for the an-
nouncement of Lord John Russell, as to the course de-
termined on by Ministers in the present crisis. That
announcement has put the matter beyond all doubt ;
and the question, which the Tory Journals for seve-
ral days urged with a tenacity indicative of the deep in-
terest felt by the party in the result—" Resignation or Dis-
solution ?"—is now answered in a way which has in-
creased' their knowledge, without diminishing their
anxiety, or relieving their suspense. The Government
will neither resign, nor dissolve Parliament; but will—
as we several days since ventured to predict--proceed
with the essential business of the country. On Mon-
day next the Chancellor of the Exchequer will move,
s' That the House 'resolve itself into a Committee of
ways and means ;" and in that Committee will move the
usual annual resolution for the renewal of the " Sugar
Duties." Will the Tories, with all their vaunted strength,
and with their acknowledged desire to seize on the Go-
vernment, venture to obstruct the proposed course, by a
motion of " want of confidence," or by moving that
the House resolve itself into a Committee on the
" state of tho nation," either of which modes will be
isopen to them ? Will they, we ask, by either of
. I hese, or by any other of the various plans of obstruc-
tion which the practice of Parliament prescribes, venture
to refuse the supplies, and thus stop the machine of Go-
vernment ? We answer, No ! The Speaker will leave
the chair—and the House in Committee will adopt the
' annual resolution, without any essential obstruction from
the disappointed and impatient Tories. The Whitsun-
tide recess will intervene ; and on Monday, the 4th
-June, the whole question of the Corn-laws will be
'brought forward by Lord John Russell—not with an
expectation that the House of Commons will affirm
the Government proposal, but that the country may be
fully informed as to the bearings of the proposed alter-
ation on the interests of the community, and be pre-
'pared for the event which will immediately follow upon
its rejection—viz., a dissolution of the present Parlia-
ment, and a consequent appeal to the constituencies.
To the country the important consequences involved in
the issue of the conflict will thus be committed. The
weal or woe of millions of our suffering fellow-country-
men will depend upon the result. The monopolists and
the masses—the cupidity of the class interests, and the
rravings of a suffering, despairing, hunger-bitten popula-
tion, shut out out from employment and thus deprived of
bread—such are the clients which appeal, in the language
which they are respectively capable of employing, to the
electoral bodies.
COITRIER.—The Ministerial Press is most amusingly
indis nant, forasmuch as the " Tory Papers" will not be-
t-eye in the reality of the sham agitation in which the
,enutur is asserted to be involved for the sake of keeping
Lord John Russell in office, and the people under his
grinding system of workhouse poor-laws. The Advertiser,
which really takes the lead in rampant Whiggery, and
which above all Papers used to affect to be the special organ
of the working and lower trading classes, whose cause for
some time past it has entirely deserted, is perfectly dole-
ful and desperate this morning at the scandalous ab-
sence of Conservative ieports about the famous Anti-
Corn-law meetings of the " three Tailors of Too-
ley-street," in the Borough—of the Westminster
rump of two hundTed Irish basketteers in Cabbage
Garden—of the renowned ticket of leave conclave,
held in some hole and corner at Manchester,
where the hustings were impregnably fortified against
any possible onslaught of the Chartists, and all other of
the like raost estawics
n,
grandiloquent gatherings.
Our disintetestW eta "
mporary should make some
allsovance fir 'Tory -"lce on such occasions, inasmuch
as they at host are notitni,
moat iga krt, those interestangltg the recipients of Govern-
avortisements of Anti ii