The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-01 00:00:00

ii cflfl

LONDON:
TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1841.

NEWS FROM CHINA.

The Overland Mail from India arrived at Mar-
seilles on Sunday. By telegraphic despatches
communicated to the French Government, and
transmitted to London, we learn that hostilities
have recommenced between Great Britain and
China. The EMPEROR having refused to ratify
the treaty concluded between the Imperial Com-
missioner KESIIEN and Plenipotentiary ELLIOT,
and having ordered KESIIEN to be sent in ircng
to Pekin, to answer before the Supreme Tribu-
nals for the concessions made to the " outer
barbarians," the British troops took pos-
session of the Bogue forts on the 25th of Feb-
ruary, and immediately afterwards of the factory
at Canton. The EMPEROR, however, declared
himself resolved to grant no terms to the " bar-
barians," save on their most abject submission,
after having first evacuated all their conquests.
His Imperial Celestiality has found by this time
that all British Plenipotentiaries are not made
exactly on the ELLIOT model.
The same despatches announce that on the 22d
of April, Sir GORDON BREMER arrived at Cal-
cutta from the Canton River, to confer with the
Governor-General on the subject of our relations
with China. The nature of the confrence may
be inferred from the fact, that re-inforce-
ments from India were at once to proceed to

China to join the British force at Whampoa. We
may therefore anticipate something like an
honourable settlement of the China question at

no distant period. With the factory at Canton
in the possession of our soldiery, the city is en-
tirely at our mercy. In one hour our troops
could reduce it to a heap of, ashes. What is
most to be guarded against, is the prolongation
of the war. .The Chinese well deserve a good
drubbing, but if it be not quickly administered
the moral effect of it will be lost. Besides, it is
only by long fighting with us that they can learn

so much of the art of war as to become our most
formidable enemies. For all details we must
await the arrival of the Anglo-Indian Papers
and letters brought by the Overland Mail.

It is most cheering for the enemies of mono-
poly to find the Tories complain of agitation.
Lord STANLEY began the complaint, Sir R. PEEL
followed, Sir J. GRAHAM came next, and yester-
day the Times adopted the same cry. When the
Tories complain, the Ministers are doing what
they ought and their complaints should only
stimulate continued agitation in a larger

measure.
If the Tories respect and confide in the people
as they say they do, what is the meaning of
t'ieir complaint of agitation? The more the
people are agitated, the -more they are roused,
the better it must be for the Tories, if their cause
be a just one, and they be rooted, as they say, in
the affections of the people. The complaint,
however, implies distrust. It says, more clearly
than if the Tories spoke it aloud, " We are
afraid of the people,—we know that we are
their oppressors,—that we have deluded, cheated,
humbugged them ; for GOD'S sake do not expose
us, do not say that we have used the name of re-
ligion to gloze over political fraud, that we have
plundered and enslaved them under the pretext
of promoting social order; do not rouse their
fury against us by convincing them that religion,
and true social order, are opposed to Corn-laws,
monopolies, and all kinds of delusion and slavery."
That is the true meaning of the Tories when they
deprecate agitation on the subject of the Corn-
laws. They know that their cause is unjust, and
that they can only succeed by -keeping the peo-
ple quietly and passively ignorant.
They had no objection to agitation when they
thought, two or three years ago, that the •
Church of England was beloved by the
people, and that it was only necessary to
awaken them to its great merits to retrieve
fur it dominion over their hearts and minds.
To obtain ascendancy for the Church, agitation
by all hinds of means, by public meetings, by
large subscriptions, by great collections of noble-
men, by gatherings of silly women and sillier
TIM, by preaching and praying, was unsparingly
had recourse to. Then Standards, Times,
Heralds, and Posts, throughout the empire,
deemed agitation in the name of religion a most
holy thing, and their pens were employed daily
in promoting the success of the holy agitators of
Exeter Hall. They had Protestant meetings
and Protestant operative meetings ; they had dio-
cesan meetings; metropolitan meetings, and parish
meetings; neither Sir R. PEEL, Lord STANLEY,
nor Sir J. GRATTAN ever uttered a word against
clerical agitation. 'rho snlu was a signal
failure. The priests got, we believe, a little
money, and made a few dupes of the wealthy
and the titled, end there the agitation ended.
The Church sank deeper thau ever into the mire,
and its patronage of the murderous Oortleiaw will
not help it out.
At present, on agitation for afar more important
object than building of churches and enriching the
priesthood is begun—an agitation W fill the bel-
lies of the hungry people, and relieve them feurii
want; an agitation to set them free from the
oppression of a most sordid tyi.-4,nny- : and now all
those who were so forward in prointitina the
priest agitation, e,ry put against agitation, and
proclaim aloud that to rouse up the people to
consider what is due to them, is to unchain a
powerful enemy. "Take care," said Sir ROBERT
PEEL, "how you appeal 10 the people, for you will
invoke an ally who will be yuurniaster, not your
slave." There spoke the true Tory; there spoke,
the genuine aristocrat. He dreads the people;
he hates the people, because he knows the sys-
tem he supports.has debased and enslaved them.
He knows, too, that it will fall of itself to decay
the instant the people become acquainted with
its deformities.

The part we have taken on the Corn-laws
from the first, and the countenance our opi-
nions have obtained from the public, make it
proper fin• us, we think, to submit a few further
observations on the subject of a fixed duty, be-
fore that subject is discussed in Parliament. We
are bound, whatever may be the immediate results,
to maintain our principles and our consistency.
The proposed Bs. duty on the admission of tb-
reign corn may be considered under two charac-
ters—as a protection to the landed interest, and
as a tax levied solely for the purpose of obtaining
a revenue.

In the first character, that assigned to it by
Lord AlEtnotaisE, we repudiate it altogether as
totally unwarranted, and as having all the im-
moral attributes of the sliding scale. Under that
aspect we will not discuss it. In its own nature
it is iniquitous, an abominable species of class
legislation, the plunder of the industrious poor
by the idle rich, and just as worthy of condem-
nation as the present system. We are only sure
prised how any men proposing to deal with this
important question, and at all aware of its
character, can at this time take on themselves
the guilt which now belongs to the Legislature
of a former period. Why should the Whigs, by
proposing such a law, absolve and exonerate the
Tories? A fixed duty for protection is a hut.' in-
justice, and we are on principle as decidedly op,
it as to fluctuating duties.
of the opponents 9f Corn-

ROYAL SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.
SPLENDID AND EXTRAORDINARY NOVELTY!! !
Exhibition of the Great Fire Works of St. Angelo !
Promenade Musicale by the Band of Sixty Wind InDtruments!
Whit Tuesday and Thursday.
THE GRAND ROMAN FESTA, in imitation of the
rejoicings which take place ;n Rome at the celebration of
4111 glom) di S. Pietro. 'will be repeated THIS DAY, JUNE
Ist, when will be presented an exact fac-simile of the superb
GIIIANLZ9LA from the Castle of St. Angelo, the greatest
and rawit maeacent display of Fire Works in the World, com-
prising alznizo•
.its beautiful effects, the Cascade of Fire—
Fdtintains of ilazih, Stars—and the tremendous lErial Bou-
quet; Kith the ILLU..MINATION of St. PETER'S,. when
oznise .. -
the whole of this vast and c 'orlons edifice is brilliantly "hted ,
presenting together a coup .. _
. . with countless myriads of lam '''.; .hat° unattempted out of pOSCCI 1,..
d'ceil of in conceivable splendour ! . -.l,liJ.iment, conducted
Itely. The unrivalled Band of this Etta
_performers ,
by Nir. Godfrey,
isealt is said by somt> ....._
augmented by the addition ot .."anY, .
metrem laws that the Bs. duty is
of ltm in en ce, willin 1
the enlarged and newly. Promenade Musicale et 1,,,.. .
deeorated Orchestraa fair co-
il 2 ~...... ,
The Menagerie, ilieluchng the great male Orar Outan , •
tsveen the capitalist.and the-landlord. But What, i Coui"-. •
and.sev . eral other rarities, is earl)* 'g q ni, this business of compromise, becomes of the
Model Of Rome 1,1 *tett daily, with Denson s which tell only it.
Colossal Pictorial
Open at Ten. Admission One Shiili g labourer? Has industry not its rights? Ought cal. The only effect expectet......_
Concert at Six. Fire Works at Ninne.-. they not to be most sacred in the eye of the law ? and from all the slashing oratory which all tne ,

party can bring to bear, is to make out as good a
case as possible for the Tories for the coming
election. To use the misapplied language of the
Times of yesterday, the Tories have made
the Parliament a debating society, in which they
may talk to the country, and canvass the elec-
toral body by motions and speeches intended for
the hustings.
The fact is made palpable by Sir R. PEEL and
his friends obstinately refusing to explain the
policy they mean to follow.. Of their intention
in that respect they are ashamed. They have
no merit of their own to stand on ; they can only
pretend to be white by painting their opponents
as very black. The Ministers, on the contrary,
have a plan to propound to the country. They
have become converts to the necessity of altering.
the Corn-laws; they are bound to explain the
origin of this change in their views. Their
proposition to alter the law has not
yet been developed. It is stated, and
we believe accurately, that their proposition, as'
to the Corn-laws, is combined with a series of
alterations in the tariff. Where can they ex-
plain their views on these subjects but in the
House of Commons? The Ministers, then, are
bound to submit all their measures to the House
and explain them fully, and the country would be
ill prepared to decide betwixt them and their op-
ponents, were their case not laid completely be-
fore it. The Tories have no plan—nothing to
submit to the public, except a repetition of their
stale charges against the Ministers, and they
merit the reproach of converting Parliament into
a debating-shop.
We are not sorry that the Tories have em-
braced such a course. Never before did the
bulk of the people take such enlightened views
of our national policy as at present. They dis-
criminate nicely between the Whigs and the
Tories; and every debate only makes the cha-
racter of politicians better known. They begin
to comprehend, with great exactness, the work-
ing of the Constitution, and every such obstructive
and party fight as that begun by the Tories, makes

better known to them. Motions and speeches,

like those of Thursday and Friday, improve their
knowledge both of men and things. Every Par-
liamentary battle, though not so intended, gives
a blow to some false pretension, and puts an end
to the reign of some prejudice, or weakens the
authority of some political pretender. By expos-
ing themselves the Tories render the public a
more essential service than by picking holes in
the characters of their opponents. To abate the
reverence of the people for public men and beget
a wholesome distrust of their numerous measures,

Lave long been objects of all political writers.

They may not avow it, but every attack on a
statesman, and every condemnation of a law, have
such an effect, and that effect the Tories are in-
creasing by exposing themselves and attacking
their opponents. We clap our hands and encou-
rage the combatants.

Letters and Papers from Madrid of the 23d
ult., have reached us. A formidable opposition
to the new Cabinet was in course of being orga-
nized in the Cortes.

On the 22d a disgraceful squabble took place
at Bilbdo, between the military and the town's-
people; one officer was nearly killed.

The Paris papers of Sunday have been re-
ceived. The condemnation of DARMES to death,
for attempting to assassinate the King excited
no interest, as it was generally believed that the
sentence would be commuted to one of imprison-
ment for life. We regret that at the eleventh
hour grounds should exist for doubting this.
They are based upon the fact that M. PINEDE,
the. counsel for DARMES, after sentence of
death was pronounced on his client, implored an
audience of the King to beg his life; but was
refused admission to his Majesty's presence. If
the ghastly spectacle of the severed heads of
FIESCHI, MOREY, PEPIN, ALIBAUD, and HER-
BERT failed to deter DARMES ftom the crime of
Regicide, does the King suppose that the
decapitation of this miserable floor-scrub-
ber will prevent the hand of frantic enthu-
siasm from endeavouring to rid France of a
Prince whom one portion of his subjects denounce
as an usurper, and another as a tyrant? Not
that we are either hostile to the ORLEANS
dynasty, or indifferent to the preservation of
the life of an able, far-sighted, and, in all private
relations of life, most amiable monarch.