The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-10 00:00:00

sing•ular.

fierce that they are some of the most mischiev-
ous men that ever existed, aid the curse of their
fellow-creatures.

It is at present the object of the Tory Journals
to represent all the difficulties of the country as
the result of anal-administration, and to kindle the
wrath of the public against the Ministers. We
have on more than one occasion insisted on the
fact that the distresses and difficulties of the
people are not the consequence of maladmi-
nistration, but of incorrect and unjust legislation.
The practical importance of the distinction is
very great, and as one or other view is correct,
relief may be obtained by changing the men, or
can only be obtained by altering the laws. We do
not conceal our chagrin that the electors have too
generally adopted the Tory view. They believe
the laws are good and just, and therefore they
have given their support to men who have de-
clared they shall not be changed ; and have with-
drawn their confidence from men who affirm that
a remedy for our distress and difficulties can
only be found in altering the laws. We very
much regret the decision of the electors, but if
the majority, instead of being a mere measuring
cast majority, constituted four-fifths of the House
of Commons, we should still maintain, respec-
fully but firmly, that its decision is equally erro-
neous, and injurious to the public.
The great and pressing difficulty for the Go-
vernment is the financial deficiency. How has
that been brought about by mal-administration ?
No persons are more sensible than we are of the
folly of wasting public money, but the large al-
lowance made to the QUEEN by the Whigs had the
approbation of the Tories; and the extravagant
grant they would have made to Prince ALBERT
not having been completed can have had no in-
fluence on the financial deficiency. It is as easy
to say that the Ministers have perpetrated jobs
as that the Times is remarkable for its strict ad-
herence to truth—and both assertion; would be
false. We confess to the MONTEAGLE job; but
the utmost expense of that was the pension to
Sir JOHN NEWPORT, and it was connected with
a considerable saving in the Exchequer, made by
the Whigs. The Whigs, we admit, have cre-
ated a great number of Commissions to settle
the claims of the slave-owners to compensation
—to carry the Factory Act into execution—to
carry out the New Poor-law—to execute the Tithe
Commutation Act. But most of these are Par-
liamentary Commissions; they all have im-
portant duties to perform ; nor has anybody
shown that those duties are worthless, or that
they could be performed in a more economical
manner. Supposing them to have been unneces-
sary, the whole expense of them would go but
a very little way to account for the excess of the
expenditure over the revenue. Two extrava-
gancies the Whigs have undoubtedly been guilty
of, which the Tories vehemently reprobate.
They have appropriated a sum of money to ex-
tend education, and they have given up some
revenue to facilitate communication. Never will
the Tories do the like.
The Administration has involved us in ex-
pense by the assistance given to expel Don CAR-
LOS from Spain, which, being achieved, and
Spain saved from being either the vassal of
France, or the tool of Russia, is, according to
the ordinary course of State policy, and states-
men's prudence, a great benefit to England, pur-
chased at a small cost. The Syrian expedition
was another subject of cost, but the Tories have
approved of it. Since it was ascertained that M.
THIERS had a particular object in view, detri-
mental to the interests of England, no other
objection has been made to Lord PALMERSTON'S
policy by the Tories than that he might have
spoke the Frenchman fairc.r. But whatever the
cost of the expedition, it grew out of the Tory
neglect, prior to 1830. The Tories allowed the
Turks to be placed at the mercy of Russia, and
every subsequent act was the consequence of
their policy. They have, accordingly, both pub-
licly and privatly, approved of the policy of Lord
PALMERSTON.
We know not how some expedition to China
could have been avoided. The seizure of British
property by the Chinese authorities was not Lord
PALMERSTON'S act, nor provoked by him ; but
had he not taken measures to procure redress all
England, particularly Tory England, would
have rung with reproaches. But the Spanish,
the Syrian, and the Chinese expeditions, with the
altered relations of France—are the great sources
of expense in our army and navy ; and unless
the Tories can show that those expeditions were
uncalled for, or injurious, it is all nonsense to
grumble at the cost.
It is not our business, however, to defend the
Government from the charge of being costly.
We have always inculcated economy, and depre-
cated that eternal meddling and extension of the
sphere of government which makes it more
vexatious and more expensive. But th.e'Tories
take a different view. They complain. perpe-
tually that the Government does not do enough,
and if their suggestions to extend the Church,
to increase the instruments of coercion, to pro-
voke the Irish, had been attended to, the expen-
diture would have been increased a million a-year
more. Without defending, every act of the Go-
vernment we affirm that it has fairly and tem-
perately administered the laws, and that, conse-
quently, the present difficulties of the Govern-
ment and the country are owing to bad laws, not
to their being badly administered.
One of the charges now made against the Mi-
nisters is that, having had a large majority in
the House of Commons for several years, they
inexorably maintained the system of protection,
and did nothing to remedy the defective legisla-
tion. The writer who makes the charge must
be either ignorant of the history of the Whig
Administration or he wilfully mis-states the
case. Not now to notice the number of reforms

which the Whigs carried, and those which they
proposed without being able to carry, we will
just remind our readers that during the last ten
years the Whigs have been in office it has

been a standing reproach to them that they were

casting everthing loose and fastening nothing.
If they had, in addition to altering the Poor-
laws, and reforming the municipal corporations,
commuting tithes, &c. &c., also proposed a great
and sweeping reform in our commercial system,
who could have set bounds to the indignation of
_ .

the Tories, and who can measure the exhaust-

less vituperation with which they would have

assailed the Whigs
But in fact our system of commercial legisla-
tion, though it be, demonstrably speaking, scien-
tifically a great error, and, speaking morally, a
great crime, was not attended practically and
immediately with the disastrous effects which

recent sufferings have convinced the public ne-
cessarily belong to it. In 1828 only, or two years

before the accession of the Whigs to office, the

present Corn-law was passed, with the approba-
tion and Fupport of both the great parties of the

State. It was certainly opposed in its progress
through Parliament by some agriculturists like

Mr. BENETT and Lord WESTERN, because it did

not give protection enough; by some Liberals,
like Mr. HUME and Mr. WHITMORE, because it

gave too much; and by Lord KING, whose ex-
cellent protest we publish elsewhere, as iniquit-
ous : but both the great parties of Par;iament
acquiesced in it. What would have.been said of
the Whigs, had they, from a heedless zeal for
change, proposed at any time before 1840 an
alteration in that great, most erroneous, and
most criminal part of our legislation ? At
only one period, within a few months after
the passing of the Bill, did the price of
corn rise to 70s. prior to the year 1838.
The years from 1832 to 1836 inclusive, were
all good years, prices were .down below 505.,
and the only complaint made against the Corn-law was by the Duke of BUCKINGHAM and Mr.
CAYLEY, that it did not give protection enough.
Before 1838 it would have been hopelessly im-
possible for the Ministers to have crone anything
with that law, and the manner in which they
have now been deserted by Whig landlords, is a
complete demonstration that they never had the