The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-08 00:00:00

-
;he word "manufactures" should have been used

for one of the unnecessary words.
We understand the first half of the paragraph,
but the second half puzzles u,s. Is it meant
that measures for " equalising " other objects

connected with trade, &c., will occupy the at-
tention of Parliament, or that oNects connected
with trade, besides the measures for equalising
the income and expenditure, will occupy the

attention of Parliament ? If the latter be, as we

presume, the meaning which her MAJESTY'S Mas-
ters wished to convey to the Parliament, why did
they say, and other objects connected with
trade, &c., as if the measures for equalising the
public income and expenditure were also objects
connected with trade ? As the sentence stands,

the meaning is, that " measures for equalising
the public income and expenditure, and for
equalising other objects connected with trade,
&c., will occupy your attention ;" which is as
sheer nonsense as ever a Minister penned, and
that is saying a great deal.
The Ministers meant to be vague, and they
have made themselves fools. They should have
been more brief, and they would have been
equally vague, without being ungrammati-
cal. They ought to have substituted for the
words, "and other important objects connected
with the trade and commerce of the country,"
the words, "with the state of trade." The whole
would then read thus, " The measures which it
will be expedient to adopt for the purpose of
equalising the public income and the annual ex-
penditure, with the state of trade, will ne-
cessarily occupy your attention at an early
period after the recess." Supposing the
meaning of the sentence to be that some of
the laws interfering with trade are to be taken
into consideration, in conjunction with measures
for equalising the revenue and the expenditure,
we can only conclude that the Tories have al-
ready resolved to adopt the very course they
turned out the Whigs fir proposing.
The Speech expresses " deep concern at the
distress which has prevailed in the manufactur-
ing districts for a considerable period," implying
that it does not now prevail ; and it promises,
not to take measures to relieve it, but to pre-
vent the recurrence of that distress. To the
thousand complaints, then, which have been
poured, and are still pouring, in from the ma-
nufacturing districts of now-prevailing distress,
the Speech of her MAJESTY'S Ministers gives
a solemn and positive contradiction. The Mi-
nisters do not believe the representa-
tions of the people ; they believe that the
statements of present distress are all fudge ; and
their "deep concern" is for the distress which has
prevailed during the Whig Administration, and
which has disappeared since the Tories took office.
Sir ROBERT PEEL and his friends rely on those
proofs which he and we have adduced, that the
mortality was greater in the terrible years 1838
and 1839, than in 1841. In those years the
Whigs, in conjunction with the Tories, obsti-
nately refused to relieve us by repealing the
Corn-laws, or by altering them; and now they
are told from the Throne, by their quondam
allies in resisting our claims for relief, that dis-
tress existed in their Administration, and the
public knows they took no means to remedy it.
The " deep concern" which Sir ROBERT
PEEL feigns for the distress which pre-
vailed under the Whig Administration will
not cover his head with grey hair, nor plant
a furrow in his cheek. We happened to see
him, as he passed through the lobby of the
House of Commons yesterday, and a more
smiling, jocund-looking gentleman, for a man
deeply concerned for the distress of a nation, it
is impossible to behold. It is quite plain, from
his speeches in Parliament, as well as from his
gait and countenance, that he is in exuberant
spirits, while he speaks of his " deep concern."
In fact, he has become the wit of the House.
NERO fiddled while Rome was burning—Sir Et.
PEEL jokes while the people are starving. Nay,
he seems to joke because they are starving, and
he uses their distresses to imply a severe sarcasm
against the Whigs. He may glorify himself by
a comparison with them, but there is some-
thing in the world besides Whigs and
Tories, and mankind will not see in the
fsosi+g..._fsf___ an, -WA. „Pr ,A.fonfe—of out---i-rfenctS
expect a large and generous policy from
him—we do not. He is a great actor, but not a
great man. He can manage the House of Com-
mons—he does not comprehend the nation. He
is a mere political machine, which is wound up
and therefore goes, by the squires. As the ser-,
vant is not greater than the master, as a machine
is not superior to its maker, so cannot Sir RO-
BERT PEEL surpass the RICIIMONDS who have
made him, and his policy will be no other than
what they dictate.

Were not the miserable career of Captain
ELLIOT, in China, rapidly drawing to a close,
and were we not satisfied that his successor will
be careful to convince the Chinese that Great
Britain never could approve of the acts of this
wretched Plenipotentiary, we should despair of
the name of England ever again being respected
in the East. We have to-day given a series of
his bombastical proclamations to the Chinese,
which, though of prior date to those published
yesterday, are interesting, as showing the almost
unmanageable extent to which his stolidity
carried him, in all the measures undertaken by
him in China. The city of Canton capitulated
on the 37th of May, and on the same day
Captain ELLIOT delivered it up to the Chinese
for a ransom of six millions of dollars, as if the
only object of England in making war upon China
was to extort from her Government sums of
money ! In fact, so far was he from stipulating
for any conditions in favour of the British flag in
Canton before delivering up that city on the
727th of May, that on the 10th of June following
he finds himself called upon to issue a procla-
mation to British merchants and traders, warning
them of the danger of entering the Canton
river, mud inviting them to Hong Kong, where
he can alone promise them protection. At that
time it was known at Macao that the Chinese
authorities had violated all the conditions of the
capitulation; that Canton was filled with troops;
that the forts in the vicinity of the city were all
in the course of reconstruction; and that to
excite the most furious passions of the people the
head of an unfortunate EngliShman was stuck
upon a pole in one of the principal streets of
Canton, where the foulest indignities were offered
to it. In his last proclamation Captain ELLIOT
threatens Canton with a fresh blockade if any
attack be made upon the British at Hong Kong.
Are we to infer from this that ELLIOT fancied
he could squeeze another six millions of dollars
out of the Chinese ? Must we indeed bear the
reputation of being a nation of buccaneers, who
make war only to fill our
plun-
der of those whose wealth and
weaknesswith
ff co ers the
tempt
our cupidity ?

Captainqußitutcantonthat ELLIOT was so impatient to
he did not wait for the en-
tire performance of any part of the
stipulationsm. of
surrender: 'The three Imperial Commissioners
were to withdraw sixty miles from Cant':ni
ELLIOT was satisfied when two of them retired
t
outside the walls. The third never quitted Can-
ton at all. The troops were to remove an equal
distance, but Canton was delivered up before
they had marched five miles.from the city, to
which they returned a few hours after the
British evacuated it. The five millions of dol-
lars fall short of the Consoo duty on
tea, paid by British merchants since 1839,
over and above the usual duties paid by other
nations. These duties amounted on the Ist of
May, 1841, to 1,888,8881. sterling, so that, in
reality, Captain ELLIOT did not receive quite
one millon of dollars for the evacuation of Can-
ton ! Of the sum actually paid to the Superin-
tendent, it was the general impression at Macao
that a large quantity of the sycee was ,so mixed
with alloy as to be of little value, so that here
again the wretched Captain ELLIOT has been
the dupe of the Chinese.
For the Spanish schooner Bilbaino the Chi-
nese have paid. sixteen thousand dollars. But