The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-19 00:00:00

giit SIDNEY SMITH.

Sir F. BURDET7said that on a former occasion he
had given notice of a motion for the erection of a monu-
ment to Sir Sidney Smith, which he had been induced to
withdraw upon the representation of the Government that
they would undertake the matter. He had since received
an intimation from the Government that it was not their
intention to take any steps on the subject during the
present Session, and he felt himself placed in a very un-
pleasant situation, as applications were being constantly
made to him on the subject ' • he therefore wished to ask
the Noble Lord (Lord John Russell) why the former in-
tention of the Government was not carried into effect ?
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said that it was intended that
a sum sufficient to erect a monument to Sir Sidney Smith
should be paid out of the public funds, if the House
of Commons should consent to a vote on taking the
matter into consideration.—(Hear, hear, hear.) But.
the cases of some other distinguished officers in the
service of their country were brought before the Go-
vernment, and it became the Government to consider
whether they were not also entitled to monuments. It was
the intention of the Government to proceed in the ordinary
manner, either by stating to the House their intention
to take out of the civil contingencies a sum sufficient for
these monuments, or to raise it in the miscellaneous es-
timates, or by a separate vote of the House. However,
the Hon. Baronet was quite aware that circumstances
had occurred to alter the ordinary proceeding of voting
the usual supplies of the year ; it had been agreed not to
bring forward any supplemental estimates, but to take a
sum simply sufficient to carry on the public service.
It appeared to the Government, that under the present
circumstances it was their duty to postpone the applica-
tion of the sums in question until the meeting of a new
Parliament. That determination had not, however,
arisen from any change in their sentiments towards the
memory of Sir Sidney Smith.

Sir F. BURDETT inferred, therefore, that the Go-
vernment had not abandoned the project altogether.
Lord J. RUSSELL considered the undertaking as one
to which the Government was pledged ; and it was not
given up or abandoned.
Mr. lIUME suggested that if more monuments were
greeted in commemoration of the services of distin-
guished men, they ought to be raised in some place
where the public might see them. They had at present
40 such monuments erected at an expense of 100,000/.,
which wore locked up from the public. He trusted that
such an error would not be committed in future.
TRAVELLING BY RAILWAY.
_ _ _

Lord R. GROSVENOR complained that passengers
could not now pass on the Grand Junction Railway with
the same rapidity with which the mails were transmit-
ted. He begged to know whether that inconvenience
could be remedied by an order issued on the part of the
Government. _ . .

%AV •
Mr. SHEIL thought it was obvious that passengers
should be allowed to go by the same route as the mails.
If the Noble Lord put the question on Monday next, he
would be prepared to give him a more explicit answer.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER appre-
hended that the laW gave no power of compelling the
proprietors of railways not to adopt the mode of travelling
they might think proper.
The Lords' amendments to the Banks of Issue Bill
were read and agreed to.
Lord J. RUSSELL moved that the House, at its
rising, should adjourn until Monday next.—Agreed to.
On the motion of Lord INGESTRE it was agreed
that an humble address be presented to her Majesty,
praying that her Majesty would order a new survey to
be made of the coast of New Zealand.
A Message from the Lords requested a copy of the
Report of the Comthittee on the exportation of machinery,
and of certain other papers.
Mr. VERNON SMITH laid on the table certain
papors relating to the West Indies,
The House then adjourned.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

OF Y E.STER FROM THE DAILY PAPERS
GLOBE.--WC look in vain throughthel'opr7Yournals
t questions Obnodwiehsic of
fora discussionis appealfb
aoouft
to be made to
the all-important
the electoral
the country. In the place of arguments against the
pro-
posed measures of the Government, we are
furnished
with plentiful tirades of abuse of Ministers for having
introduced them, and a sweeping attack is made
upon
the motives assumed to have influenced their proceed-
logs. In thus shifting the true and only ground
On which the question in issue rests, to one which
is incidental, if not extraneous, these journals hope to
succeed in withdrawing attention from the real merits of
the quostion and.-,by exciting an unfounded prejudice
against tho )'4i4i4tPrS, .succeed in entrapping a few in-
cautious and uninfoo4o Orgons into voting against the
candidates who are pledged to goppArt the measures, as
those called for by the declining trade of 140 gAnntry, and
the distress and suffering which that declension has pro,
ducat!. If we decline to meet our antagonists upon the
ground which Ow have found it convenient to select, it is
because we regard the ifitei.-e§ts pf the people g of i
Go-
nfi-
nitely higher value than even the ei,afgptfp., 9C the
vernment. If we be asked, whether we think the Go-
vernment opght to have brought forward thee proposed
measures at an aaplier period, we may fairly rply by a
reference to the ales of oaf jawing), which prove that
strafed the injury
we haVe, daring tiong 04.FsP 1111 YP4P4? 11P111$111-'
with foreign nation's-7
"wie,el-Iprirni.°7llnllls tr
194 °01tilleQt):411711(17
facturing interests of the country ; anu
vantages supposed to accrue to the agriculturists from
these restrictions, were hypothetical, and not real. The
inference is plain, that we should have hailed the intro-
duction of such measures as the Government has now

;11,, d at an earlier period with satisfaction ; an,'
old then, as now, have supported them with what
•ver humble assistance we could give. We believe tho
Government would have clone well had they, brought
them before Parliament, as Cabinet measures, at at:
earlier period. The only benefit of delay has been to
show that a change which would then have been highly
beneficial has now become essential ; and that further
postponement of the remedy would not merely add to
existing calamities, but would place the interests now
trembling in the balance beyond the possibility of re-
covery.
' CU DRIER.—Let us take, like Sterne, a single victim
of the Whig-Radical "accursed" Corn-laws, and lay him
on the table, for dissection if you will. And that impar-
tiality may not be questioned in the selection, we shall not
take little soapy Hawes, who lathers Lord John Russell
with'his suds in return for sundry Treasury pickings and
places past and prospective, which may render him in-
different about the cruel hardship of paying eight pence
the quartern loaf when it may be had abroad for six-
pence—but one vi.lo toils hard all day to get " the profits
of capital raised," ' and who is himself groaning and
sweating under the heavy incubus of that monster
capital, in comparison with the burden and agony of
which slave labour is idle sport, and even mill work and
billy rollering, for sixteen hours a day, is pure sunshine
hohday making. The hapless victim in question shall
be no other than Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd himself, the
story of whose struggles through life, with those of his
predecessors, is absolutely enough to attract scalding-
tears " down Pluto's iron cheek." We have read that
" a good man struggling with the frowns of fate" is a
noble subject for contemplation and instruction, but how
infinitely superior the lesson and edification of—
" A rich man struggling with the gifts of fortune."
Imagine, gentle reader, the surpassing hardships of a man
with but one million and a half of sterling wealth
in actual possession, and only two millions more in posi-
tive reversion, condemned to the grinding tax of paying
2d. per lb. for bread in this country when abroad he
might cram to repletion at the rate of one penny, or, if
fancy inclined, on black bread at a halfpenny. per lb. and
sour wine at one farthing per bottle. Never in the
annals of London Tavern gathering and gorging, will
be forgotten that indescribable glance—
" ----------- Woe begone,
As Priam looked, when at the dead of night,
They drew kis curtains to tell him
That his Troy was ta'en"—
with which the imploring banker besought the sad sym-
pathy of a merciful meeting, as Sir Matthew (not
Jemmy) Wood detailed the dreadful ditty of his dis-
tresses, when truthfully complimenting him on the in-
calculable amount of his property in the funds. Many
are the daily histories of poverty-stricken wretches
perishing for want under the mild Administra-
tion of New Poor-laws, in the very midst of a
plethoric abundance of comestibles, but rare, indeed,
is the horrific spectacle of an " unswaddled giant,"
of capital uncountable, smothered under the in-
supportable pressure of that " demon form" of Corn-
laws, which rigorously exact sixpence a week extra from
Dives, the dealer in gold, in order to soothe the sad suf-
ferings of pauper agriculturist Lazarus. The whole story
indeed of the money-making but Corn-law-hating family
of Loyd is full of melancholy interest. It has laud-
ably and industriously migrated in an incredibly short
space of time from the smithy and the Unitarian
pulpit, if report-may be trusted, to west-end palaces
and cheek-by-jowl- neighbourship with the Bank of
England itself. Its mortgage claws may be perhaps on
many a man's land for goodly tens of thousands of acres,
with an " itching palm" towards foreclosure, as invidi-
ously thought, on the advent of Corn-law repeal. In
Three per Cents. its fortunes are prodigious, but then
Consols are not corn. What avails, however, all this
boundless wealth when the rapacity for more is insatia-
ble, and the hungering appetite unappeasable ? The
cry is still for the " profits of capital to be raised," for
the reconversion Of 'Three per Cents. into Fives, for a
cheap loaf, lower_wages, and starvation poor laws.
STANDARD.—The correspondent of a Ministerial
journal furnishes the following facts:—
" From documents in my possession as executor, I find that
in the year 1799 my testator contracted to victual for a year
11,000 Frenchmen, prisoners of war at Stapleton prison, Nor-
man Cross prison, and Gosport and Porchester prisons.
(4 The dietary was 10 ounces avoirdupois of beef, 20 ounces
avoirdupois of wheaten bread, and 1 quart of beer, of the qua-
lity served out to the British navy.
" I assume that dietary as the consumption of seventeen
million adults, half that dietary as the consumption of six
million chi dren (not eating as fully as an adult does), and
that two to four million infants suck at the breast, making
the population of Great Britain and Ireland, of from about
25 to 27 millions."

The purpose of the writer is to prove (are we vain in
thinking that our exposure called for the attempt ?)
that Mr. Joseph Hume was right when he said that
the Corn-laws operate as a tax of 50,000,000/.
annually ; and this proof is sought to be effected
by assuming that the diet of the French prisoners in
1799 is the average dietary of the people of the United
Kingdom in 1841. We should rejoice in the belief that
such is the case, and we should not the less rejoice be-
cause such a result would abundantly prove the wisdom
of the laws under which we live; for it could not matter
a jot to the people what taxes, direct or indirect, they
paid, or to whom they paid them, if still they enjoyed
a surplus plenty; but with the hypothesis that the dietary
of the French prisoners in 1799 is the average dietary of
the people of the United Kingdom, all calculation built
upon that hypothesis must fall to the ground ; and away
with it goes Mr. Hume's Corn-law tax. There is, more-
over, a consideration necessary to all these questions,
which Mr. Hume and the rest of the free-traders
keep carefully out'of sight. What a man pays is not al-
ways loss to him : as well say that the tax collector, who
brings in his weekly bag to the Treasury, is himself the
tributary : or say that he who pays a tax out of re-
sources created by a system of which tax is part, really
contributes the whole amount : he may to some ex-
tent—even to the extent of the whole payment,
or beyond it—be a gainer by that very tax ;
and this last• is,' questionless, the case of whatever is
paid for British grain beyond the Continental price ;
but, though the fact furnished is useless for its de-
signed 'purpose, it is all important in relation to another
question—the question of the New Poor-law. Does the So-
merset House dietary even approach the dietary of the
French prisoners in 1799 ? No, not by the one-half