The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-04 00:00:00

Legislature.

Another point which Mr. BROTHERTON has
well put, which ought to be impressed on the
working men, particularly those who prefer any
other agitation to an agitation for a repeal of the
Corn-laws, is the relative effect of the bread tax cn
the poor and on the rich. The poor weaver it
deprives of one-third of his earnings—the man
who has 5001. a year it only taxes to the amount
of one-tenth fif his income. Just in proportion as
the people are poor, and are compelled to live on
bread or potatoes, does this tax press partially and
heavily on them. We arc grateful to Mr. BROTHER-
TON for having brought the important bearing of the
Corn-laws distinctly before the labouring classes.
He has long been one of their best and most prudent
friends, and he still maintains that estimable chz.-
racter.

The whole of the proceedings deserve to be
commented on, and the opinions enforced ; but we
can only refer to one point more. Mr. J. B.
SMITH proved very completely that an increase cf
crime is the consequence of the high price of corn.
In 1835 and 1836, when wheat was 40s. the quar-
ter, the number of prisoners tried at the Old Bailey
at Manchester was 873 and 972. In 1839,
when corn was 80s. the quarter, the number was
1,117, and in 1840, 1,532. A similar-fact is true
of Salford. We are convinced, too, that similar
facts will be established by the commercial returns
from the agricultural districts whenever the question
is examined. How can it be otherwise ? The
rise on the price of corn puts a stop to
employment, lessening the whole amount of
wages if the rate be not lowered, de-
prives many persons of a portion of their food, and
reduces them to hunger and starvation. Famine
will make men, worse than (logs, eat one another ;
and is it, therefore, to be supposed that they will
stop at the lesser crime of violating property to get
food, particularly when they are taught to do that
by the Corn-law makers ? We have before
said, and fortified by these facts we now re-
peat, that the Legislature, by decreeing plun-
der, makes plunder and robbery the general rules
of society, and the crimes for which men at the
Manchester Old Bailey and Salford Sessions are
imprisoned for committing, are only faint imitations,
which have starvation for their excuse, of the crimes
ordained by the Corn-law making legislators.

Such of the Paris Journals as were published on
Monday have been received, but Monday being
the solemn festival of All Souls, and according to
the Roman Catholic ritual a holiday of the first
class, several of the daily papers did not appear.
Besides these we have received Madrid Journals
of the 26th ult., with ailvices from Greece, extracts
from all of which will be found i❑ another part of
The Sun. From the correspondence of the Morn-
ing Post we have likewise copied an amusing ac-
count of a fracas between M. BERGERON and M.
EMILE GIRARDIN, the former editor of the
Siecle, the latter editor of the Presse, at one of
the Parisian theatres on Sunday night, to which
we invite attention. It is altogether a droll affair,
and yet its consequences individually and politically

may be serious.
The impression produced in Pads by the late
news from Syria is, upon the whole, pacific. The
submission of the ENIIR BECHIR the Journal des
Debats stigmatizes as treacherous, while grief and
rage nearly deprive the National of the power of
hurling maledictions on French supineness. But
abating the insane fury of the journals, a compara-
tive calm was observable in the political circles.
Indeed, the conviction that the peace of Europe
would not at present be disturbed was general
among the monied classes in Paris on Monday.
Nothing can be more agreeable to lovers of peace
and good will among men of all nations,
like ourselves, than to turn from the madden-
ing war-shouts of the Republican National
of Monday to the dulcet embrace-wooing notes
of our fashionable Contemporary, the Tory Post of
this morning. We are at last let into the secret of
the side which the Tories have taken on the Eastern
question. One of the most respectable of their
organs has solved the riddle which so puzzled the
country for the last two months. During that time
everybody was asking everybody what side would
the Tory leaders take ? 'Were they for peace or
war ? How many of them were likely to remain
neutral ? Would STANLEY join with PEEL in
supporting Lord PALMERSTON and a variety of
other questions to the same effect, which nobody
could answer. At last the Spectator began to treat
the question as no longer doubtful, and assumed the
Tories to be all for war. To this assumption the
Post of this morning replies as follows :
The Spectator says that " the war section" of our
Cabinet is confident in the support of a large majority
of the Opposition. The Spectator is too woll-informed
not to know, whatever it may say, that the Opposition
is for peace, and that the journals of the Opposition have
strenuously advocated the policy of peace, notwithstand-
ing the continued provocation of the French revolution-
ary party to war. The Conservative Opposition would
not be slow to animate the country into exertions
for war if there were a national occasion for war, but
that occasion the Opposition does not perceive to
have arisen in the difference between the Allies
and France upon the Turco-Egyptian question. The
Spectator, which, we suppose, considers itself a friend
of peace, says that the question at issue is, after all, but
of a few leagues of territory more or less, and that this
is a miserable pretext for involving two great nations in
the countless miseries of war. Now, this is just what
has been said several weeks ago by the Opposition
journals, which are now accused as supporting the war
section of the Cabinet. We cannot be constantly re-
peating the same thing ; but it ii rather too bad to be
charged with belonging to the war party because we
happen to have long ago " used up " those observations
against war which they who make the charge are now
re-furnishing to the public.
We now know, and we are grateful for the in-
formation, though late, in what category to place
the Tories. They are our dear allies—struggling
for peace under the broad banner of Radicalism.
All we now want is some proof of their sincerity
—some intimation of the sacrifices they are pre-
pared to make, in order to preserve peace. Con-
cessions must be made somewhere--will the Tories

agree to any?
In our extracts from the Paris Journals will be
found a foul and infamous insinuation of the Com-
merce, which indirectly imputes to the British Go-
vernment an intention of getting rid of MEHEMET
ALI by assassination. We leave to the high-
minded people of France the duty of resenting as
becomes them, this atrocious and cowardly calumny
upon the most generous nation on the face of the
earth, and the one to whose feelings the crime of
assassination is the most abhorrent.
We find the following paragraph in the Courier
Francais
" Private letters from London announce that it was
expected there that news would shortly be received of
the death of Mehemet Ali. We do not know on what
foundation this information rests."
We have heard at Paris what the correspondent of
the Courricr wishes from London. England, it was
said, must absolutely get rid of Mehemet Ali at all
events. Now, it is well-known how the men who were
in the way of the projects of British Power have disap-
peared.. It seems, however, that Mehemet Ali is
warned, and is on his guard.--Le Commerce.
PO URSE.--P
. ARIS, MONDAY, Nov. 2.
HALF-PAS t THkEE.—This is settling day in the French
Stoc4 for till
9ctober Account, in which there his boon